WA Charters – ��Ӱ��

This Time, Washington State Supreme Court Upholds Charter School Law

Kate Stringer — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 19:29:14 +0000

Washington State’s charter schools can remain open.

The Washington state Supreme Court Thursday that the state’s charter school act is, for the most part, constitutional, striking down only one aspect of the law pertaining to collective bargaining.

The decision settles a three-year battle over the existence of charter schools in the state, which the court declared unconstitutional in 2015 over the way they were funded and governed.

“We are aware of the deep-seated conflicting opinions regarding charter schools,” wrote Justice Mary Yu, adding that it was the court’s job to rule only on the constitutionality of the case. “We conclude that its only unconstitutional provision is severable, and thus we affirm the trial court in part and hold that the remainder of the Charter School Act is constitutional on its face.” Yu was joined in the lead opinion by three other justices.

Two members of the court signed an opinion that was both concurring and dissenting. They agreed that charter schools were constitutional but disagreed that the provision related to collective bargaining was unconstitutional. The Washington State Charter Schools Association said it is still unclear how this will play out with the state’s schools.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Barbara Madsen wrote that the charter school act “creates a parallel public school system that provides a general education, serves all students, and uses public funds, but lacks local voter control or oversight.”

The state’s 12 existing charter schools, serving 3,400 students, will remain open. State law caps the number of charter schools allowed at 40.

“It’s a historic victory,” said association CEO Patrick D’Amelio. “We view this as an absolutely definitive final step, so we are super pleased with that.”

The ruling is a loss for the plaintiffs, who had initially claimed a victory in the 2015 ruling. In 2016, the state legislature rewrote the state’s charter school law to fund schools through lottery revenues rather than the general fund. But this new law was immediately met by another legal challenge from the same plaintiffs — the League of Women Voters, the Washington Education Association, and El Centro de la Raza — who argued that the schools were still unconstitutional because they were not held accountable by a locally elected school board.

“Washington Education Association members are disappointed in the state Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Washington’s charter school law,” the state’s teachers union said in a statement. “We still believe it is wrong to divert public funds to privately run organizations that are not accountable to local voters.”

D’Amelio said the ongoing lawsuit has never hindered charter school student work but has helped inform many civic lessons over the years. This legal battle launched students and parents alike into advocacy roles during field trips to the legislature in Olympia and court proceedings in Seattle. Parent Shirline Wilson, whose son Miles is now an eighth-grader at Rainier Prep in Seattle, has become executive director of the state’s chapter of Democrats for Education Reform.

“I’m really excited and relieved and happy that the law was upheld and that the challenge was put down,” said Wilson, who was meeting with other charter school parents for coffee Thursday morning, discussing the news. “So it’s a great day for my family and my son.”

She said she sees this victory as one step in the struggle for school choice in the state. “I think charters are still a tough thing for progressive voters in Washington state,” she said.

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides financial support to the Washington State Charter Schools Association and ��Ӱ��.

Are Charter Schools Legal in Washington State? As Sector Continues to Grow, Court Will Take Up the Question — Again

Kate Stringer — Wed, 16 May 2018 21:29:19 +0000

It’s been nearly three long years since the Friday before Labor Day weekend in 2015, when eight new charter schools that had just concluded their first few days of class got some unsettling news: The Washington state Supreme Court had ruled charters unconstitutional.

To understate the case, a lot has happened since then. Six months after the ruling, the legislature passed a law to fix the funding problem that was the basis for the court’s ruling. But another lawsuit by the same plaintiffs followed, alleging the fix was insufficient. As the new case has made its slow progression through the courts — including a ruling for the charter sector and a subsequent appeal — the charter sector has continued to grow, with new schools and grade levels opening each year.

On Thursday, the court will hear oral arguments in the second lawsuit; the same nine justices in the 2015 ruling will decide whether the 2016 law sufficiently addressed the court’s prior objections.

Patrick D’Amelio, CEO of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, said he has “great confidence” that charters will receive an affirmative ruling. “The charter law was set up to close gaps,” D’Amelio told ��Ӱ��. “The kids we are serving are kids from low-income households, they come to our sector behind academically, and are showing great progress. When I think about what’s at stake, I think about how this is going to impact them.”

In the 2015 vote, the court found charter schools unconstitutional because they weren’t governed by a locally elected school board. Therefore, the court argued, charters didn’t fit the definition of a “common school” and couldn’t receive tax dollars meant for public schools.

To fix this, legislators passed a bill that changed how charters were funded, fueled by intense activism from charter school educators, parents, and students. Rather than receiving funds from the same pot of tax dollars designated for public schools, the new law said, charters would receive money from the Opportunity Pathways Account, fueled by state lottery revenue.

But the plaintiffs — including the League of Women Voters, the Washington Education Association, and El Centro de la Raza — argued that this funding switch still doesn’t address the central issue: that charters are not held accountable by locally elected school boards, yet continue to receive public dollars.

The plaintiffs also argued that because the state has been dealing with an ongoing legal battle to fully fund public education, as mandated by another Supreme Court ruling, this is not an appropriate time to divert state dollars away from traditional public schools.

“Sending public money to schools not run by publicly elected school boards is the issue,” Ann Murphy, president of the League of Women Voters of Washington, told ��Ӱ��.

Joshua Halsey, executive director of the Washington State Charter School Commission, argues that even though charters don’t operate under a locally elected school board, they have to answer to ongoing accountability measures around financing, academic performance, and special education services from the charter commission, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Washington State Auditor’s Office.

“When I hear that charters are not held accountable in Washington state, that is not accurate,” Halsey told ��Ӱ��. “These schools are held accountable to an extremely high degree.”

Even before the lawsuits, charters have faced an uphill battle in Washington, one of the last holdout states to allow them. Voters narrowly approved them in a 2012 ballot initiative after several failed attempts.

Currently, 10 charter schools operate in Washington state, serving 2,400 students, the majority of them from low-income households. Two more schools have been authorized to open in August. Notably, founding freshmen at some of the high schools will begin their senior year this fall.

More than 1,400 charter school students from kindergarten through 11th grade will be at the capitol Thursday to learn about the judicial process. They will watch a livestream video of the oral arguments and tour the building, the charter schools association said.

While plaintiffs and defendants are hard-pressed to speculate on how the judges will rule, recently raised concerns over what they said was bias from Justice Mary Yu toward one of the plaintiffs in the charter case because of a speech she gave at a teachers union rally. Republican state Sen. Michael Baumgartner called on Yu to recuse herself from the charter case.

“Yu’s decision to speak at a WEA event raises doubt that she can rule impartially in the charter school case,” Baumgartner . “When a justice appears before an organization that has an active case before the court, it really crosses the line. The only proper thing now is for Yu to recuse herself from the case.”

Judges are allowed to attend political events but can’t speak about pending cases. Yu told that she will not recuse herself and that her speech was not political, instead encouraging teachers to invite judges into the classroom.

The charter schools association saying recusal was not necessary. “Our association, schools, families, and students have the utmost respect for the Supreme Court and its ability to determine cases based on the merits. We do not believe any recusal is necessary or justified,” the association said.

It is unclear how long the court will take to make its ruling. Last time, the decision was pending before the judges ruled against charter schools.

Disclosure: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides financial support to ��Ӱ�� and the Washington State Charter Schools Association.

Rescuing Washington’s Charter Schools

��Ӱ�� — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 17:40:33 +0000

A special report on how charter school advocates and families fought back after the Washington state Supreme Court deemed charters unconstitutional in 2015.

DeVos Visits Washington State, Where the Charter School Sector Has Expanded Even as Lawsuit Threatens to Shut It Down

Kate Stringer — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 21:07:07 +0000

One of the biggest proponents of school choice, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, will be visiting Washington state Friday, walking into a landscape where charter schools remain at the center of a contentious lawsuit. Although DeVos’s presence certainly isn’t welcome by opponents of the state’s charter schools, her appearance has caused consternation even among the state’s school choice advocates.

The state’s charter schools have been growing over the past year, despite the 2016 lawsuit challenging their constitutionality. With new schools and expanded grades in Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane, the sector now enrolls more than 2,500 students in 10 schools, and hundreds more are on waiting lists. Students in these schools have seen significant growth on state exams, with some outperforming their district and state peers. This spring, the state’s charter law was ranked in the country for flexibility, accountability, and equity by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

DeVos will be speaking at an annual dinner hosted by the Washington Policy Center, a free-market think tank, at a hotel in Bellevue. Expected attendance for the event is 1,500, with a minimum ticket price of $350, .

Among protesters expected outside the event — nearly 1,000 have said on that they will attend — are several labor groups that are plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“We oppose the DeVos-Trump campaign to divert public funding to unaccountable, privately run charter and voucher schools,” Rich Wood, spokesperson for the Washington Education Association, wrote in an email to ��Ӱ��.

The Washington Policy Center’s president that DeVos’s role as a cabinet member was reason enough to invite her. But while DeVos supports charter schools, she’s also part of an administration that threatens many communities that charter schools serve. Shirline Wilson, a charter school parent, intervenor in the lawsuit against charters, and the state’s director of Democrats for Education Reform, said that conversations with her progressive friends around DeVos and charters reveal sharp political divides.

“I’m 100 percent opposed to the negative things coming out of the administration, particularly under the leadership of the secretary: The problems with DACA and dealing with immigrant students. The problems with not really understanding and advocating for civil rights protections for students,” Wilson said. “Because of the administration’s pro-charter-for-charter’s-sake agenda, that I think makes it harder for those of us who say, ‘Yes, we believe in high-quality nonprofit charters, and we also believe not all charters are the same.’ So let’s really unpack that and make sure that we are doing the right things for students.”

Amid the controversy surrounding DeVos’s visit, Patrick D’Amelio, CEO of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, reiterated that the organization does not support school vouchers, which DeVos has advocated for throughout her career.

“We want support for charters from anybody and any sector that will support charters, but frankly not at the expense or cost of one student’s civil rights. Not at the expense of full funding for the full public education system,” D’Amelio said.

In its first budget, the Trump administration proposed eliminating $9 billion from the Department of Education while setting aside $1 billion for school choice programs, a controversial call that even some advocates for choice did not support.

The state charter lawsuit, El Centro v. Washington, was filed after the legislature passed a new charter law in 2016 to address funding concerns brought up in 2015 by the state Supreme Court. Plaintiffs including unions and civil rights organizations argued that the law took funds away from traditional public schools, and that charters don’t fit the state’s definition of a common school because they are run by nonprofit boards rather than locally elected ones.

A county Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the charters in February, but the plaintiffs appealed in July, requesting that the state Supreme Court hear the case directly. Now, both sides are waiting for a response from the justices.

“We agree with the Superior Court that this law is constitutional in all respects,” said Rob McKenna, an attorney for the defendants. “The one defect identified in the last case was the funding mechanism, and that’s been changed.”

The plaintiffs’ lawyers could not be reached for comment, but part of their argument also hinges on the definition of a common school, which they say charter schools do not fit. Defendants have said this argument threatens the constitutionality of alternative schools like tribal compact schools or programs that let high school students take college classes. But in their brief, the plaintiffs argued that because these other alternative schools are specialized, they are different from charters and shouldn’t be threatened.

Wilson said the lawsuit is a concern for her and her seventh-grade son, Miles, but the growth she’s seen in him at Rainier Prep charter school in Seattle has been worth the fight.

“I walk into that school every day and my son is in there every day and he’s learning and growing and achieving and he’s confident and he talks about going to college. I just look to the positive,” she said.

‘A Huge Win’: Washington State Charter School Supporters Celebrate Major Courtroom Victory

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Washington state charter school supporters were ecstatic Friday afternoon after a county Superior Court judge ruled in their favor in the most recent challenge to the schools’ constitutionality.

“This is a huge win for Washington kids and families, and also the voters of Washington,” said Maggie Meyers, spokeswoman for the Washington Charter Schools Association. “We’ve already communicated with all the school leaders and intervenors’ families. They’ve been in tears on the phone; they’ve put so much heart into this fight.”

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Defendants pointed to three of the main arguments in Superior Court Judge John Chun’s — issues that advocates and opponents have repeatedly battled over:

First, the ruling made clear that the case did not decide the “merits or demerits” of charter schools (to be fair, the plaintiffs did not raise this point), but rather their constitutionality. The judge also said the case is not related to Washington state’s ongoing battle to fully fund public schools through a separate lawsuit known as McCleary, which caused the the state Supreme Court to start fining the legislature $100,000 a day until it came up with a fix.

Second, Chun ruled that just because charter schools don’t fit the state constitution’s definition of a common school, that does not make them unconstitutional. Instead, the ruling pointed out other schooling systems in Washington — like Running Start, tribal compact schools, and Youth Offender Programs — that follow different educational models but are considered constitutional.

Third, Chun wrote that the Charter School Act does not divert funds meant for traditional public schools. Charter schools were initially ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court in 2015 on the grounds that they shifted funds from district schools. To fix this, the state legislature passed a law in 2016 that funded charters through the state’s Opportunity Pathways Account, which receives money from state lottery revenue.

However, in a phone call after the ruling, plaintiff’s attorney Paul Lawrence said there are still “significant questions on how funding will occur as the charter school program grows.” Currently, Washington has eight charter schools, educating 1,600 students, but state law allows up to 40. A combination of expanding charter schools and less-than-robust lottery income could force the state to scramble to support its charters — something it doesn’t have a plan for, Lawrence said.

Chun’s ruling agreed that this point could be raised again if the funding mechanism has to change: “If, in the future, the state attempts to use funds allocated for common schools in violation of article IX, section 2, then the issue will be ripe for consideration,” the decision said. “On the face of the [Charter School Act], however, such use is not inevitable.”

“I’m certainly disappointed in the results,” Lawrence said, adding that the plaintiffs have not yet decided whether to appeal. However, both sides that there would probably be an appeal whichever way the judge ruled. The state Supreme Court could get the case anytime between spring and autumn.

Many of the plaintiffs who took the charter school case before the state Supreme Court in 2015 — El Centro de la Raza, the League of Women Voters, and the Washington Education Association, the state’s biggest union — are behind the latest lawsuit. They argue that because charter schools are not accountable to locally elected school boards, they should not receive public funds.

Washington state didn’t adopt charter schools until 2012, when voters narrowly passed a ballot initiative to allow them after several failed attempts. Repeated legal challenges and legislative fixes have followed, spurred on by advocacy from both sides.

A dozen charter school parents and students served as intervenors for the defense in the case decided Friday, including Shirline Wilson. She’s been fighting for her son Miles, who is now in sixth grade, to stay in his Seattle charter school, which she says better serves his needs than the local district school.

Charter school parents have been shielding their children from the lawsuit this year in hopes they can focus on their academics, Wilson said. Last year, her son was often worried about whether his school would survive the judicial and legislative challenges.

“We feel strongly about what potential our schools could be if given the chance,” Wilson said.

Video: ‘Rescuing Washington’s Charter Schools’ Tells Story of Parents’ Determination

��Ӱ�� — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

��Ӱ�� reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

Washington state

Pain, passion and persistence run through the stories of charter school parents in this Northwest state who find themselves entering the second year of a constitutional battle over school choice.

Their campaign to keep the state’s nine fledgling charter schools open after they were approved by voters in 2012, ruled illegal by the state’s Supreme Court in 2015, saved by state lawmakers in 2016 and now jeopardized again by a second lawsuit is the subject of “Rescuing Washington’s Charter Schools: A 74 Special Report.”

The nearly 12-minute video chronicles the schools’ tumultuous existence while returning to the notion that families will not be turned back once they have experienced a school that works for them.

“And now is the time,” says parent Shirline Wilson. “We are not willing to wait anymore for these solutions to be put into place. Our kids’ education and lives are at stake.”

Read reporter Kate Stringer’s related story on the legal battle that is looming for Washington’s charter schools in 2017.

The Gen Next Foundation supported ��Ӱ��’s coverage of Washington state charters and the production of the video.

Washington State Charter School Supporters, Opponents Look Ahead to a Critical Year

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

��Ӱ�� reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

The latest fight over the constitutionality of charter schools in Washington state may not be resolved until 2018, meaning the parents, advocates and educators fighting to save the schools and the teachers union and other groups suing to close them could face a long year of legal wrangling.

There have already been some skirmishes — rulings on motions about whether the fate of charter schools should be tied to a perennial debate about Washington’s poorly funded public schools and who has standing to be part of the litigation — but the real first round will take place January 27, when the two familiar sides face each other in a courtroom once again.

On that date, a county Superior Court judge will hold a hearing to decide whether there are enough questions of fact about the legality of Washington’s charter schools that a trial is needed to resolve them.

Attorneys for both sides said the case will ultimately be appealed to the state Supreme Court, the same body that ruled Washington’s nine charter schools to be unconstitutional shortly after the schools opened their doors for the first time in Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane in 2015.

“What we are after is the public oversight of the money being used for educational purposes,” said Ann Murphy, president of the League of Women Voters of Washington, one of the groups that successfully challenged the schools the first time and is making many of the same arguments again about how charters are run.

Parent Shirline Wilson, whose son Miles attends Rainier Prep in Seattle, calls the latest litigation “nothing more than a threat and a political ploy” obscuring the real issue: her right to choose the best school for her son.

“Shouldn’t I as a private citizen be able to say, ‘Enough, I’m done. I need to find something more and something better, and my child is worth it’?” she said.

(VIDEO: Watch “Rescuing Washington’s Charter Schools: A 74 Special Report,” on the parent campaign to preserve their children’s schools)

After the January court hearing, the judge will have 30 days to make a ruling. Attorneys say they expect an appeal to land before the Supreme Court sometime between spring and autumn of 2017. Last time, the state’s high court waited more than a year after receiving the charter school case before coming to a decision. Because of the case’s history, both sides speculate the response time will be different, with a ruling arriving in late 2017 or early 2018.

Each wants the decision to come soon, especially for the students unsure of their educational futures.

“It’s important for kids in charter schools to understand what the situation is,” said Paul Lawrence, the plaintiffs’ attorney. “I think the Supreme Court is sensitive to that.”

Charter school parent Jessica Garcia said she is worried that if the Supreme Court rules against charter schools a second time, it will be their end in Washington state.

“Even [charter school funders] with the best intentions, I don’t know if they’d be willing to stay,” Garcia said. “Here we are after two and a half years fighting for this. How much longer do we want to invest money into something that keeps getting shot down?”

The court ruled in 2015 that Washington’s charter schools did not meet the state constitution’s definition of common schools because they were not overseen by a locally elected school board and so could not be funded from the same revenue source as traditional public schools.

That set off months of emotional appearances and hearings at the state capitol by charter school parents, students and educators, lobbying Washington lawmakers for a legislative fix. Legislators did that in March when they narrowly passed a bill funding charter schools with lottery revenue.

(��Ӱ��: In Washington State, Both Senate and House Approve Last-Minute Bill to Save Charter Schools)

That prompted the League of Women Voters, the Washington Education Association (the state’s biggest union) and El Centro de la Raza, among others, to file the second lawsuit. In late November, a King County Superior Court judge granted a few wins for charter supporters by dismissing two of their arguments.

“It’s obviously really good news that the judge knocked out [two arguments],” said Rob McKenna, an attorney for the defendants. “That means we already have one judge agreeing with us.”

One of the arguments thrown out faulted the way charter schools were spared from closure in 2015 by temporarily becoming what’s known in Washington as Alternative Learning Experience schools. The other, more critical argument said charter schools interfere with fully funding all public education.

Charter school opponents used this same line of thinking during the 2016 legislative session. At that time, the state Supreme Court was fining the legislature $100,000 a day for failing to adequately fund education — and still is. Some lawmakers argued that the state should be addressing the funding crisis for Washington’s 1 million traditional public school students rather than its 1,000 charter school students.

(��Ӱ��: Washington State’s Schools Chief Is So Fed Up About Underfunded Schools He Might Run for Governor)

The judge disagreed with linking the two, saying the plaintiffs’ argument that funding charter schools would harm the ample funding of district schools was speculation. The plaintiffs have filed a motion asking that the judge reconsider and allow the larger funding question back into the case.

When it comes to money for schools, charter parents say they are just as invested in pushing the state to fully fund public education. In 2017, some charter school parents plan to meet with legislators, who are working on fully funding education, in order to make sure charter schools have a consistent voice at the table, said Jessica Garcia.

“We need to stop fighting over bread crumbs,” Garcia said. “There are a hundred other common school programs that are fully funded, and charter schools would be one more piece of the puzzle.”

In the November ruling, the judge also partially granted the defendant’s request to dismiss some plaintiffs, including the League of Women Voters and El Centro de la Raza. However, the judge allowed the lawyer to reargue their standing.

“We’ve fixed the issue, they’re back in the case, and on we go,” said Lawrence, the plaintiffs’ attorney.

Regardless of some point dismissals, the plaintiffs say their core argument is still moving forward.

“The main constitutional argument that charter schools are not common schools under our state constitution still stands,” the 85,000-member Washington Education Association .

That question goes back to how charter schools are governed. Charter schools report to a state charter school commission rather than a locally elected school board. Charter supporters maintain that this freedom from bureaucracy allows for more innovation and flexibility and actually comes with greater accountability.

(��Ӱ��: Robin Lake: Shameful Claim to Fame — Will Washington Become First State to Shutter Successful Schools?)

Washington’s charter school law just received a from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. The organization for charter laws that prioritize accountability, replicate high-performing schools and require annual performance reports. Of the 44 states with charter laws, only three received a perfect score.

The Gen Next Foundation supported ��Ӱ��’s coverage of Washington state charters and the production of the video.

��Ӱ�� Documentary: Rescuing Washington’s Charter Schools

‘We Deserve to Have a Choice’: Families Intervene in New Washington Lawsuit Over Charter Schools

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

��Ӱ�� reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

Charter schools are once again facing a legal challenge in Washington State, but this time, the families with children attending them will be part of the defense strategy.

Twelve families, the Washington State Charter Schools Association and other charter supporters filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit filed by 15 plaintiffs against Washington State’s charter law.

Their motion was granted Aug. 31 by King County Superior Court Justice John Chun, despite a move by the plaintiffs, led by the Washington state teachers union, to block the families. Charter supporters had earlier filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs, arguing they don’t have a legal stake in the case.

Charter school families say they are pleased to join the fray but are frustrated by yet another lawsuit brought against their schools.

“Just like everybody else, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, not again,’” said parent Roquesia Williams, who has four children in three Tacoma charter schools. “You know, I just wish they would leave well enough alone. We deserve to have a choice of where we send our kids to school.”

(��Ӱ�� Newsletter: Sign up for breaking news and daily analysis)

The state, represented by Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office, also filed a motion to dismiss two arguments being used to derail the charter law.

The was filed last month in response to a charter law passed by the legislature in March. The law was an effort to make charter schools constitutional, after the Supreme Court last year ruled the schools could no longer receive public funding because they were not overseen by an elected school board and so didn’t fit the state’s definition of a common school.

Charter schools have a contentious history in Washington State. The voters denied several attempts at passing charter legislation before approving it in 2012. After the law passed, groups including the League of Women Voters, the Washington Education Association and El Centro de La Raza appealed. The Supreme Court in 2015, roughly a week after charter schools opened their doors for the first time.

More plaintiffs have joined the case this year: the Aerospace Machinist Union, the Washington State Labor Council and the International Union of Operating Engineers. These groups argue they have an interest in the case because their industries depend on quality education in Washington and because charters undermine collective bargaining.

The Washington Education Association, the state teachers union, is an opponent of charter schools, which are publicly funded but operate free of many of the regulations governing traditional public schools. They are typically not unionized.

This diverse pool of challengers against the charter law speaks to a broad interest among the state’s voters in properly funding education for the 1.1 million children in the state, said WEA spokesman Rich Wood.

The charter conflict comes at a time when Washington is being fined $100,000 a day by the state Supreme Court for failing to fully fund public education.

“The problems with this new law are the same problems that have been raised all along for years now,” Wood said.

The new lawsuit argues that charter schools — which will enroll more than 1,500 students this year, most of them low-income minority students — divert public funds to schools that are not held accountable by locally elected school boards.

During the 2016 legislative session, parents, students and charter supporters petitioned the legislature to pass a law that could address the concerns of the court. The legislature came up with a solution that changed the way charter schools are funded. Rather than receiving money from the general fund — as traditional public schools do — they now get funding through state lottery revenues.

The state has filed to remove the argument linking charters to the state’s underfunding of basic education.

“The one defect that the state Supreme Court found was fixed in the reenacted legislation, and now we’re back in court again,” said Rob McKenna, Washington’s former attorney general who now works for the law firm Orrick, which is representing the families. “It’s just incredibly frustrating and wasteful.”

The Washington State Charter Schools Association will pay for the families’ legal fees.

The new lawsuit argues the funding change is not a genuine fix. “Diverting private dollars from the state budget for private charter schools makes the situation even worse,” Wood said.

Charter schools report to a state commission that is appointed by the governor and leaders of the House and Senate instead of a district school board.

"I think it’s a wonderful thing to consider,” Washington State Charter Schools Association CEO Tom Franta said when asked why the schools didn’t quiet that argument by answering to local officials, “but it’s not a reality here in Washington, where districts would rather hold onto that control themselves.”

Franta pointed, though, to Spokane as a “forward-thinking” district that serves as a charter authorizer for its area schools. Many see the relationship between Spokane charters and the district as amicable.

Charter supporters often argue that this freedom from local school boards allows for greater innovation in the classrooms. Through public testimony and interviews, many students have shared how their charter schools made noticeable differences in their education. Smaller class sizes, personalized learning technology and mentoring have inspired them to strive for college and show up for class, goals some said they didn’t have in their former public and private schools.

Seattle Summit Sierra 10th-grader Jalen Johnson said he chose his charter school for the diversity of its students and teachers as well as the charter network’s California track record for college acceptance rates: . And he said he’s stuck around through lawsuits and court challenges because of the individualized learning and teacher support.

"I think the idea of having something that’s been so great and has worked out for so many families and parents [be challenged] is frustrating to say the least,” Johnson said. “But I think knowing that we will overcome this just like we did the last time is the shining light at the end of the tunnel.”

Saved: How WA Parents, Students, Advocates and Educators Rescued Their Charter Schools

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Seattle, Washington) — As the Friday before spring break approached, students, parents, and educators in charter schools weren’t sure how to feel.

That’s because seven months ago, on another Friday before a holiday weekend, the Washington state Supreme Court dealt them a serious blow, ruling that the state’s brand new charter schools were unconstitutional.

Channeling the same anxiety, fear, and uncertainty conjured by the Labor Day weekend decision, supporters waited to see whether Gov. Jay Inslee would sign or veto the charter school bill for which they been campaigning for months.

On Friday, Inslee did neither. Instead, in a letter to Secretary of State Kim Wyman, the Democratic governor who is seeking a second term announced that he would allow the charter school bill to pass, but would not sign it.

“Despite my deep reservations about the weakness of the taxpayer accountability provisions, I will not close schools,” Inslee said in his statement to Wyman.

It was a political out not used in Washington since 1981. It allows the governor to walk a fine line between his two-time endorsement from the state’s teachers union, which opposes charters and brought the lawsuit that nearly killed them, and charter supporters who’ve pulled every advocacy lever they could to get Inslee to save their schools.

When it comes to policy, the end result is the same as if the governor had signed it. Washington’s eight charter schools will remain open next year.

“I was speechless,” Summit Olympus charter school ninth-grader Tatiana Cueva recalled, after opening her email Friday to read the news. “I’ve been doing all this hard work and now it’s finally paid off.”

Students have been working relentlessly in a political and public relations campaign for their schools, at a level state lawmakers say they haven’t seen during their Olympia tenure. Many agree this grassroots activism from students and parents was the key to the charter bill’s success.

The legislation passed 58-39 in the House and 23-20 in the Senate. Twelve Democrats voted for the bill, earning critical across-the-aisle support for an issue some paint as conservative.

“The major determinate from a lot of supporters is the notion that nobody wanted to be responsible for seeing 1,000 kids lose their schools,” said Rep. Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, who led the effort to bring the charter legislation to the House floor. “Democrats included are committed to innovation in the school system to make sure everyone has the opportunity to learn in ways that suit them best.”

Charter schools invited legislators to visit their campuses, an offer which many took up as they debated charter bills. These visits influenced the votes of some legislators like Springer and Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah. In public testimony, Mullet considered himself a silent supporter of charter schools until he visited Summit Sierra. He walked into the school gymnasium and heard students chanting “Save our schools!” Normally accustomed to student apathy for learning, Mullet said this kind of passion moved him to support the legislation.

Visits didn’t change everyone’s mind, said Adel Sefrioui, founder and executive director of Excel Public Charter School. However, Sefrioui said he praises legislators for letting their visit inform their vote.

“It takes time to change hearts and minds,” Sefrioui said. “Maybe one day they’ll realize that charter schools are a good thing for the communities.”

Charter schools in Washington serve a diverse and vulnerable population: two-thirds are low-income students and 70 percent are students of color, according to the Washington State Charter Schools Association. Those students score between 15 to 20 percent lower on state tests than their white peers.

Students showed up to every public hearing during the legislative process to testify. They shared personal stories of how their charter schools gave them an educational lifeline and their first real inkling of going to college. They recounted their appreciation for smaller classroom sizes, attention from teachers and mentors, and unique classes like orchestra or computer science. During floor debates, legislators said this testimony from students was vote-changing.

“This (level of advocacy) is unusual,” said Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, who sponsored the charter bill in the Senate. “It was an extraordinary effort over a long time. We have bills where people come down for one day. But parents, teachers, and advocates were coming down repeatedly to make sure the bill came through.”

Summit Sierra ninth-grader Jalen Johnson said representatives approached him after their vote to say in-person meetings with him and his fellow students changed their opinion on charter schools. Johnson said he made the hour-long drive to Olympia with other students six or seven times to talk to lawmakers and attend rallies.

“I definitely think bipartisanship is only possible when you have a common goal and the common goal is the kids,” Johnson said. “Charter schools aren’t this big corporation out to make money on the backs of students like anti-charter school people will tell you. They’re here for the kids.”

The Washington State Charter Association, which according to the Seattle Times had on its campaign by early February, and Act Now for Washington Students aired TV ads (including during all-important Seattle Seahawks games), led letter-writing efforts and phone-a-thons to legislators, and transported charter supporters across the state for rallies and public testimony. The charter association also released data in mid-February showing the state’s charter students excelling academically, some even surpassing national peers.

“We pulled lessons from other states but never did we think we’d be able to share best practices,” said the association’s spokeswoman Maggie Meyers. “The silver lining of this grueling experience has been this rallying of families across the state, of creating leaders amongst parents who have emerged as tremendous community organizers, and that students learned their role in the civics process.”

Most states allow charter schools, but Washington has a tumultuous history with them. Charters became legal via a 2012 voter referendum but only after several previously failed attempts. Washington is the only state to have legalized charter schools through the ballot box and the only state to have the entire legislation annulled by its Supreme Court, said Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president of state advocacy at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

The Supreme Court ruled charter schools unconstitutional, arguing they don’t fit a 1909 definition of a common school. Charter schools receive taxpayer dollars, the court said, without being held accountable to a locally elected school board. Instead, charters are held accountable to the state charter commission appointed by the governor, the Speaker of the House, and the President of the Senate.

Several bills appeared during the state’s 60-day legislative session to fix this issue. Some recommended that local school districts authorize and hold charters accountable. While the method works in some states, and currently works well for the schools in Spokane, opponents of the legislation argued that charter schools would be nonexistent in districts hostile to the concept.

The legislation that ultimately became law shifted the funding to the State Opportunity Pathways Account, which draws from lottery revenue rather than taxes. The bill also eradicates charter schools’ access to local levy dollars and makes it impossible for a public school to transition to a charter school.

The new law also changes the makeup of the state charter commission to include the state Board of Education chair and the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, both elected officials.

But legislators who voted against the bill questioned whether the revenue switch would hold up against legal challenges. Even charter supporters say they expect to see the issue back in court.

“We’ve been told (the bill) will be challenged,” Mullet said. “People who are philosophically opposed to charter schools would have challenged it even if every lawyer in the state was for charter schools.”

Advocates say they think the bill has the legal legs to withstand another court battle. Charter supporters, meanwhile, say they will move ahead with creating schools statewide (the 2012 voter referendum envisioned 40 schools opening over five years) and expanding existing ones.

But students warn of the frustration that comes from continuing legal battles over their education.

“It’s a little disheartening when you go to school and hear conversations about where you’re going to go to school next year if we’re not at Summit Sierra, or what the neighborhood schools are like,” Johnson said. “It really hurts your morale and self confidence.”

Watching the charter school fight was also difficult for teachers, many of whom had families and mortgages and weren’t sure whether their school would be around to employ them next fall. But witnessing the care given to special education students at Summit Sierra inspired education specialist Phil McGilton to remain there.

“If you believe deeply in something, you want to see it through,” he said.

The legislative showdown has brought attention to charter schools that might affect public perception of them, said Liv Finne, the Washington Policy Center’s education director.

“I actually think they’re going to have to think twice, the teachers union, before filing another lawsuit,” Finne said. “I think it’s arguable that this attack has made (charter schools) more powerful and more popular than ever.”

The Washington Education Association did not return a request for comment, but a spokesman for the union that their opposition to the legislation remains unchanged. The union believes state lawmakers should be focused on complying with a court-ordered mandate to equitably fund the public schools, that charters are not sufficiently accountable to taxpayers and they drain resources from traditional public schools.

Parent Shirline Wilson said one reason the advocacy worked was because it rejected that argument that charters and traditionals were locked in a rivalry.

“The thing most effective in this campaign was really not making it about us versus them,” she said. “It’s working constructively toward charter schools being a compliment, not a proposed silver bullet.”

The fight has also invigorated parents, who found themselves in positions of leadership as they made daily trips to Olympia.

Parent Jessica Garcia, who has been in Olympia every day of this legislative session, said she really saw the impact parent work was having mid-way through February. She said legislators started to recognize and approach her, asking her opinion on wording in the legislation.

“It made me feel like democracy actually might work,” Garcia said. “I just wanted to be able to look at my daughter and tell her I tried.”

In Washington State, Both Senate and House Approve Last-Minute Bill to Save Charter Schools

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Seattle, Washington) – The fight to save Washington state charter schools overcame a significant hurdle Wednesday night as the House passed a pro-charter bill with just one day remaining in the legislative session.

The bill garnered bipartisan support, passing 58-39 with one excused legislator. The Senate, which approved a companion bill 27-20 in January, must sign off on changes made by the House before it’s sent to Gov. Jay Inslee. (UPDATE: After debating whether the charter bill passed by the House could withstand a court challenge, the Senate voted 26-23 in concurrence Thursday afternoon. The bill now heads to the governor's desk for approval)

“Obviously we’re so pleased and it’s very clear now that students are on a path to win,” said Maggie Meyers, spokeswoman for the Washington State Charter Schools Association.

Supporters expect Inslee to sign the bill, but Meyers said the pro-charter group plans to direct its gaze toward the governor’s office while they wait for the final act in a costly, emotional and months-long fight to keep the state’s eight charter schools open.

Inslee, a Democrat currently seeking re-election, has close ties to the state teachers union, which successfully sued to disband charters and then lobbied hard to keep them that way.

Rep. Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, led efforts to bring the charter legislation to the floor after it stalled two weeks ago in the House Education Committee. House members proposed 27 amendments to the bill Wednesday, adopting eight. Some changes were technicalities in language, but Meyers called two compromises: Eliminating charters’ access to local levy dollars and eradicating a public school’s capability to transition into a charter school.

The bill was a response to a September state Supreme Court ruling that declared charter schools unconstitutional because they received taxpayer dollars without being run by locally elected school boards. Instead, charter schools report to a state charter commission, which is appointed by the governor, the Speaker of the House, and the President of the Senate.

Voters approved charter schools in a 2012 referendum that established the commission and envisioned 40 schools opening over five years. Groups like the Washington Education Association and the League of Women Voters quickly filed a legal challenge. During public testimony throughout this legislative session, union leaders and others argued that charter schools were not accountable to taxpayers and took take money away from public schools. (��Ӱ��: Fact-Check: Are Washington’s Charters Harming the State’s Traditional Public Schools?)

The charter bill, introduced in part by Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, addresses the Supreme Court’s funding objections by financing the schools through the state’s Opportunity Pathways Account, which uses lottery revenue instead of taxes.

Some representatives expressed skepticism that the Supreme Court would find that switch acceptable and argued that an unfavorable court ruling could be even more devastating to the 1,100 families now enrolled in charters and those still to come. (��Ӱ��: Why Washington’s ‘Common School’ Ruling Runs Counter to the Common Good of Students)

“There is for certain going to be a challenge to this bill,” Rep. Patty Kuderer, D-Clyde Hill. “In fact, I expect a lawsuit will be filed before the ink is even dry.”

Other legislators said they didn’t think they should be focusing on the smaller charter universe when all of the state’s 1 million public school students aren’t receiving adequate education funding. The Supreme Court is currently fining the legislature $100,000 per day until the funding gap is addressed. The governor recently signed a bill creating a work group to figure out from where the additional money would come.

But some representatives argued that charter schools should not be pitted against public schools, saying they are an alternative rather than a fix for the the public school system.

Rep. Christopher Hurst, D-Enumclaw, said he originally campaigned against charter schools, but had a change of heart after realizing his own struggle with traditional public schools would have made him a great fit for charterd.

“This is not a diminishment of my commitment to public education. My vote today — I’m going to vote yes — it’s the opposite,” he said. “No matter how hard we strive to make this perfect, it will never be perfect for everyone and there has to be something for the people it’s not perfect for.”

Students expressed similar opinions to Hurst during public testimony in Senate and House hearings this winter. They said their charter schools inspired them to consider college for the first time, their teachers cared about their progress, and the smaller class sizes better fit their learning needs.

Data released by the Washington State Charter Schools Association showed students have made significant gains since the start of the year, some outpacing national peers.

Two-thirds of Washington’s charter students are low income and 70 percent are students of color, the charter association reports. Black, Hispanic and Native American students in Washington score 15-20 points lower on state tests than their white peers.

Rep. Eric Pettigrew, D-Seattle, said a good education is very personal to him, because his great-great-grandfather instilled that value in his family after being freed from slavery following the Civil War.

“It is that work ethic, it is that piece, that has been a part of me my entire life,” Pettigrew said. “When I see those kids in my district that are failing out of school and don’t have a chance to live that dream, it breaks my heart. I believe, like everyone in this room, that education is the foundation of who we are. No matter where you start, from slavery, beaten, and not even considered a human being, to earning your way to being a state representative — that is a miracle.”

As the two-hour debate wrapped up, representatives on both sides of the issue urged charter activists to direct their enthusiasm next session to fully funding public education. Led by the Act Now for Washington Students coalition, supporters traveled to Olympia daily, created a PAC to support pro-charter legislators and aired commercials during Seattle Seahawks games in the fall and again during the tense build-up to Wednesday’s vote.

The victory in the House is a huge landmark for them and for school choice, said parent Shirline Wilson.

“I am absolutely overjoyed. What a great day in the history of Washington state education,” Wilson said. “All the the parents are breathing a collective sigh of relief.”

Her Last Battle: Advocate for Black Students Back in the Fray to Save WA Charters

Beth Hawkins — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

Updated March 9

(Tacoma, Washington) — When Thelma Jackson agreed to serve on the board of SOAR Academy in Tacoma, Washington, it was supposed to be a short-term commitment. One of the first eight public charter schools to open in Washington state last fall, the tiny program just needed someone with experience to help get things going.

Jackson fit the bill. In addition to serving on the elected board in a nearby district for 20 years, she has consulted on nearly every effort to address the state’s racial inequities since the 1970s. Over the last two decades Jackson worked on four separate campaigns to open charter schools in Washington.

But just days into SOAR’s first school year, the state Supreme Court declared the mechanism for funding the new schools unconstitutional. The reluctant board chair rolled up her sleeves and started campaigning for the survival of the school, which will eventually serve grades K-8.

Roughly 15 percent of SOAR’s inaugural classes of kindergarteners and first-graders are white, 22 percent are Hispanic, 23 percent are African American and 40 percent identify as two or more races. And while intergration is a goal, Jackson is excited about the school’s potential to prove that high quality instructional models can close even the worst learning gaps.

“I’m unapologetically for black kids,” she says. “They are the canary in the coal mine. They are your indicator. If you can fix the system for black kids, you can fix it for all kids.”

***

A recent Monday afternoon found Jackson seated at a conference table in the office of SOAR’s founder and leader, Kristina Bellamy-McClain, who was out on maternity leave. In front of her was a fat envelope containing paperwork making the school an alternative learning center under the auspices of the distant Mary Walker school district, a shrinking system that welcomes the enrollment. It’s a short-term fix that will allow the charters to keep their funding for the current school year while supporters seek a permanent solution.

Outside the sun was trying to make a rare mid-winter appearance. Down the hall in the cafeteria, students were lined up at ballet barres made from PVC pipe, trying to plié in unison. The school’s extended schedule includes an hour of dance a day both to give it an arts focus and to relieve families with limited resources from the costs of afterschool and enrichment programs.

Across the table, Bellamy’s temporary replacement was making a list of data Jackson needed in order to testify before the state legislature, which convened that morning. Because SOAR’s 80 pupils are in kindergarten and first grade, quantifying their growth during the first four months of the school year requires some creativity.

The future of charter schools is a topic of fierce — and still unresolved — debate in the Washington legislature, where a bill to remedy the funding wrinkle cited by the Supreme Court has stalled in the House Education Committee.

Spearheaded by the teachers union, opposition to a number of reforms that would benefit students of color is unusually intense here and as of press time, with days remaining for lawmakers to act.

Some 70 percent of students in the eight charter schools whose fate swings in the balance are children of color. Two-thirds live in poverty. If their new schools close, many will go back to schools classified by the state as failing.

Wealthy parents, meanwhile, either buy into a neighborhood with sought-after schools or leave the system altogether. Almost 30 percent of Seattle students attend private schools, two-and-a-half times the national average.

As in a number of other largely white, otherwise politically progressive communities, Washington’s veneer of prosperity masks some of the largest black-white achievement gaps in the country.

In every tested grade, 10 to 30 percent fewer African American students than whites in math and reading. Less than one-third of black fourth- and seventh-graders perform math at grade level. And the core issue isn’t poverty: low-income whites outperform prosperous African American students.

Black students, who make up less than 6 percent of the student body in Washington state, are more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers. And because less than 2 percent of the state’s teachers are black, the adult judging the behavior that ends in punitive discipline does so from across a cultural chasm.

***

SOAR is located in a former parochial school in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood, where a third of residents are African American and two-thirds are impoverished. The nearby traditional public schools are among Washington’s lowest performing.

The school’s plan for getting better results combines personalized learning plans with instructional techniques borrowed from schools in other states where black children are succeeding at rates unheard of in traditional programs.

Each child visited the school before it opened for screening. Based on the results, each had a personalized learning plan waiting on the first day of school.

In 2012, Washington voters approved the ballot initiative creating charter schools. The plan was to open eight schools a year for five years, with an emphasis on innovation. Twenty-two groups submitted proposals the first year.

Knowing only the strongest applications would make it through the first round, Bellamy-McClain asked Jackson, a leading consultant on making education work for black children, for feedback on SOAR’s proposal.

Jackson liked that the program was homegrown and that it reflected a deep understanding of Hilltop’s educational landscape. But more than anything, she liked the idea that the founders were intent on creating a culture of high expectations.

The high school Jackson graduated from in 1963 in Mobile, Alabama, was segregated but full of adults who believed every student could achieve.

“We were all poor and we didn’t know it,” she says. “These wonderful teachers with so few resources got so much out of us. They loved us, they believed in us, they disciplined us, they knew our families.”

And they affirmed their students’ culture. “In the segregated world I lived in with its Jim Crow rules, I knew I was a heck of a lot smarter than many of the people who were indifferent to me because of the color of my skin,” says Jackson. “My sense of self was strong and I was sure of my capabilities.”

After graduation, Jackson enrolled in the historically black Southern University in Baton Rouge, where she earned a degree in biochemistry. It was the heyday of affirmative action and federal contractors were desperate for talent.

In June of 1968, a campus recruiter hired Jackson to work at an atomic lab on the West Coast. When Jackson’s oldest child started kindergarten, she joined the PTA. Blacks make up less than 4 percent of the state’s population, but she was still shocked at the inequities in the schools.

“I had to sit in these meetings and listen to people explain the discrepancies, the disparities as the result of poverty,” she recalls. “I was convinced there was a better way.”

***

Before long Jackson got herself elected to the school board in North Thurston, a medium-sized district near Olympia with a diverse population. The more she learned, the madder she got.

“School board members are taught not to ask questions, that that was micromanagement,” says Jackson. “I had access to much more data than your average person would have. So I learned to ask questions, to make people uncomfortable.

“It used to just burn me up,” she adds. “There was all of this data about the students and none about the system. It hooked me in.”

Together with her husband Nat she opened Foresight Consulting, a concern that provides support to schools and districts seeking better outcomes. In 2001, Jackson earned a doctorate in education leadership and change from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California.

Her activism won her seats on task forces and advisory councils reporting to five different governors, including the state Commission of African American Affairs. She served as president of the Pacific Region of the National School Boards Association and of the Washington Alliance of Black School Educators. And she helped to create the advocacy group Black Education Strategy Roundtable.

“Just her name evokes the pursuit of excellence in education,” says Elder Toney Montgomery, a Tacoma pastor who has followed Jackson’s work for 20 years. “Her gravitas in the education community is because of her willingness to invest in something.”

Time and again when Jackson advocated for a law or initiative aimed at black children there was pushback. The refrain every time: Reforms needed to target all children of color.

Jackson was resolute. All children deserve a quality education, but African Americans have endured inequities not shared by other groups.

“They didn’t come here in the belly of a slave ship,” she says. “No other group had been stripped of their personhood. I am but three generations removed from slavery. Me…. By law we were not considered a whole person.”

After considerable debate on this point, in 2008 the Washington legislature created an advisory committee to specifically address the achievement gap for African American children. The plan called for the equitable distribution of the best teachers and for continued reporting of data disaggregated by race.

It was a win, to be sure. But Jackson was tracking education reform discussions in other communities and seeing bolder change. In particular, she was intrigued by Howard Fuller’s laser-focus on creating choices for black parents in Milwaukee.

Not only were some of that city’s charter schools outperforming their district brethren with black children, they were exerting pressure on the entire system to do better.

“I thought, ‘If we could prove with these charter schools that these kids are capable of learning, I have no doubt we will have people knocking down that door,’” says Jackson. “It will result in all schools doing better because the monopoly will get broken up.”

***

Washington voters rejected charter school initiatives in 1996 and 2000. In 2004, a charter schools bill passed the legislature and was signed into law by then-Gov. Gary Locke but the statewide teachers uion filed for a ballot referendum and voters defeated the measure at the polls. Various other charter bills never made it out of the legislature. When a ballot initiative creating the first schools finally passed in 2012, the state’s black leaders were still skeptical.

Their fear: That charters would serve as a vehicle for further white flight, much in the way that the “segregation academies” of the 1960s and ’70s allowed whites to end-run court-ordered integration.

“People of my generation in the South, we saw how white folks set up military academies, all kinds of programs to take their kids out of traditional public schools so they would not go to school with black kids,” says Jackson. “So black people thought that’s what charters were, a way for white people to leave the public schools.”

Using a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in October 2014 Jackson took a delegation of 15 African American leaders to Oakland, California, to visit successful charter schools.

“They came back converts,” she says. “They came back saying, ‘If this is what we could have, then we are in favor of charter schools.’”

Montgomery was one of the people who went on the trip. In contrast to many schools he was familiar with, the programs the group visited prioritized family engagement in a way that built strong relationships between teachers and parents. He came back convinced that competition would be good for Washington’s children of color.

Jackson deserves credit for the fact that the programs are still open, he adds.

“When the court in September ruled that charter schools were not legal, she mobilized,” he says. “She could easily have folded up her tent and said, ‘OK.’

SOAR’s students aren’t old enough to take the assessments that have yielded the positive achievement data Washington’s other endangered charter schools have used to press their case that lawmakers ought to allow the programs to remain open. Instead, Jackson has relied on information about how many have progressed from one small math or reading group to another.

“If we got this far in five months, what could we do in five years?” she asks. “I don’t know whether we will have the wherewithal to exist next year, but a certain part of our case will be proven.”

Three of the eight new charters are located in Tacoma, where the last three years have seen improvements in the traditional schools. A state innovation grant has helped, Jackson says, but so has the public discussion about the little-mined data that irked her so much as a school board member.

Moreover, several of the new schools are on track to prove that given the right instruction, even the most challenged students are capable of accelerated learning. Students at Summit Sierra High School in Seattle are on track to achieve three years’ growth in one academic year, for example.

All of which makes the status quo much harder to defend than it was even a few short months ago.

“It proves that just because the situation is this way it doesn’t need to remain that way,” says Jackson. “People can make a difference. Advocates and communities can make a difference. And children belong to all of us.”

Facing a Thursday Deadline, and Lawmakers’ Silence, WA Students Fight to Keep Their Schools Alive

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Olympia, Washington) — It’s noon on Thursday — seven days until the 2016 legislative session comes to a close — and nothing’s happening.

That’s how Summit Sierra charter school students said they felt as they walked around the now too familiar labyrinth of Olympia legislative offices to meet with legislators again and deliver hand-written messages.

Ninth-graders Edgiemeh Dela Cruz and Clio Hasegawa slowly opened the door to the office shared by Reps. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland and Jeff Morris, D-Mount Vernon, and handed a letter to an assistant. He was familiar with the students’ cause. After all, they had called 10 times the evening before in a phone-a-thon that included their parents and members of the East African community.

The assistant said he’d pass on the message.

They thanked him and left the office. As she walked down the hallway, Cruz gave the air a double fist bump. It was just one of the hundreds — if not thousands — of interactions charter supporters have had with legislators in the last two months, but the students are relentlessly hopeful.

The House was in session that morning and the students paused on the balcony overlooking the adults who hold their fate. There was no lack of action 100 feet below them, just none of it relating to the state’s eight charter schools whose life span is shortening with each passing day.

“What happens if nothing happens?” Hasegawa asked Maggie Meyers, the Washington State Charter Schools Association spokeswoman accompanying the student group.

“Then there’s no positive solution for charter schools,” Meyers said. “We need action in the next several days. We need a bill not just so your school can stay open but –”

“– so other schools can open,” finished ninth-grader Clark Brace.

The state’s charter school students may be experts in civic engagement at this point in the academic year. Since the state Supreme Court ruled charters unconstitutional in September, the schools and their 1,100 students have been fighting for their existence.

Backed by the well-funded charter coalition Act Now for Washington Students, students have made multiple trips to Olympia to rally, testify in committee hearings, hand letters to legislators, and sit down with their representatives. Some parents have been driving to Olympia daily since January— with many more joining their ranks this week as the urgency amped up — to ask that the charter law, passed by the voters in 2012, be reinstated. The coalition’s aired and educators have flown across the state to testify in Senate and House hearings.

(From left) Washington State Charter Schools Association Spokeswoman Maggie Meyers talks with Summit Sierra charter school students who delivered letters to legislators in Olympia Thursday morning. (Photo by Kate Stringer)

Over the past few months, students have shared how their charter schools offer personalized learning, how the small classes and teachers encourage their growth, how their schools have inspired them for the first time to dream about college.

More than two-thirds of Washington state charter school students are from low-income families and more than 70 percent are students of color, according to Act Now. Mid-year data released by the state charter association shows the students making significant academic gains and the schools closing the achievement gap between African American, Native American and Latino students and their white peers.

“Charter schools are important because they give students alternative ways to learn,” Cruz said. “I don’t want to say we have better learning but I just want to say that we learn more because if students have a difficult time learning the traditional way of public schools, they have alternatives.”

Charter opponents argue the qualities that make charter schools great — small class sizes, caring teachers, innovative lesson plans — should be and are being carried out in traditional public schools. Groups like the teachers union and the League of Women Voters — both plaintiffs in the case that outlawed Washington’s charters — say charter schools take money away from traditional public schools. (��Ӱ��: Fact-Check: Are Washington’s Charters Harming the State’s Traditional Public Schools?)

The Supreme Court ruling argued that because charter schools are run by an appointed commission rather than locally elected school board, they should not receive the same pool of taxpayer dollars that public schools receive. (��Ӱ��: Why Washington’s ‘Common School’ Ruling Runs Counter to the Common Good of Students)

1,100 students are holding their breath for Washington State legislators to act on stagnant bills to save their charter schools, ruled unconstitutional in September by the state's Supreme Court. (Photo by Kate Stringer)

A charter bill introduced and passed in the Senate in January sought to fix this by taking money for charters from the Opportunity Pathways Account which is funded by lottery revenues. The House Education Committee refused to vote on this bill at its last meeting. Rep. Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, has since proposed a new title-only bill that aims to address how charter schools are governed. It’s difficult to tell what level of lobbying and behind-the-scenes negotiations may be going on in the final days around the charter issue.

And while the Olympia hallways Thursday buzzed with student groups and the chambers echoed with legislator voices, news on all these charter school bills has been nonexistent since last week.

Yet even with a fast-approaching deadline, charter advocates stay hopeful that a long-term solution is on the horizon. Rather than being cynical about the political process, some students seem energized by it.

“What better way to get engaged?” said ninth-grader Alli Lapchis as she ate lunch with a group of Summit Sierra students enrolled in their school’s civic engagement class.

Her classmate Tatiana Villegas thinks this experience has taught students how to be informed citizens, which will help when the day comes for them to vote.

They drop their chip bags and jump up when it’s time for their meeting with Rep. Ruth Kagi, D-Seattle. The group of four want to go by themselves, they tell their parent supervisor. They think their message will be more powerful coming from just the students.

“Several students were scared at first to make the calls,” Summit Sierra parent Lynn Gilliland said. “But once they did it, they were totally pumped.”

While some students are enthusiastic about the process, others see the absurdity of having to fight for a good education.

“Kids should have the chance to go to any school they want,” said ninth-grader Sahra Mohamed, who has attended a mix of private, public, and boarding schools, yet ranks Summit Sierra as her favorite. “I don’t think anybody should have to go through this (legislative process) to keep their schools open.”

There’s an irony in students fighting for their schools in a nation that can’t say enough about the importance of a good education.

“Students can feel slighted and confused,” Meyers said. “Legislators say they support education. Are those promises empty?”

The schools aren’t looking for a short-term fix to the problem, Meyers said. After all, parents won’t send their students to schools for one year intervals and it’s straining for teachers to have jobs hanging in limbo.

Most ninth-graders aren’t thinking about where and how they will collect their high school diploma, but Summit Sierra students can’t get graduation off their mind. They say they want to receive their diploma from the school that embraced them freshman year, the school that inspired them to pursue college.

So they trek through the stone legislative hallways again, pausing briefly to take a selfie with the brass bust of George Washington.

Opinion: Rees: As Washington State Nears Historic Charter School Deadline, Lawmakers Should Choose Wisely

Nina Rees — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

Legislators in the Washington state capitol building in Olympia may notice some extra constituents in their midst this week. That’s because parents and students, in a strong show of civic activism, are showing up at the capitol every single day until the legislature takes action to save the state’s charter public schools.

Washington state is unique in the now 25-year history of the charter school movement. It’s the only state in which voters directly approved charter schools via referendum. Responding to the experiences of dozens of other states that had welcomed charter schools, Washington voters in 2012 directed the legislature to establish up to 40 charter public schools over five years.

Unfortunately, Washington made history again in 2015, when the state Supreme Court nullified the voter-approved law. Citing a century-old precedent defining public schools only as schools run by local school boards, the court stripped charter schools of their funding and effectively tried to define them out of existence.

The timing of the decision, coming just after the start of the school year, was shocking and, quite frankly, deplorable. Suddenly the more than 1,100 students attending public charter schools across the state were thrown into turmoil. Would their schools stay open this year? Would students have to find new schools for next year? Could public charter schools ever become a reality in Washington state?

What’s happened since then has been an ongoing lesson in charter school politics that advocates in other states should take to heart. Despite being a relatively young and small charter movement, schools, families, and advocates forged the Act Now for Washington Students coalition and began punching above their weight. The coalition quickly mobilized supporters and developed a strategy to overturn the court’s decision.

The advocacy campaign was three-pronged. Along with the state attorney general, advocates requested the court to reconsider its decision. At the same time, charter school supporters began lobbying Gov. Jay Inslee to take action and call the legislature back into session to work on an immediate fix. They also launched an effort to gain support from legislators in both parties.

The first responses were not promising. The court let its original decision stand. The governor refused to call the legislature back into session. Yet legislators themselves began to get the message that something needed to be done.

When the legislature returned to Olympia for its regular session in January, the coalition was ready. They began telling real and powerful stories about the difference charter schools were already making in students’ lives. Through the media, they shared personal experiences and data about student achievement and growing demand for charter schools (wait lists already top 1,200 students even amid the turmoil and uncertainty). Leading editorial boards — including at the Seattle Times and the Olympian — voiced strong support. Most importantly, groups of parents, students, teachers, and school leaders made their presence known at the state capitol, appealing to lawmakers face-to-face.

Lawmakers listened and responded. Just a few weeks into the session, senators passed a bill with bipartisan support that would provide a steady, reliable funding stream to keep current charter schools open and allow for growth in communities that want to add new charter schools. House sponsors wrote their own bill along similar lines.

Unfortunately, the momentum has stalled. As we stand less than two weeks from the end of the legislative session, the House has not yet taken action. In fact, last week, as students and parents looked on from the gallery, and more than 500 gathered for a demonstration on the capitol steps, Democrats on the House Education Committee refused to allow the most promising charter school bill to make it to the full House for a vote.

As a result, Washington is on the precipice of again making history in one of two ways. In the optimistic scenario, the House will heed the call of the parents camped on their doorsteps and pass a bill that keeps charter schools open and provides a pathway to more charter schools in the future. If this happens, Washington will become the first state to approve charter schools through both a referendum and legislation overriding a court decision and upholding the will of the voters. That will be a strong political foundation for future growth.

In the worst-case scenario, the House fails to act. Current charter school students will be kept in limbo or even face school closure. The educational opportunities of children will, for the first time in the nation, be limited by a politically motivated Supreme Court that rebuffed the expressed preference of the state’s voters and by a legislature that failed to come to students’ defense to save schools that children need and parents want.

Even with a negative outcome this month, Washington’s charter school supporters would continue to fight. The state’s charter school movement has been put through the fire early and emerged sharper and stronger. The nationwide charter public school movement will continue to thrive as well, even as teachers unions and other charter opponents push back harder than ever.

But as the few states without charter schools get closer to enacting their first charter laws, it becomes clearer and clearer that at some point in the near future every other state in the nation will give its students the option of attending high-quality charter public schools. How odd it would be if Washington state, home to some of the most dynamic and innovative companies in America, and education reform powerhouses such as the Gates Foundation, were to find itself as the only state that refused students and parents that choice.

Opinion: Robin Lake: Shameful Claim to Fame – Will Washington Become First State to Shutter Successful Schools?

Robin Lake — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Seattle, Washington) Washington state may soon have a new claim to fame: Unless the legislature acts within the next 10 days, we will be the first state in the union to intentionally shut down a group of high-performing schools that serve mainly disadvantaged students.

When voters passed a ballot initiative in 2012, they authorized a state commission appointed by the governor and other elected officials to selectively approve and oversee a set of public charter schools. These are schools that are freed from district bureaucracy so educators can create new solutions for students who struggled in the traditional school system. In exchange for their flexibility, charter schools in Washington are held to a very high accountability standard: they will be closed if they don't perform well.

I've been studying charter schools for more than 20 years, (but my opinion here is mine alone, not that of the University of Washington.) Charter schools don’t always work well, particularly if the state law isn’t well crafted. But that’s not the case in Washington. Our law is one of the best in the country. We’ve followed national best practices from the 40 states that created charter schools before us. And it shows. Washington charter schools are already making notable progress academically. (��Ӱ��: Facing Closure, Washington State Charter Schools Release Data Showing Students Excelling)

They are attracting a very diverse student population. They are serving students with special needs. They are partnering with local school districts to share their practices. They are empowering teachers to try new approaches, like embedding design and computational thinking in every classroom or giving every student an individualized learning program. Students and their parents in Washington’s public charter schools say they are thrilled with the high expectations, supports, and warm caring environments they are getting.

All of this progress was threatened last September, however, when the state Supreme Court ruled the initiative unconstitutional. This innovative approach didn’t fit into a 1909 definition of “common schools”, leading the court to conclude that the schools couldn’t receive traditional public school funding streams.

A non-traditional funding source — state lottery revenue — has been found for these unique 21st century schools. The state Senate quickly passed a new bill but the House Education Committee has delayed the vote for further study and political negotiations. Time is running out. The legislative session ends March 10 and the schools will simply have to close if the bill isn’t passed. (��Ӱ��: WA House Fails to Act on Charter Bill as Dems Search for Alternative and Deadline Looms)

The implication for the nearly 1,100 students attending Washington’s eight public charter schools is clear: their chance to go to college, something many previously didn’t believe they would have, will be in serious jeopardy if legislators don’t act in the next week.

Washington’s ranks among the lowest in the country. (The national average is 82 percent) African- American, Hispanic and Native American students fare much worse. White students in as likely as black kids to attend an elementary or middle school with reading tests scores that rank in the top 20 percent citywide.

Kids with special needs are often most at risk and in need of alternatives. Despite our many stellar schools, our state has one of the most inequitable public education systems in the country. Our students, especially those in the minority, desperately need more options. (��Ӱ��: At Seattle’s Summit Sierra High School, Special Needs Students Find Success)

The arguments against public charter schools in our state are based on fear-mongering, not facts, and are out of step with the rest of the country. Public charter schools are no panacea, nor are they a replacement for the many amazing public schools we have today, including those that my kids attend. But shame on all of us if we let misinformation and interest-group politics shut the door on new hope and opportunity for the kids who need it most.

Washington House Fails to Act on Charter Bill as Dems Search for Alternative and Deadline Looms

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Seattle, Washington) – Washington House Education members failed to act on a bill to save the state’s charter schools Thursday morning, leaving Democrats just days to scramble alternate legislation.

Their refusal to consider the bill came as charter supporters prepared for a 500-person rally on the capitol steps. There are some 1,100 students in the state’s eight charter schools, most of them low-income students of color, and they have been campaigning for months to keep the schools alive after the state Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional in early September.

“We were disappointed that the House chose not to hear our bill,” said charter school parent Shirline Wilson. “It exacerbates our anxiety a little bit over what’s to come. We’re hopeful that there’s still time for representatives and senators to swing into action.”

The legislative sessions ends March 10.

Students from Washington State charter schools rallied in Olympia Thursday afternoon after the House Education Committee rejected a bill to save their schools. (Photo courtesy Washington State Charter Schools Association)

The committee had initially removed the bill from its planned hearing during Thursday’s executive session, said Chair Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle, because a work group addressing the “problems inherent in the initiative” hadn’t produced any results.

However, Rep. Chad Magendanz, R-Issaquah, requested a roll-call vote to hear the bill, which required an 11-member majority to pass. Instead it tied 10-10 with Rep. Sam Hunt, D-Olympia, excused from voting. The vote was split fairly evenly along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.

It was an unsettling setback to charter school parents, students, educators and advocates whose earlier trips to Olympia were followed by the Senate voting 27-20 last month to pass legislation preserving charter schools and shifting their funding source to state lottery revenues. That bill otherwise mirrored a statewide initiative approved by voters in 2012 calling for 40 charter schools to open across the state over the next five years and placing them under the authority of a state commission.

Rep. Larry Springer, D-Kirkland, was a co-sponsor of the pro-charter House companion bill, but voted no during Thursday’s roll call. He said he opposed the attempted circumvention of the procedural hearing and didn’t think the current bill was strong enough to withstand another lawsuit. The Washington Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, and other parties successfully sued to disband charter schools.

“There’s a number of us looking at the bill who believe it does not address the issues around charter schools that are likely to be the basis of another lawsuit to overturn charter schools. If a second lawsuit is filed and prevails, the charter movement in the state is over,” Springer said. “We want to make sure (charter schools) don’t have to close their doors.”

A new bill sponsored by Springer and released Thursday afternoon, in title only, seeks to address how charters are overseen. Because charter schools are operated by the appointed state commission — and not a locally elected school board — the court ruled that they did not meet the definition of a common school under a 1909 state law and could not receive state education dollars. Critics say that setup means the schools are not held accountable to taxpayers.

But placing charter schools under the control of local school boards could make it nearly impossible for them to thrive, supporters said. That arrangement may work in places like Spokane where charter-friendly attitudes prevail but in less charter-friendly areas, their applications can easily be dismissed. Seattle was ranked one of the in a 2015 report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

That’s why Springer said he’s searching for a sweet spot between local control and state level oversight although he could not be more specific.

Maggie Meyers, spokeswoman for the Washington State Charter Schools Association, said anything that doesn’t align with the Senate bill – the one the House Education Committee refused to hear — will fall short of keeping charter schools open.

“It’s certainly disappointing when members of the House aren’t voting in favor of what’s right for students but we know in Olympia that 15 days is enough time to get a solution in place,” Meyers said, as she directed hundreds of students dressed in blue shirts reading “Keep Our Schools Open” toward the capitol steps. “The urgency is dialed up a couple notches, and the kids here, they’ve become increasingly more aware of their rights.”

Legislators Eric Pettigrew, D-Seattle and Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah, told students at the noon rally “to stay optimistic and believe in their right for an education.” In an earlier op-ed for ��Ӱ��, Pettigrew said, “Across our state and all over the country, students of color are not making it in conventional public schools. Black and Latino students make up the largest number of dropouts, face harsher discipline, suffer from language barriers, and deal with the ever-present achievement gap… To combat this, I look for tools to help make changes, and public charter schools have proven to be effective.”

Mid-year data released by the Washington State Charter Association last week showed students on target to exceed grade-level benchmarks and outpacing national peers in math and reading. Most of these students began the year below grade level and generally African-American, Latino and Native American students in Washington state score between 15 to 20 percent lower on state assessments, according to advocates.

The effort to save charters has been led by Act Now for Washington Students, a well-financed coalition that includes Democrats for Education Reform and Stand for Children. It has involved multiple trips to Olympia to rally and testify at hearings; some 6,000 calls to legislators by parents and volunteers and gathering roughly 18,000 online supporters, according to the group

This week, Act Now said it made a six-figure media buy to air two, 30-second featuring charter students asking legislators, “Are you with us?” In December the group announced it planned to raise $500,000 for the re-election campaigns of pro-charter state lawmakers by the end of the session.

Springer said he’d like his bill to go through the procedural House committee hearings, but it’s not unheard of for proposed legislation to go directly to the floor for a vote, especially with so few days remaining in the session.

Twenty Days and Counting: Bill to Save WA Charter Schools Moves to House as Session Nears End

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Seattle, Washington) – Washington State’s House Education Committee is scheduled to hear a charter school bill Friday that has the potential to save the schools of 1,100 students and open doors to more.

More than 60 students, parents, activists and community members from across Washington are expected at the hearing to support the legislation and offer testimony, said Maggie Meyers, spokeswoman for pro-charter group Act Now for Washington Students.

“We’re really pleased that the House Education Committee scheduled it,” Meyers said. “Hopefully representatives will demonstrate the same level of responsiveness their counterparts did in the Senate and throw their support behind it.”

After Friday’s hearing, only 20 days remain in this legislative session to pass a charter bill.

While the bill’s co-sponsor, Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, is hopeful that the charter legislation will receive a House vote, he said he’s not sure how it will fare in the House’s Education Committee. The committee’s chair, Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle, has a history of not supporting charter legislation, according to the .

“I think there is support in the House to move it off the floor,” Litzow said. “They’re going to want to improve the bill so I know there’s a group — (Rep.) Larry Springer, (Rep.) Eric Pettigrew — who are working to find that middle ground.”

The Senate already approved a pro-charter bill in a 27-20 vote in January. The proposed legislation reinstates the state charter commission to oversee the eight existing schools, created by a voter referendum in 2012 that also envisioned expanding the number of charter schools in the state to 40 over the next five years.

The state Supreme Court struck down the voter-approved referendum in September, declaring charter schools unconstitutional. The court argued that without a locally elected school board, the charters didn’t fit the state’s definition of a common school, and so couldn’t be financed from the same general fund as traditional public schools. (74 Commentary: Washington’s ‘Common Schools’ ruling runs counter to the common good of students)

The pro-charter bill alters how charter schools would receive money — this time from the state’s Opportunity Pathways Account which draws on lottery revenue — in the hopes of conforming with the court’s ruling.

During Senate hearings in January, legislators debated whether charter legislation should receive consideration during the session when other education issues — like fully funding public education in the face of $100,000-per-day contempt fines from the Supreme Court — seemingly took precedence.

However, senators Tuesday saying they would figure out a way to address the funding issue known as McCleary by the end of their 2017 session. The Senate bill is similar to one passed earlier by the House.

Why the Race for the Washington State Schools Chief Is Complicated — and Could be the Last

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

��Ӱ��’s Carolyn Phenicie examines local and state level elections where education will play a critical role this November.

The next K-12 schools chief in Washington state dodged — at least for the moment — having to add one more difficult task to his or her post-election agenda: overseeing the demise of their office and the disbandment of the state Board of Education.

In a state already rife with meaty education challenges — figuring out a way to fully fund public schools under the daily threat of court-imposed fines, deciding the fate of charters — lawmakers were considering throwing another into the mix.

A House bill asked voters to amend the state constitution to eliminate the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and the state school board. Those duties would have morphed into a new state education department headed by a director appointed by the governor.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic House Majority Leader Pat Sullivan, died in committee after its Feb. 8 public hearing but there’s some expectation it could resurface in the 2017 session. That would put it squarely on the plate of one of the five contenders running this year for state schools superintendent, a $122,000-a-year job that carries a four-year term. (��Ӱ��: Funding Crisis, Charter War, Teacher Shortage: Who Wants to be WA. State Schools Chief. These Five.)

Incumbent Superintendent Randy Dorn . Washington is one of only 13 states that elects its highest K-12 schools official and while the job is nonpartisan, educational politics abound here.

The most-pressing issue, observers said, will be the state’s funding crisis.

“That’s like an 800-pound gorilla riding on the shoulders of the governor and the superintendent and everybody,” said Tom Halverson, director of the education policy master’s program at the University of Washington.

The state’s high court that Washington isn’t sufficiently funding basic education costs. The state legislature was supposed to be following a three-phase plan to reach a goal of full funding by 2018. Lawmakers weren’t making enough progress, the court ruled, first holding lawmakers in contempt, and then .

Tariq Akmal, interim chair of the department of teaching and learning at Washington State University, also cited the so-called McCleary decision as the biggest issue.

Part of the problem for funding all of these initiatives is that Washington, for the most part, does not have income taxes. Revenues come primarily from sales and property taxes, which makes it more difficult for lawmakers to cover shortfalls in times of economic downturn.

“As people say, you often see very good politics in these kinds of times, but you may not see good decision-making or good governing,” Akmal said.

Though often viewed as a liberal state, Washington is divided between its eastern half, which is more rural and conservative, and the liberal western half, home to Seattle and Tacoma, Halverson explained. The funding issue is one of the few that hits every corner of the state, he explained.

The court has also intervened in the area of charter schools. In September 2015, the justices, in a divided ruling, said the state’s voter-approved charter referendum violated constitutional requirements governing the funding for a system of “common schools.” Justices in the months since refused to reconsider their decision.

The state Senate passed a bill last month to preserve charters and convert their funding stream to state lottery revenues while the House is expected take up its version of charter legislation Feb. 19.

Halverson said the charter challenge primarily affects the western half of the state — most of the eight schools are in Seattle and Tacoma — so other things “are probably going to be fires that … burn a little bit brighter than the charter school piece.”

Akmal, too, said that the charter issue may only be because “ has come in from the outside” although the Washington Education Association, one of the parties that brought the successful lawsuit, is also a major player in the debate.

The WEA, the state affiliate of the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, historically has been “the biggest and most powerful lobby in the state,” Halverson said.

The funding and charter issues are Washington-specific but state leaders are also dealing with national educational trends, specifically changes in testing and the opt-out movement, and a teacher shortage.

Washington lost its No Child Left Behind waiver in 2014 after the state legislature was unable to write a law tying test scores to teacher and principal evaluations in a way that satisfied the U.S. Department of Education. This meant every school in the state was deemed “failing,” and tied the hands of school leaders in how they could use federal dollars.

That will be a moot issue under the new Every Student Succeeds Act (which doesn’t speak to teacher evaluation and limits how much the federal education secretary can require in state policies) but Washington educational officials will still have to decide how to use testing and other metrics to measure school performance.

Complicating matters, there is a strong opt-out movement in the state. High school students in Seattle made news in April 2015 when the entire junior class at one high school .

Additionally, the state, like many others, is facing a massive teacher shortage. A found 45 percent couldn’t fill all their classrooms with fully certified teachers who met job requirements. Almost three-quarters said they had to cover a classroom in the five days before taking a survey because there was no substitute available. Although the problem is statewide, it’s hit rural areas harder than other places, Halverson said.

Many races like this one — think the 2015 matchup in California between reform-minded Marshall Tuck and union-backed Tom Torlakson — often come to a candidate more aligned with education reform and one more aligned with the unions.

“I don’t know that we’ll get away for that,” Halverson said.

Although the teachers union has “taken some blows” and the charter issue “caught them off guard,” it would be difficult for any candidate to run in “blatant or vigorous opposition” to the union, he added.

The WEA hasn’t made an endorsement yet. In the past, their backing has made a difference, Akmal said.

There will be a primary in August and the top two finishers will face each other in the general election in November.

Facing Closure, Washington State Charter Schools Release Data Showing Students Excelling

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Seattle, Washington) — New data shows that Washington state charter students have been striding past grade-level benchmarks in reading and outpacing their peers across the nation in math, yet their schools remain on the brink of closure.

Information released this week by the Washington State Charter Schools Association shows that many of the state’s 1,100 charter students have made significant academic gains since the start of the school year when charters opened their doors for the first time.

Until now, parents, students and educators have only had anecdotal evidence to present to legislators weighing whether their schools, ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court in September, deserve to stay open. With these results in hand, they hope state lawmakers will see the value in their untraditional model of public schooling.

"We’ll be sharing this data with legislators as evidence of why they shouldn’t be closing schools that are closing gaps for our students," said Maggie Meyers, spokeswoman for the charter association.

Meyers said the test results were released in summary form to the charters schools association, not as raw scores, and were gathered from tests given by the schools on an individual basis. Some of the results were produced by in-house tests or learning programs used by the schools while others were derived from standardized tests. Comparisons were then made based on where the students were at the beginning of the year versus mid-year or where they were mid-year compared to all students nationally, both district and charter, who took the same standardized test.

Little more than a month remains in this legislative session to pass a bill that would keep the state’s eight charter schools open next year. Two-thirds of Washington’s charter students are low-income and 70 percent are students of color, according to the charter association.

Many of them were not faring well in their traditional public schools and charter advocates, in releasing the data, cited a from last year that listed Seattle as having among the widest race- and income-based achievement gaps in the country.

Among the academic gains cited by the association:

Two percent of Spokane International Academy’s kindergartners and first-graders were on track to read at grade level in September. Now, a Lexia reading program analysis shows that number to be more than 60 percent.
Ninth-graders at Summit Sierra in Seattle and Summit Olympus in Tacoma began the year three to four years below grade level, yet significantly outperformed their national peers on the Measures of Academic Progress assessment. Summit Sierra students bested the national reading average by 40 percent and doubled the national math average. Summit Olympus students doubled the national average growth in reading and tripled it in math.
After three months of school, one-third of Destiny Middle School students had grown one to two reading levels, even though the Scholastic Reading Inventory calculated that 80 percent of the student body began the year behind in grade-level reading.
Rainier Prep Charter School in West Seattle is reporting one year of growth in the first half of the school year, according to the STAR reading test.
Excel Public Charter School in Kent reports that its students, who entered two to three years behind grade level in reading, are on track to make one-and-a-half years of progress, according to an in-house assessment.

At Excel Public Charter School, students are in classrooms several hours longer than their public school peers. The school year is also longer, at 194 days.

"Our teachers work really hard. They’re truly exceptional people," said Excel Founder Adel Sefrioui. "With increased class time, that’s the recipe for success."

"We are enormously proud of our students, teachers and school leaders for their hard work and relentless commitment to educational excellence," Summit's chief regional officer Jen Wickens said in an email. "Not only are Summit students making powerful gains in student academic growth measures, they are also thriving as a positive, joyful and committed school community."

Because of Spokane International Academy’s significant strides in reading, their digital reading program Lexia recognized the school as a national model for implementation. SIA’s Head of School Travis Franklin attributes his students’ successes to the school’s teachers and specialized reading groups. The academy holds weekly ceremonies to recognize students who advance through reading levels.

"We set out to open schools that are different. We’re doing what we said we would do," Franklin said. "Why would you close schools that are doing good for kids?"

Parent Jeff Bunch said he’s been encouraged by what he calls SIA’s "intentional learning culture." His kindergartner gets to join first-graders for math class, then comes home eager to continue with the online math program, even when it’s not assigned as homework.

"One of the questions from legislators was, ‘Are these schools as accountable as other schools?’, and they are," Bunch said. "You can’t deny these results."

Destiny Middle School parent Jessica Garcia has held 62 personal meetings with legislators since January 5 campaigning to keep her daughter’s school open. Regardless of their political stance, she’s found most elected officials receptive to her opinion.

"We tell them not just to listen to their caucus but to listen to their conscience," Garcia said. "Their whole idea is getting results in education and we’ve done more with less. Literally. You just pulled away all our funding."

But some argue that the unconstitutionality of charters is based on their public funding model, regardless of what student outcomes are. The voter-approved charter law gave charters money from the same fund as traditional public schools, even though charters report to an appointed, rather than locally elected, school board. The court found this violated a "common schools" stipulation in state law that dates back to 1909. (74 Commentary: Washington’s ‘Common Schools’ ruling runs counter to the common good of students)

Instant Expert: WA’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Schools

"We’re happy with any student improvements, of course, but the schools are unconstitutional themselves because they take money away from publicly funded schools and give it to privately operated ones," said Washington Education Association spokeswoman Linda Mullen.

The WEA, the state’s teachers union, was one of the groups that successfully sued to disband charter schools.

In January, the Senate passed a bill to save charters which shifts their revenue stream to state lottery funds. But that bill, along with several others, sits in the House awaiting a hearing from the Education Committee. As of press time, none of them had been placed on the committee’s agenda.

Funding Crisis, Charter War, Teacher Shortage: Who Wants to be WA. State Schools Chief? These Five.

Carolyn Phenicie — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

��Ӱ��’s Carolyn Phenicie examines local and state level elections where education will play a critical role this November.

The next superintendent of public instruction in Washington state will not have an easy job.

Education leaders in all states will have new authority over schools under the just-passed rewrite of No Child Left Behind. In Washington, that’s likely to include testing, a hot-button issue in a state where entire junior classes in some high schools .

Washington state legislators are currently being fined a $100,000 a day by the Supreme Court for failing to fully fund education. Those same legislators are in a pitched battle over whether, and how, to save charter schools, deemed unconstitutional by that same court. Add to that a teacher shortage that many say is verging on a crisis. (Read The Seventy Four’s complete coverage of the Washington state charter school decision here.)

Yet those challenges have not stopped five people from stepping up to try and replace outgoing state schools Superintendent Randy Dorn, who is not seeking reelection in November. The roughly $122,000-a-year job is officially nonpartisan and carries a four-year term. Washington is one of only 13 states that elects its highest K-12 schools official.

All five contender spoke with ��Ӱ�� recently. Here is a rundown of who they are and where they stand on the major issues.

The candidates

Robin Fleming
Age: 55
Administrator for health programs, state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
Hometown: Seattle

Fleming grew up with a single mother who struggled to care for her brother, who had Down’s Syndrome. At the time, individuals with disabilities had few rights, and Fleming’s brother was institutionalized. She also lost a good friend who had AIDS to suicide. It was those experiences, she says, that spurred her to leave a decade-long career in journalism to become a nurse.

She started in a hospital trauma center before spending 13 years as a nurse in the Seattle Public Schools where, she says, she saw it all, from students who overdosed on drugs in the school bathroom to children with gunshot wounds.

Eventually she went back to school again and got a doctorate in educational health and leadership. Her thesis broke down data on school nurses visits and found that the “vast majority” of middle and high school students in Seattle going to see the school nurse came from poverty. “These kids are not well and they are not achieving in school,” she says. The work that school nurses do “get kids to school, keep them at school and help them engage at school and graduate from school.”

Fleming is currently the health services program administrator at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. She administers a statewide program that ensures access to school nurses, as well as one that helps kids who are out of school temporarily due to illness.

She says friends had encouraged her to run for office in the past but she never found a position in which she felt she could make a difference. Now, she says, she has something to offer that no one else in the race can.

“I knew I could do more for our state’s children, that’s what sort of lit me up.”

Erin Jones
Age: 44
Tacoma Public Schools administrator
Hometown: Tacoma

Jones, whose birth parents were a younger white mother and older black father, was adopted by two white teachers from Minnesota. When Jones was young, her family moved to Europe to find a more welcoming environment for a biracial family. Her father got a teaching job at the American School of the Hague, and she grew up in a diverse environment with the children of ambassadors from around the world.

Jones returned to the U.S. for college, at Bryn Mawr College, an all-women’s school just outside of Philadelphia. In the years since, she and her husband have lived all over — Indiana, Ohio, and ultimately Washington, where her husband grew up. She’s also had a variety of careers, including stints operating a school from her garage and playing on the U.S. national women’s basketball team.

In the education realm, she’s been a substitute and taught English and French immersion. She also served in the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction for two-and- a-half years for previous state superintendents.

Now her official title is director of AVID (Advancement via Individual Determination, a program designed to support first-generation college students as early as kindergarten). In reality, she says, she does a lot more than that: She’s expanded the AVID program so every middle school student has the skills necessary for success in college.

She also does a lot of teacher training and often deals with legislators, given her experience in the state office.

“I’m running because I believe our students deserve better, and I’m running because I want to be a voice of collaboration between many groups of people,” she says.

Gil Mendoza
Age: 61
Deputy superintendent for K-12 programs, Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
Hometown: Tacoma

Mendoza’s parents were migrant workers before his father joined the military; he grew up mainly in Tacoma. He graduated from Gonzaga University in Spokane with a degree in psychology and credentials to teach social studies and a special education.

He’d attended college on an ROTC scholarship, then served six years in the military, four on active duty and two in the reserves.

He moved out of state for better employment prospects after leaving the military and wound up working for billionaire and 1992 presidential candidate Ross Perot in Dallas doing human resources and corporate recruiting.

Mendoza was back home in Washington state by the early ’80s and worked “at every level” in the K-12 system. He’s worked in schools since 1983 with the exception of three years he helped launch a technical college. Mendoza was a career counselor and teacher, then moved into administration in the Tacoma schools for 13 years after earning his doctorate. He also served four years as superintendent in the Sumner schools, in suburban Tacoma.

Eventually he came to work for Dorn, the current superintendent, serving first as a special assistant and leadership coach within the agency and eventually moving into his role as K-12 assistant superintendent.

He entered the race after looking at the candidates who had filed and thought “we needed someone who had a more in-depth background in education in Washington state.”

Chris Reykdal
Age: 43
State legislator
Hometown: Tumwater

Reykdal is one of eight children who grew up in poverty in Snohomish, Washington. It was public school, he says, that gave him the opportunity to break out of that cycle.

He went to Washington State University in Pullman and earned degrees in social studies, along with his teaching certificate, and taught history in Longview, Washington, for three years.

Then Reykdal and his wife headed to Chapel Hill, where he earned a graduate degree at the University of North Carolina in public administration. They returned to Washington, where Reykdal worked for the state Senate, and made his way up the ranks of the state board that oversees community and technical colleges. He’s currently the associate director of the education division there, where he helps direct policy and appropriations for the state’s 30 community college districts. He also served four years on the Tumwater school board.

Reykdal, a Democrat, was elected to the state house in 2010. He’s currently the vice chair of the House education committee. He says he’s most proud of “rescuing” a bill that will require students starting with class of 2019 to pass 24 specific credits, including three science classes, to graduate from high school. The bill ultimately means kids in Washington will take more math and science, he said.

Reykdal said his passion for public service comes from the benefits government programs gave him and his family when they were struggling.

“Now there’s this enormous opportunity to take our state office that is constitutionally charged with overseeing education in our state and really reimagine its focus.”

Larry Seaquist
Age: 77
U.S. Navy veteran, former state legislator
Hometown: Gig Harbor

Seaquist spent most of his career in the military. The 32-year Naval veteran served as a warship captain and in budget and national security functions at the Pentagon.

He eventually wound up in Washington state and was elected to the state House in 2006 as a Democrat. He served four terms, including stints on committees covering early learning, education and budgets. He chaired the House higher education committee.

Over that eight years, he became “increasingly concerned” about the state’s “failure to invest in our education system,” he says.

The problem has two parts, he says, starting with cutting education funding to balance the state budget.

“I was able to stop that and get those investments re-started, but along the way we were also installing and inflicting, quote, reforms, on our K-12 system,” he said.

Seaquist says he wants to use his campaign to push specific legislative issues, like the Supreme Court’s funding ruling.

“We’ve been locked up in legislative battles that haven’t changed in several years, and I don’t believe that we can simply sit around and let those wars wage in the same old trenches for another year.”

Where they stand

On school funding equity

Fleming: The legislature does need to fully fund education, and agrees with the current superintendent’s comments on the issue, though thinks legislators should be motivated with honey, not vinegar.

Doesn’t offer any specifics regarding how the legislature should find the new money to meet its court obligations. “We have to have revenue somehow, and that’s the legislature’s job to come up with that.”

Jones: Was working for the state superintendent’s office at the time the Supreme Court heard the case, known as McCleary, and testified in her capacity as an educator. “It’s really become something that’s bigger than I ever thought it was going to be at the time.”

The legislature has just kept pushing back deadlines, to the detriment of children.

Lawmakers should not impose new mandates before they fully fund the ones they’ve already written. To pay for it all, legislators should close tax loopholes, including ones given to ensure Boeing, the state’s largest private employer, retains thousands of jobs in the Puget Sound area.

“I understand it’s a capitalist society, free market, whatever, but we’ve got to serve our kids so we’ve got to do the things that create equity.”

Mendoza: Doesn’t think the legislature will meet the 2018 deadline the court imposed, sees 2021 as a more realistic benchmark.

The money that the legislature has put toward meeting the court’s demands hasn’t been appropriately delineated. They’ve met requirements for funding materials, supplies and operating costs but failed to include language requiring districts to use that money for its intended purpose.

The legislature should address the local property tax system that has given rise to widely disparate teacher salaries across the state. Also backs a tax on capital gains for the wealthiest Washingtonians.

The real issue is that increases in school spending haven’t kept pace with increased spending in other areas of state government. Doesn’t, however, support cutting those other services to fund K-12.

“It is not appropriate to decimate other services that are not basic education that serve our families,” like higher education or state health and welfare programs. “We would be creating bigger problems than we have now.”

Reykdal: A budget guy at heart, thinks it’s important to understand the scope of the problem. The legislature has put in an additional $3.5 billion over two years. To come up with the other $2 to $2.5 billion the court requires, lawmakers would have to increase taxes 8 to 9 percent or cut other state services by 14 or 15 percent.

Democrats, who control the state House, can’t raise taxes enough to cover the shortfall without losing their majority, nor can Republicans cut services enough without risking their majority in the state Senate. “The political side to this thing is enormous.”

Proposes taxing capital gains, an idea pushed by Democrats. That would close about a third of the gap. Agrees with Republicans’ proposed “levy swap,” switching from a local property tax system to a statewide one. That would cover about another third. “I can get about two-thirds of the way there in a bipartisan way, and after that it is really, really difficult.”

Seaquist: Even more important than meeting the court-imposed deadline is making a difference for the millions more students who will go through an inadequately funded school system every year the legislature doesn’t act.

The next step should be putting school district leaders on a task force so they can figure out what’s really needed for basic education expenses and how best to get that money from the state.

“If they can’t do it, I will try to make my campaign a good government campaign in which we’re addressing those issues, we’re consulting with people, we’re not just running a vote-for-me-campaign, we’re running a campaign on substance that is consulting with the public and with educators on these kinds of issues.”

On charter schools

Fleming: Strong advocate for innovation in education, but believes that can be done by “keeping public money where public money belongs and is adequately monitored.” It’s not fair that not every student has the opportunity to attend an innovative charter.

Recently read “The Prize,” the story of efforts to turnaround schools in Newark, New Jersey, and took it as a cautionary tale. “The jury is out. Some charter schools do great and others don’t do well at all. I don’t think this is a time we can experiment with our kids.” (Read a defense of Newark’s reform efforts from a charter school educator here.)

Jones: Voted against the 2012 initiative that allowed charter schools, though is not opposed to innovation.

“My first response was not that I inherently don’t like the idea of innovation, but if we’re not funding what already exists, how can we responsibly take on this big financial responsibility of charter schools?”

Also doesn’t believe that charters spur traditional public schools to greater innovation.

Mendoza: Charter schools were created to offer “innovative opportunities for learning” outside the traditional school system. “I would posit that we have the potential and the ability to offer that in public education.” The Tacoma School for the Arts, for example, offers an arts-based curriculum with close ties to the city’s arts community and is run by a board of directors that has district backing.

There were two bills before the state legislature aimed at keeping the schools open while complying with the court’s ruling. The superintendent’s office, and Mendoza personally, backed one that would bring the charters under the authority of their local districts. That bill did not make it out of committee.

The other bill that did and was passed by the full Senate leaves charters under a statewide authorizer but funds them through an account that draws from the state lottery. Mendoza doesn’t care how the schools are funded so long as they’re overseen by local school boards.

Reykdal: The state Supreme Court’s decision was the right one, and there isn’t a way to have a statewide authorizer that isn’t also connected to local districts.

At a minimum, local districts should be “back in the driver’s seat as authorizers.” Even if that’s possible, is “not there yet” on the idea of charters.

“I support absolutely innovative schools, even contracted-out services, as long as local school districts authorize them and have accountability.” And that isn’t what he would call a charter school.

Seaquist: Also voted against the charter initiative. “My view is that there is plenty of creativity in the public schools”; should be more focus on what he calls “liberating learning.” Is concerned though about the 1,100 charter school children whose schools are in jeopardy. Waiting to see what solution the state legislature crafts and whether it passes constitutional muster.

On the teacher shortage

Fleming: Given all the pressures put on teachers in terms of expectations and accountability, the educational requirements and relatively low salary, “it’s no surprise there’s not a lot of people lining up” to be educators. It’s important to make teaching a valued profession.

Would work with the state’s higher education leaders, as well as with high schools, to develop a career pathway for teenagers interested in a teaching career.

Concerned not only with having sufficient teachers, but having a diverse educator workforce. “This is a very urgent time,” given that, by 2025, white children will be about 40 percent of the student population.

Jones: “We’re in crisis, and not just in the rural areas.” In her district, about half the teaching workforce is at retirement age.

The state should work to find ways to get people who already have degrees and experience in other areas to get the necessary instructional training in a year. The state should also help fund that training. Why would someone take out a $20,000 loan to earn a salary of just $35,000 a year?

And the state needs to create incentives to get teachers to rural areas, specifically new housing options and perhaps expanding loan forgiveness programs already available to teachers in urban areas to those who teach in the most remote parts of the state.

Mendoza: Deals with the issue firsthand: his office approves the emergency substitute designations that let districts fill spots last-minute with people who don’t have any kind of teaching or other educational credentials. In 2013, the office approved 1,500. The next year, it was 4,000. Predicts the problem will only get worse as teachers who would’ve retired in the last few years but were hampered by the worsening economy are now in a position financially to do so.

Pay is also an issue. Teachers are underpaid, particularly at the entry level. Would like to change state laws so that retired teachers can spend more time as substitutes. Would also like to change the rules to allow people from other states to more easily transfer their teaching credentials to Washington.

Reykdal: Puts the blame on the backs of the state legislature. In an attempt to save money, lawmakers prohibited state employees, including teachers, from taking another public-sector job after retirement. This was meant as a way to prevent people from double-dipping a state pension and salary at the same time, but has led to a big drop in the number of available substitutes.

To get more people into the classroom full time, the state needs to offer more incentives. Backs the governor’s proposal to raise the starting salary to $40,000 a year, and the state should restore professional development, which has been “cut to the bone.”

Seaquist: “The teacher shortage to me is reflecting that we have been mismanaging our schools.”

Not only concerned about the lack of new teachers entering the profession and long-term educators leaving it, but mid-career teachers who exit the classroom after working between five and 15 years.

Given his military experience, he’s interested in better managing corps of educators, making sure there’s better professional and career development for them. Also concerned about the diversity in the teaching ranks.

On testing

Fleming: Standardized tests do have a role in education, but there are many ways students can prove that they’ve learned what they’ve been taught. Would work with others around the state to find other ways to evaluate students, like portfolios or thesis projects.

Not opposed to tests as a small portion of teacher evaluations, but they shouldn't be used on their own. “That is patently unfair. It’s the same as evaluating a doctor because she didn’t cure cancer. You just can’t do that.”

Jones: Pleased the new federal K-12 law offers new flexibility on testing as well as a cap on testing time. In her district, students are tested six weeks a year, calls that “criminal.”

Also skeptical about the role of student test scores in teacher evaluations.

“I totally believe in holding teachers accountable, and I believe in teacher evaluations, but I really am challenged by this idea that a test can measure how a teacher is teaching.”

Also doesn’t think it’s fair, given how many teachers instruct in subjects that aren’t tested.

Mendoza: Tests are “critically important.” “I think districts who complain about too much testing, we only require one test as a state. Too much testing means they’re doing other tests.” Doesn’t think though that passing any single test should be a requirement for graduation.

Believes the juniors’ walkout on the SmarterBalanced test last year was because they didn’t see its value. The students had already passed all their tests needed for graduation, and weren’t aware that most colleges in Washington have agreed to use SmarterBalanced test results for college course placement.

“We think it will clean itself up as time goes on” as students realize the test’s value to learn more about themselves.

Doesn’t support tying test scores to teacher evaluations, at least in the way it’s often done. Instead, thinks teachers and principals should use the information gleaned from the tests as jumping off points for teachers’ goals. In short, it should be how teachers respond to the scores, not the scores themselves.

Reykdal: There’s been a lot of rhetoric around SmarterBalanced in Washington, but they’re ultimately good because they’re aligned with the Common Core. There are, though, too many tests. The state should stick with SmarterBalanced and “get rid of pretty much everything else.”

All states are going to have to challenge the “last great hypocrisy” in the Every Student Succeeds Act that grants an affirmative right to opt out of tests but requires states and districts to maintain a 95 percent participation rate. Thinks states could perhaps count Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, SAT or ACT exams to hit the 95 percent target.

Thinks the examples from other states makes clear that test scores shouldn’t be tied to teacher evaluations. “I think the research is clear we’re not there yet. Maybe someday we’ll find the algorithm that works better,” he says.

Seaquist: Is highly skeptical of standardized tests, at least as they’re currently given. Disappointed the No Child Left Behind rewrite continues “high-stakes federal tests.”

“My view is that this high-stakes testing regime has actually ended up sorting out our low-income, minority students with increasing efficiency. The reason why we have an equity gap is not only because the economy is leaving more and more of our families and kids behind, it’s because our school system is sorting kids with more efficiency.”

Thinks standardized tests should be given more like the National Assessment of Educational Progress (better known as NAEP), which tests a sampling of students, rather than all of them.

Also doesn’t back tying evaluations to test scores, and played a role in blocking efforts to tie the two together. That failure eventually resulted in the state losing its No Child Left Behind waiver, which was “a bit controversial, but was the right thing to do.”

On alliances, education reform and unions

Fleming: When most people say education reform, they mean charters, but that’s not the true definition of reform. “I’m for changing things for the better, and I think we have a wonderful opportunity to do that,” with the new federal education law. Specifically, would like to make education innovative and empower teachers.

Was a union member during her 13 years as a school nurse. “I strongly support unions and the right of people to bargain collectively for their benefits and salaries.”

Jones: Is running as a true non-partisan, and has tried her whole career to bring divergent views together. Gotten along well with education reform groups, and has friends in the union. Secretary is a leader in the classified employees’ union.

Union leadership isn’t universally a fan, though. “The teachers union, however, I’ve not always gotten along with, and they haven’t always liked me.” Is “a supporter of great teaching and great teachers,” and “the union can be about issues that are not related to great teaching.”

Mendoza: On the question of aligning more with education reformers or unions, is a little bit of both: “I believe in reform, but I don’t believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

Mostly fed up with those who villainize teachers, one of the most important factors in a child’s future. “I’m not pro-union as a concept, but I’m totally pro-teacher. I’m tired of our system, our state, our pundits, not only undervaluing, but demonizing teachers.”

Reykdal: Doesn’t align more with a pro-union or pro-reform camp, though thinks the race could “devolve to that.”

There’s something for candidates to like and not like with unions, who have supported the Common Core Standards but have been “very aggressive” about trying to de-link exams from evaluations. There’s also something to like and not like about business-aligned reform groups, which have been “pretty darn good about trying to fully fund our schools” but also focused on keeping standardized exams.

“It’ll be very interesting to see how this shakes out.”

(The state’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers gave Reykdal the $950 maximum donation in the 2014 primary; the Washington Education Association gave the maximum in both the primary and general election, for $1,900 total.)

Seaquist: “My stance is pro-teacher, pro-educator.” It’s important to “liberate learning” and the state should do more to support teachers. In traveling around the state, hasn’t seen “these bad teachers” that some talk about. Has areas of disagreement with the union.

(Both statewide teachers unions contributed the $1,900 maximum amount to Seaquist for both the 2014 primary and general elections. So did a political action committee affiliated with the League of Education Voters, a business-backed group focused on equitable school funding. He lost the general election that year.)

At Seattle’s Summit Sierra High School, Special Needs Students Find Success

Beth Hawkins — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Seattle, Washington) — Teacher Erica Baba is only a few minutes into a lesson on the Industrial Revolution when her ninth-grade history class skitters off track. She’s trying to tell a story about the wave of anti-Chinese sentiment that swept the West Coast in the 1880s when it becomes clear her students have wildly differing knowledge of local history.

Summit Sierra High School has been open just five months and its student body—one of the most diverse in Seattle—is on track to make an astounding three years’ academic growth in one year, according to school leader Malia Burns.

Before the teens arrived here, though, the only thing they had in common was the need for an alternative to their neighborhood schools. The school’s unique personalized learning model, shared by nine other Summit network schools in California and Washington, held the promise to finally meet their needs.

Then, two weeks into the school year, the Washington Supreme Court issued a decision that could close the state’s first nine charter schools. The threat has done more to unite Summit Sierra’s students and parents than all the community-building exercises in the world.

The controversial decision held that because charters, created two years ago by a ballot measure, do not have elected boards they do not count as the “common schools” entitled to receive revenue from the state’s general fund. Among the potential fixes before the Washington Legislature this year is a bill that would fund the schools with lottery dollars.

Carpooling from affluent hillside neighborhoods with multi-million-dollar views of Puget Sound and from blighted communities on the city’s Southside, students and parents have made the trek to the capitol in Olympia to lobby lawmakers. They’ve written letters and given tours and talked to reporters.

Summit Sierra High School student Jalen Johnson addresses the crowd rallying outside the state capitol in November to save charter schools. Photo credit: Provided by Summit Sierra High School

Confronted with the possibility of losing their new community, students and parents from different walks of life joined forces. “We all liked [the school] the minute we got there,” said student Victoria Johnson. “Our common goal was to save our school.”

Students have been making up for lost years of learning. More than half of entering freshmen were below grade level in math, and by an average of four years. Some 40 percent were behind in reading by an average of 3.5 years. Overall in the school’s first three months, students gained one year’s growth in reading and 1.25 in math.

Still, teacher Baba has her work cut out for her. The neighborhood where the school is located has experienced more than one wave of anti-Asian unrest. In the one she is asking her students to discuss, Chinese laborers were moving out of railroad construction and mining towns and into the rapidly industrializing cities. In 1886, three days of rioting ended with hundreds of immigrants dragged from their homes and forced onto ships.

On the wall Baba has projected a drawing of the violence. But as she talks, it becomes clear just one student has heard of the turmoil and of the law, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, barring immigration from China.

A girl in the back of the room wearing a hijab raises her hand: “Is this tied to internment?”

Another student jumps in, adding that Pearl Harbor was the reason the U.S. government confined Japanese Americans to camps. Someone else asks whether the Gold Rush had anything to do with industrialization.

How to unite the disparate threads? Baba writes the word “Xenophobia” next to the images from the Washington Historical Society. And yes, she says to one student after another, the events being mentioned had major impacts on the area in Seattle now known as Little Saigon—but in different eras of history.

The lesson goes to the heart of Sierra’s rapidly coalescing school culture. In an effort to recruit as diverse a freshman class as possible while complying with the law that says admissions must be race- and needs-blind, the school’s founders visited community centers, middle schools and social service agencies.

The 110 students who signed up for Summit Sierra’s inaugural year come from all over the Seattle metropolitan area. Forty percent are black, and half of those are East African. The 28 percent who are Asian or Pacific Islanders descend from immigrants from Vietnam, China, Cambodia, the Philippines and elsewhere.

Twenty percent are white and 12 percent Latino. Twelve percent of all students at Summit Sierra have special education diagnoses, the same rate as in Seattle Public Schools, as well as a number of students on the less formal, so-called 504 plans sometimes created for kids with less intensive needs. The real number will ultimately be much higher, Burns believes.

Summit Sierra has attracted a high number of students who were unable to get their previous schools to acknowledge their learning disorders. Seattle Public Schools have been under in the last three years for failing to provide appropriate special education services to disabled students.

The private schools that enroll 29 percent of the city’s school-aged children aren’t obligated to take special ed students, leaving even the wealthiest parents with few options. Charter schools in other parts of the country are frequently criticized for not doing enough to accept and educate special education students.

The neighboring Seattle Public Schools have some of the largest academic achievement gaps, with half as many black students performing at grade level in most subjects and in most years as white students. Proficiency rates for special education students are nearly as bad and scores for English language learners, even lower.

Yet resistance to change is intense. Washington became the first state in the nation to lose federal permission to shift away from No Child Left Behind when lawmakers refused to require the use of student data in teacher evaluations. The in 2013 demanded that the student body refuse en masse to take end-of-course exams.

Jalen Johnson is one of the students who testified at the legislature in November and talked to individual lawmakers. He’s whip-smart — smart enough to have digested and poked holes in the logic of the court ruling endangering his new school — yet autism, obsessive compulsive disorder and ADD make school a struggle for him.

At the start of the last school year, Johnson, who is African American, asked his very well-regarded mainline district school for an Individual Education Plan, the legal document outlining the special education services he would receive for his autism and other psychiatric diagnoses. His family’s request never received an answer, he says.

In Johnson’s case, what that has looked like is a hodge-podge of placements where the sensory issues that make school overwhelming might or might not be taken seriously.

He can’t, for instance, stand the scratching sound of a pencil. When he was very small his family enrolled him in a parochial school where he was allowed to wear headphones and to use a keyboard, which did not grate on his nerves.

But good grades notwithstanding, when it came time to make the transition to middle school his family couldn’t find a Catholic program that would enroll Johnson. So he ended up back in a regular public school.

The parents of other Summit Sierra students tell similar tales of trying and failing to get special ed services for disabled children. Margo Gilliland’s family lives in an affluent neighborhood with great schools, but has never received appropriate support for her dyslexia.

In elementary school, she was pulled out of math class every day to read out loud to a dog, on the erroneous assumption that making reading more fun would somehow smooth the wrinkles in her brain. During middle school, her mother, Lynn Gilliland, shuttled her between two schools, a private one able to provide services in the morning and in the afternoon the district school Margo’s friends attended.

Before agreeing to enroll her daughter in a brand-new program, Gilliland and her daughter actually visited one of the Summit network schools in California. “We flew to San Francisco to see them,” Lynn Gilliland said. “Now I could sell this school to anyone.”

Sierra works for the girl for the same reason it works for Jalen Johnson: A small, supportive atmosphere coupled with the intensive use of technology. Though they attend traditional classes, each student designs their own personal learning plan. When they are ready, they take an online assessment to show whether they’ve mastered a given lesson.

Lynn Gilliland threw herself into trying to keep the school open. “I thought I had retired from advocacy,” she said. “But here we go.”

In the process, she’s formed a close relationship with Natalie Hester, Victoria Johnson’s mother who lives on the very different Southside of the city. Hester’s laments about the lack of school choice in Seattle have to do with race and geography.

Because Washington was still bound by the terms of the federal No Child Left Behind law, last year her fourth-grader was eligible to transfer out of their Southside neighborhood school, which was classified as failing. Unfortunately, the school she was eligible to transfer into was failing, too.

Her older daughter Victoria had similarly lackluster options for high school. One was a school in a neighborhood that’s the site of frequent shootings. The other was Garfield High, a storied program that is home to one of the district’s two programs for high achievers. But the Hesters, who are black, knew that students of color were far more likely to be enrolled in the school’s regular program—literally separated from the high-flyers by a floor.

Hester voted against the 2012 ballot measure that created charters. She was reluctant to send her daughter to one. But she attended a presentation Sierra’s founders made at Victoria’s middle school and came away enthralled with the idea of intentional diversity.

And then, in the space of a few months, Hester found herself making the trek to the capitol to demand lawmakers find a way to keep the school open. Like many other parents whose personal experience throws the politics of school choice into stark relief, she was galvanized by spending time in a school where all kids are expected to achieve.

“They say, ‘We need time,’” Hester observed. “Well, we’ve been talking about this since the ’70s. This school wants her to be as successful as I do.”

On Jan. 20, a bill that would fund the schools using state lottery money cleared the Washington Senate. Passage in the House is less assured. Opponents, including the state’s teachers union, a plaintiff in the Supreme Court action, have mounted a vocal campaign to paint charter schools as a form of privatization.

As a result, students who have come before lawmakers have fielded as many questions about teacher working conditions and school administration as they have about the programs’ ability to meet their needs.

Jalen Johnson wanted to talk about the nuts and bolts of how technology helped him to meet his teachers’ high expectations. He was stumped when a senator asked how much his teachers were paid.

At the legislative session’s first hearing on the charters’ future, students were asked a few critical questions about class sizes, admissions procedures and other adult concerns. But for the most part senators seemed pleased to be talking with young people and their parents about their experiences.

As the first group of students rose to testify, a senator interrupted. “I’m speaking not as a senator but as a mother,” she said. “I see people in the audience who are trying to figure out how to film their kids.”

Parents scrambled to the front of the room at her invitation.

“Instead of stressing people out and not giving advice on college, you can fix this situation,” advised a Tacoma sixth-grader who said she was never encouraged to strive for higher ed at her old school.

Another sixth-grader lost her place a moment into her testimony. “Are you good?” the committee chair asks after a short pause.

A Summit Sierra student’s voice trembled as she described the nightmare her social anxiety made regular school: “I got lost at regular schools and couldn’t speak up, but now I’m going to be the first in my family to go to college.”

So what happens if the safe haven is forced to close? Margo Gilliland has a ready answer. The school potentially has enough donors to ride out this year’s political fight. But in her opinion, what will really carry the day is the school’s success.

“The more we go on,” she said, “the more people will realize the good Summit is doing.”

Washington State Senate Passes Charter Bill, Legislative Battle Advances to House

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Seattle, Washington) State senators voted 27-20 Wednesday to save Washington state charter schools after heated debate about the legislature’s larger obligation toward public education and who should have oversight over the schools.

The bill’s passage is a major step forward in the campaign begun by charter school parents, students, educators and supporters in September after the state Supreme Court ruled Washington’s nine charter schools unconstitutional.

"I'm just exhilarated,” said Rainier Prep charter school parent Shirline Wilson. “I'm completely charged and excited that we’re making forward progress and that the legislators have done a great job of listening to their constituents and seeing the merits of charters in Washington state.”

Sponsored by a group of bipartisan senators, the bill progressed quickly through committee since the legislative session opened last week. The process was marked by emotional testimony from charter students pleading with lawmakers not to take away an option they said gave them their first taste of academic success.

During tense discussions on the Senate floor Wednesday, one of the sponsors, Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island, said the bill addresses just one of the many challenges facing the state’s K-12 students.

“There is no single idea that’s going to fix this problem,” Litzow said, pointing out the large achievement gap in Washington state between middle-class and affluent white students and low-income students of color. “It’s time we start doing things differently. This is one step towards that.”

Yet some legislators disagreed that the bill was the measure that was needed when the legislature is being fined $100,000 a day by the state Supreme Court for failing to fully fund education. Referred to as the McCleary lawsuit, legislators questioned whether that sweeping imperative should take priority over the fate of charter schools. Some proposed amendments to the charter school bill, which would have added language to confirm the precedence of fully funding K-12 education.

“We have a systemic divestment in public education in this state,” said Sen. Pramila Jayapal, D-Seattle. Jayapal said she didn’t look to pit one issue against the other, but argued that the Senate needed to address its paramount duty.

Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, agreed, adding that a move to create smaller class sizes — something she heard charter students testify was beneficial to their learning — should be accessible to the other 1 million children in the state’s K-12 system, not just the roughly 1,000 students in charter schools.

Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane, proposed amending Litzow’s charter bill to place schools under the control of local district boards. Billig is the sponsor of a competing charter bill that would have required that oversight, but did not make it out of the Senate education committee.

“To provide certainty for charter students, we need a bill that moves to the middle ground,” Billig said.

However, policymakers like Litzow and Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah, have argued that while this model of local school board control over charters works well in Billig’s hometown of Spokane, the Seattle area is less charter-friendly. Districts that oppose charter schools could refuse to support existing ones or permit future expansion.

“Given the current makeup of the Seattle and Tacoma school boards, having a local school district-only passage means killing charter schools because those two districts don’t have any chance in hell of approving a charter school,” said Mullet, who is also a sponsor of Litzow’s charter bill. “I don’t think that’s a middle ground.”

Instead, Litzow’s and Mullet’s bill proposes reinstating the state charter commission enacted by the 2012 voter referendum approving charters. Board members are appointed by the governor, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House.

The makeup of the school governing board is a critical issue because it’s part of the reason the Supreme Court ruled charter schools unconstitutional for not meeting the definition of a “common school” under a 1909 state law. The charter commission’s board members are appointed rather than elected by the public, which the court said should make them ineligible to receive taxpayer dollars.

To address this concern, the charter bill passed by the Senate draws funds from the State Opportunity Pathways Account, which is financed by lottery revenues. That money also supports early learning and financial aid for higher education, however, the Senate approved an amendment Wednesday to make sure the bill doesn’t reduce funding for these groups.

Yet some legislators doubt the Supreme Court will approve of the funding switch, since it’s still drawn from public money.

“There’s insanity in doing the same thing over and over again and I believe that’s what this bill does,” said Sen. Jamie Pederson, D-Seattle, who voiced his support for helping charter students but was a no-vote on the bill. “The Supreme Court can once again shut down the system because we haven’t cured these constitutional problems.”

Sen. Bruce Dammeier, R-Puyallup, pointed out that Wednesday’s vote wasn’t about the state’s other educational woes, but about closing charter schools or keeping them open.

“We cannot turn our back on these children when they are getting a successful education,” Dammeier said. “This is the only bill in the Senate that solves the problem for these schools.”

Parents, teachers and students of charter schools testified at hearings during the past week of legislative session, most recently on Martin Luther King Day at the Ways and Means Committee..

Summit Sierra ninth-grader Jadynn Isabell told lawmakers that if she were in the traditional public school system instead of at her current charter, she would probably be “on the path of destruction,” and suspended from classes by this point in the school year. Now Isabell said she is not only thinking about attending college at either the University of California, Los Angeles or Gonzaga University, but about being an alumni and one day supporting her alma mater.

“As school started, I noticed these were the most caring teachers I have ever met,” Isabell said. “They all take their time to help me succeed.”

Green Dot Destiny Middle School teacher Rosebell Komugisha shared success statistics with senators. Her school’s population is comprised of 83 percent low-income students and 86 percent students of color. However, one-third of the student body already surpassed its year-long reading goals in the first three months of school.

Destiny sixth-grader Anngel Dillard told senators that she didn’t understand why they would close schools like hers if they wanted educated leaders for the future.

“It’s not right to take away good education,” she said. “I hope I — and all of us — can count on you guys.”

The Washington Education Association was also present at Monday’s public hearing to say that it did not support the bill and requested legislators focus attention on fully funding public schools as mandated by McCleary. They didn’t comment on whether they would bring another lawsuit against charter schools if legislation passed.

Some testimony from the hearing also took issue with the lack of local control some saw in Litzow’s bill.

“We remain concerned about expending public funds for charter schools that are not accountable to local voters by way of a locally elected school board member,” said Dan Steele from the Washington Association of School Administrators.

However, Steele said his association members would be willing to support Billig’s charter bill placing oversight with elected school boards, even though it hasn’t moved past the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee.

The other bill now goes to the House, where political observers say enough votes exist to pass it. Getting charter legislation to the floor is another matter, though, as some House leaders have a history of denying charter legislation.

Maggie Meyers, spokeswoman for pro-charter group Act Now for Washington Students, said getting the legislation through the House will be a process, but is hopeful that parent and student testimony will have the same effect on representatives as it did on senators.

"I guess it's Part One,” said Summit Sierra charter school parent Natalie Johnson. “I've heard that the House is more difficult and I felt that the Senate was difficult. I'm not totally jumping for joy yet. it sounds like they're tougher to crack. I hate to put a negative spin on it but we’re not done. I'm happy and I appreciate them listening to us and the kids."

Legislative Battle Begins to Save Washington State Charters — Who Will Prevail?

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

(Olympia, Washington) — Last year, Tatiana Cueva was a C student. She’d complete her homework but neglect to turn it in. When she didn’t understand something in class, she felt too uncomfortable to ask for help. College never made her list of priorities.

Cueva recalls being just another student on track to pass rather than excel in academics. But then her parents found a new school for her: Summit Olympus charter school in Tacoma. The attention she received there changed everything, she said.

Now with dreams for college, Cueva appeared in front of the Washington State Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee Tuesday to share her story and ask legislators not to shutter her school.

“I am actually excited to have a successful future and I am motivated to get into an exclusive dance college in New York,” she said. “These public charter schools prep us for that.”

It was the first legislative step taken to address two bills aimed at preserving the state’s eight charter schools. Many students from these schools have been fighting since September to keep their classrooms open after the state Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional.

For students like Cueva, these schools of choice make sense. But the hearing proved that charters kindle intense debate over how to define a charter school, and whether that definition can coexist with the state’s constitution.

The court ruled charters unconstitutional and so not entitled to public school funding because they were overseen by appointed, rather than elected, boards. That distinction, the court said, meant they did not meet the definition of a “common school” under a 1909 state law.

The bills disagree on what public body should hold charter schools accountable. One proposes charters report to and be authorized by the elected boards of local school districts. That structure would qualify them for state funding.

The other bill reinstates the independent charter school board enacted by the 2012 voter referendum. Those board members are appointed by the governor, President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House. Under the second scenario, the schools would take funding from the state’s Opportunity Pathways Account, which draws from lottery revenues.

Legislators sponsoring both bills agreed that charter schools shouldn’t be seen as a silver bullet for fixing education, but rather, one of many possible solutions.

“The era of one-size-fits all for education needs to be over,” said Sen. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane.

The majority of pro-charter school testimony favored Sen. Steve Litzow’s bill, R-Mercer Island, which reinstates an independent charter school authorizer. Yet debate at the hearing focused less on which bill was better and instead whether either bill should be considered at all.

During public testimony, the teachers union said it opposed both bills, arguing that public schools have also proven they can offer the diverse innovation charter advocates say are unique to their educational models.

Charter opponents, who successfully sued to outlaw the schools, also urged state lawmakers to focus instead on resolving a court order involving statewide funding equity brought on by the so-called McCleary lawsuit.

“With the McCleary issue still not addressed, we respectfully ask that this session focus on the following: That the legislature’s time and attention be focused on implementing a plan to fully fund public schools so that all of Washington’s 1.1 million students can get the quality education they deserve,” said Lucinda Young, a representative from the Washington Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

The League of Women Voters, represented by Pat Griffith, agreed that the funding question should take precedence over charter schools. This session offers only 60 days to address McCleary which fines the legislature $100,000 per day for failing to fully fund education. Griffith also addressed accountability concerns for charter schools because they are overseen by appointed rather than elected school boards.

While charter school critics said charter academic gains aren’t better than those of traditional public schools, charter parents, students and educators shared anecdotal testimony otherwise. They talked about how these schools have made a drastic difference in their lives.

Students said their charter schools prepared them for college, offered support from teachers, small class sizes and an enthusiasm for learning they hadn’t found in public schools.

“I’m starting to get even more prepared for college,” said sixth-grader Sicily Johnson, who attends Destiny Charter Middle School in Tacoma. After a pause she leaned forward into the microphone and added, “and I’m getting a little bit better in academics. It is important to help us now because we are running out of time to save charter schools.”

Parents with multiple children shared how charter and traditional public schools served their family’s different needs.

“For my family, it is not about district public schools versus charter public schools,” said charter school parent Danielle Davis. “It is about what is the best possible solution for my children.”

When Pride Prep founder Brenda McDonald compared her time working in Spokane Public Schools versus her time leading a charter, she said she found a greater pressure for accountability in the latter. She said parents at her school tell her that they no longer have to fight with their children to get them to attend class.

Led by Act Now for Washington Students, charter school proponents have been active since the Supreme Court’s September ruling. They’ve written op-eds, aired commercials during Seahawks’ football games, rallied in Olympia and met with legislators. Earlier Tuesday, students and parents wove through the labyrinth of Olympia legislative offices to pass out session survival kits with treats and cold medicine.

“We’re here with a message,” Summit Olympus ninth-grader Jeff Little addressed legislative assistants. He handed them survival kits and asked them to support his charter school.

“Charter schools affect everyone,” Little said. “We all learn differently. Charter schools know how you’re unique and embrace that.”

Excel Public Charter School parent Deanne Hilburn said she’s been encouraged by lawmakers’ willingness to listen and engage with students.

“I want to keep the schools open because my son is so happy in his school,” she said. “It’s worth it to make our voices known.”

After public testimony concluded, committee member Sen. Ann Rivers, R-La Center, said she was excited to witness so many students taking charge of their education, but expressed concern that a law passed by the voters could be overturned so easily.

“When do we get to pick and choose our democracy?” Rivers said.

Committee member Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Kitsap County, said she hopes to find a solution to keep the students’ schools open. However, she added that unless the legislation is structured perfectly, she would see it as opening doors to widespread privatization of public schools.

“I’m hopeful the (charter bill) sponsors will be open to amendments,” she said.

A vote on one or both bills is expected in an upcoming Senate committee meeting but no date has been set.

Rival Bills to Save Washington Charters Hinge on Who Will Run Them

Kate Stringer — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

Seattle, Washington

The fight over whether Washington state’s nascent charter school movement will survive past this year lands squarely in the laps of state lawmakers this week who reconvene with — not one — but two charter bills to consider.

The bills both purport to keep the schoolhouse doors open for the more than 1,100 Washington families clinging to school choice but diverge on how best to do that. The political reality of two competing bills may be complicated but better than none, supporters said.

“There are 10,000 boogeymen out there but there’s a growing willingness from the legislature to fix this problem,” said Cynara Lilly, spokeswoman for the charter school advocacy group, Act Now for Washington Students.

The first bill proposes that the eight remaining charter schools come under the authority of their local districts’ elected school boards. This structure would negate a central argument the state Supreme Court used in early September to rule Washington’s charter schools unconstitutional. The court said charters did not qualify for public funding as “common schools” because they were overseen by appointed, rather than elected, boards.

The second bill would leave charter schools under the Washington State Charter School commission but would shift their funding stream to the state’s Opportunity Pathways Account, which draws from lottery revenues and is not restricted to common schools. Both proposed bills will be the subject of a hearing Tuesday.

“This is about improving our current system,” said Sen. Steve Litzow, R-Mercer Island. “No one wants to be on the side of denying 1,300 low-income children of color a good education.”

Litzow chairs the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee and is one of four bipartisan lawmakers to co-sponsor the second Senate bill.

Sens. Andy Billig, D-Spokane, and Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, co-sponsored the first. Once control of charters is passed to local school boards, those boards may then grant them decision-making power on staffing, curriculum or budgeting.

“It’s an effort to get as close to current initiative language as we can get and have an argument that’s constitutional,” Billig said, referring to the 2012 statewide voter referendum approving charter schools.

However, some critics view the bill as giving too much power to the districts.

“This bill is a repeal,” said Liv Finne, director of the conservative Washington Policy Center. “It takes away all autonomy and gives it to the school districts.”

Billig argues it’s good policy to give districts some control over charters because they can better coordinate specialized schooling and provide accountability to the taxpayer.

Some worry that a district-authorizer model would stunt charter school growth. They point to Virginia where school boards oversee charter schools and where there are only nine in the entire state despite being allowed by law since 1998. In contrast, Washington D.C., which has permitted charters since 1996, authorizes them through the DC Public Charter School Board and has more than 100 charter school campuses.

Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president for state advocacy and support for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, recommends states allow multiple methods for authorizing charters in case hostile school districts deny charter applications for fear of competition. The Washington voter initiative allowed for 40 charters to open over five years.

Politicians say that a district-authorizing model could work well in Spokane, which has a school choice-friendly environment. But Seattle sits on the other side of the state and the ideological spectrum. Out of 30 U.S. cities, Seattle ranked 26 when it came to a choice-friendly environment, according to a 2015 from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

However, that doesn’t mean attitudes can’t change. Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, recalled that Denver used to have a hostile attitude toward charter schools when they were first allowed. Gradually, tensions eased and now Denver Public Schools, which collaborate and share resources with its charters, is held up as a model of positive co-existence.

Despite the tense atmosphere toward school choice in Washington, legislators and advocates say they are optimistic charter bills have a chance.

“I’m hopeful because of the voices of children and parents and how they reacted to (the Supreme Court ruling),” Finne said.

Those voices will be raised in Olympia again Tuesday when charters school parents and students from Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane plan to descend on the capitol to testify at two Senate panel committees and meet with legislators. They will be bringing “survival kits”— Emergen-C, cough drops, mints — to lawmakers as a show of appreciation.

“Any elected official who met with families will have a hard time sleeping at night if they don’t help these people out,” said Sen. Mark Mullet, D-Issaquah, who also co-sponsored the second Senate bill. “For me, it’s not whether you love or hate charters. It’s about the families in the state right now who are happy with their schools.”

The 60-day session is a short one, but even so, legislators say they aren’t worried that a second complex education issue — McCleary school funding lawsuit – will draw attention away from charter schools. The state legislature is being fined $100,000-a-day for failing to meet a mandate from the Supreme Court to fully fund education.

Legislators report there are enough votes in the House and the Senate to pass a charter school bill. However, obstacles remain. The House Education Committee Chair Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle, declined to allow consideration of charter school bills in the past, according to a , and some pro-charter legislators are concerned she might do the same this session. Santos did not return a request for comment.

Other hurdles legislators point out are House Speaker Frank Chopp, who may not allow legislation onto the floor. Gov. Jay Inslee, could also refuse to sign it. Both Democratic politicians have received campaign donations from the teachers unions — Chopp in 2014 alone took the and the to a PAC that supported Inslee’s 2012 election. The WEA was an appellant in the Supreme Court case against charter schools and campaigned hard to defeat the voter referendum.

Chopp has been in power for 14 years but he Democratic majority in the House. He did not return a request for comment.

Sen. Bruce Dammeier R-Puyallup, vice chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee for School Finance, said any vote on charter schools should take a leap beyond politics.

“A child’s education should not be dependent on zip code and right now, sadly, it is. Charter schools are an answer, they are not the answer,” Dammeier said. “They are one of the tools that we need to meet the needs of students in horribly underserved school districts.”

When Inslee was asked last week how he would respond to a charter bill, he said both educational innovation and accountability to the taxpayers should be heeded.

“Those two principles need to be embedded in any action (legislators) take,” Inslee said.

Litzow has faith in the governor.

“I am confident we will get to the kids,” he said. “I believe if it passes, the governor will sign it.”

Opinion: Actions Louder Than Words: Why Washington Lawmakers Must Save State’s Charter Schools

Lisa Macfarlane — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

The Seventy Four reports on the Washington Supreme Court decision:

Seattle, Washington

A great education is a bridge to so many opportunities in life — a family-sustaining job, a safe home, and a chance for a better life.

When Washington voters passed the state’s public charter school law in 2012, they approved what 40 other states and the District of Columbia already have — public charter schools that provide families with more choices to better meet the educational needs of their children.

But in a confusing and unprecedented decision issued after nine public charter schools had opened their doors, the state Supreme Court threw out Washington’s voter-approved public charter school law. Consequently, Washington students, their families, and charter school teachers and staff were thrown into legal limbo just when they should have been focusing on a strong start to a successful academic year.

Thanks to a temporary patch enabled by a partnership with the Mary Walker School District in eastern Washington, support from the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, and other creative options, schools will stay open through the current school year. These short-term arrangements were designed to minimize any disruption to the education of more than 1,100 students until the legislature can act in its upcoming session.

When the legislature convenes on Jan. 11, Washington state legislators must take action to pass a new strong charter school law that fixes the funding glitch in our previous law. It is our legislators’ responsibility to ensure more Washington families have great public education options for years to come.

Public charter schools are tuition-free, open to all students, and provide innovative learning environments tailored to each student. In exchange for meeting more rigorous accountability measures, educators and school leaders have more flexibility to personalize instruction and meet their students’ needs. These schools offer families an option within the public school system, thereby enhancing and strengthening the larger public school system.

In Washington state, traditional school districts and public charter schools are working together for the benefit of all: the Spokane School District authorized two local schools and actively shares resources and best practices. The first wave of Washington’s public charter schools were designed to nurture and enhance the potential of all students. These schools are, in fact, serving the populations most in need of additional school choices. Nearly 70 percent of Washington’s public charter school students come from low-income households.

This is why both Democrats and Republicans have embraced charter schools as an additional piece of the larger education puzzle. Charter schools are not the only solution, but they can show the way to stronger public schools that better meet the needs of underserved students. It is worth noting that President Obama, former President Bill Clinton, presumptive 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton, and countless other federal and state Democratic officials are all strong charter school supporters.

Leaders on both sides of the aisle agree that the court’s decision was wrong. Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat—along with four former state attorneys general, including Republican Rob McKenna and Democrat Christine Gregoire—condemned the court’s decision alongside a bipartisan group of state lawmakers from both the House and the Senate.

Unfortunately, the court declined to reconsider its decision.

Determined to save their schools, more than 400 students and parents representing each of the nine public charter schools met last month with legislators and rallied in front of the state capitol, gathered for a teach-in on the capitol grounds, testified at a Senate committee hearing, and visited legislators in their offices. The students’ message to lawmakers, “fix this mess” was delivered and received loud and clear.

After meeting with students and visiting one of the new charter schools, an increasing number of Washington’s Democratic legislators are now saying that they do not want to close any schools.

But actions speak louder than words. These students and their families now need lawmakers to have the courage of their convictions. Legislators need to pass a new charter school law with a different funding source, and Gov. Jay Inslee needs to sign it, so all of these students — and the countless others who have yet to benefit — can continue to have great public school options.

VIDEO: Washington State Schools Unconstitutional? What You Need to Know (in 150 Seconds)

��Ӱ�� and Bellwether Education Partners — Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

A school crisis in Washington state has now entered a fourth month.

After a state Supreme Court decision ruled Washington’s charter schools unconstitutional, students and parents have been thrown into limbo land. In 2012, voters across the state approved a law that would allow up to 40 schools in the state to open over five years. But in September, just days into the 2015-2016 school year, the state’s highest court said that because charters are run by an appointed board or nonprofit organization, rather than an elected school board subject to local voter control, they didn’t fit the constitution’s definition of “common school.”

More than 1,000 families are now left wondering whether their child’s school will survive, and how quickly the recently-reconvened state legislature will turn to two separate pieces of legislation that would provide a funding fix for charters.

More from The Seventy Four: See our complete coverage of the Washington charter school decision.

WA Charters – ����Ӱ��

This Time, Washington State Supreme Court Upholds Charter School Law

Are Charter Schools Legal in Washington State? As Sector Continues to Grow, Court Will Take Up the Question — Again

Rescuing Washington’s Charter Schools

DeVos Visits Washington State, Where the Charter School Sector Has Expanded Even as Lawsuit Threatens to Shut It Down

‘A Huge Win’: Washington State Charter School Supporters Celebrate Major Courtroom Victory

Video: ‘Rescuing Washington’s Charter Schools’ Tells Story of Parents’ Determination

Washington State Charter School Supporters, Opponents Look Ahead to a Critical Year

‘We Deserve to Have a Choice’: Families Intervene in New Washington Lawsuit Over Charter Schools

Saved: How WA Parents, Students, Advocates and Educators Rescued Their Charter Schools

In Washington State, Both Senate and House Approve Last-Minute Bill to Save Charter Schools

Her Last Battle: Advocate for Black Students Back in the Fray to Save WA Charters

Facing a Thursday Deadline, and Lawmakers’ Silence, WA Students Fight to Keep Their Schools Alive

Opinion: Rees: As Washington State Nears Historic Charter School Deadline, Lawmakers Should Choose Wisely

Opinion: Robin Lake: Shameful Claim to Fame – Will Washington Become First State to Shutter Successful Schools?

Washington House Fails to Act on Charter Bill as Dems Search for Alternative and Deadline Looms

Twenty Days and Counting: Bill to Save WA Charter Schools Moves to House as Session Nears End

Why the Race for the Washington State Schools Chief Is Complicated — and Could be the Last

Facing Closure, Washington State Charter Schools Release Data Showing Students Excelling

Funding Crisis, Charter War, Teacher Shortage: Who Wants to be WA. State Schools Chief? These Five.

At Seattle’s Summit Sierra High School, Special Needs Students Find Success

Washington State Senate Passes Charter Bill, Legislative Battle Advances to House

Legislative Battle Begins to Save Washington State Charters — Who Will Prevail?

Rival Bills to Save Washington Charters Hinge on Who Will Run Them

Opinion: Actions Louder Than Words: Why Washington Lawmakers Must Save State’s Charter Schools

VIDEO: Washington State Schools Unconstitutional? What You Need to Know (in 150 Seconds)

WA Charters – ��Ӱ��