One Quick Point on the Charter School Ruling
Remember all that hair-pulling and finger-pointing when the Washington Supreme Court issued its ruling on the charter school law right before school opened last September?
Well, I sat down and watched the interview with Chief Justice Madsen on TVW.
(You should watch the whole thing. She is quietly deferential to the other branches of government and careful about what she says. The second half of the show was Rep. Matt Manweller and Rep David Frockt talking about the McCleary issue. Rep. Manweller could not have been more disrespectful to the Court. It's fine to disagree but if anyone is taking this to a constitutional crisis, it's some in the legislature.)
But I digress. That point I wanted to make was brought up when host, Austin Jenkins, asked about that timing of the ruling? Chief Justice Madsen pointed out the average time for most cases to go thru the Court and that the charter school case was, indeed, about average at 90-120 days.
Then she said the Court has a mechanism, for either side, to request an EXPEDITED ruling.
Neither side filed for that.
Think about that? If you were so worried about charter schools in Washington State, wouldn't you have filed for an expedited ruling?
Well, that is if you truly cared about the families.
Savvy lawyers -like the ones hired by the defendants - would have known how long it takes for cases to go thru the Court. They could have figured out the timing of the ruling.
But what if you were a bunch of charter supporters, like Bill Gates, who thought it best to get as many charter schools open as you could. How would it look for the Supreme Court to rule against those schools and their families? Why, the Court just couldn't make such a ruling.
But they did and I say again, the charter supporter adults running the show gambled with children's academic lives and lost.
Well, I sat down and watched the interview with Chief Justice Madsen on TVW.
(You should watch the whole thing. She is quietly deferential to the other branches of government and careful about what she says. The second half of the show was Rep. Matt Manweller and Rep David Frockt talking about the McCleary issue. Rep. Manweller could not have been more disrespectful to the Court. It's fine to disagree but if anyone is taking this to a constitutional crisis, it's some in the legislature.)
But I digress. That point I wanted to make was brought up when host, Austin Jenkins, asked about that timing of the ruling? Chief Justice Madsen pointed out the average time for most cases to go thru the Court and that the charter school case was, indeed, about average at 90-120 days.
Then she said the Court has a mechanism, for either side, to request an EXPEDITED ruling.
Neither side filed for that.
Think about that? If you were so worried about charter schools in Washington State, wouldn't you have filed for an expedited ruling?
Well, that is if you truly cared about the families.
Savvy lawyers -like the ones hired by the defendants - would have known how long it takes for cases to go thru the Court. They could have figured out the timing of the ruling.
But what if you were a bunch of charter supporters, like Bill Gates, who thought it best to get as many charter schools open as you could. How would it look for the Supreme Court to rule against those schools and their families? Why, the Court just couldn't make such a ruling.
But they did and I say again, the charter supporter adults running the show gambled with children's academic lives and lost.
Comments
And that is exactly the tactic the lawyers, the Repubs, the shadowy charter backers, the outfront PACS, the charter operators and by design, the students-families are taking with their robocalls and demonstrations and thousands of dollars in advertising: How dare the court close our schools! Save the kids! Who is busing the kids and families to Olympia? The puppet-string-pullers. The charterites.
What a bunch of cold calculating political flimflam, with kids at the center of the fake outrage.
Again: Only the families and students were manipulated. They didn't know. Everyone else did. Charter families were manipulated by the charter enthusiasts and profiteers themselves. The point needs repeating over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
NoCharters
If a charter bill passes, we may see continued attempts to expand charters. Then, any effort to abolish schools which were formed under an unconstitutional law would be very difficult. They would repeatedly load up the busses, campaign etc....we'd see the same as we saw this year, but more students would be involved.
Charter schools REFUSED to close their doors after the Supreme Court ruling.
Charter schools need to be closed.
Am I being overly optimistic here or does this point of view hold water? Not that I will stop sending letters and advocating mind you, but come the end of the session can we all breathe a bit easier and can I stop waiting for the big monied other shoe to drop?
Sorry, no.
They will have a new initiative to roll out in the fall. Guaranteed.
Will charters try to sign new people up? Sure they will (and are.) And I'd lay odds they are NOT clearly explaining the situation to parents just as they didn't last year.
Chad Magendanz is desperately trying to get JUST the funding for the charter schools for next year right now because I think time has run out to write a bill that is both palatable AND constitutional. Problem is, funding out be for these quasi-public schools, NOT charter schools because there is no charter law.
If there was a funding bill, the King County Superior Court could, in theory, say, "okay, you fixed the funding so now the charter law is okay." Except that there were other issues with the law that the Supreme Court did NOT address (nor did the KC Superior court on the first round) so I don't think that's a real possibility.
I don't think taxpayers should be funding quasi-public/private schools that are not clearly delineated as to what they are.
This is a sad situation but one that could have been avoided. Again, that's on charter supporters.
But, many of us are going to fight on.
I know who you are and many of these readers do as well. You do yourself no favors with these vindictive posts (which, by the way, show a very low understanding of how things work in the university academic world.)