Seattle Schools Community Forum

Initiative 1240's rules for conversion charters has some clarity, some flexibility, and some elements that make no sense at all. To follow along you'll want quick access to the text of the initiative .

Liv Finne has written a blog piece about the WSPTA's vote in opposition to I-1240. The article appears on the W ashington Policy Center blog and also on Crosscut . Her premise is that the PTA Legislative Assembly voted to support charter schools, but the WSPTA Board, in a fit of anti-democratic elitism, negated that vote by deciding to voice opposition to I-1240, thereby going against the will of their constituents. It's an effective bit of rhetoric that will be convincing - for folks who don't know anything about the issue other than what Ms Finne has told them. It is also, of course, completely false.

A new editorial from the Seattle Times encourages the Washington State PTA to reconsider their opposition to initiative I-1240,  State PTA should rethink opposition to charter-school initiative . It is ironic for the Times to ask the PTA to think twice about it because the Times has yet to think even once about it. The WSPTA's opposition to the initiative is thoughtful, nuanced, supported by facts, and aligned with their principles. The Seattle Times' support for the initiative is reflexive, in denial about the facts, and completely without principle. The Times is getting skewered in the comments, but I don't know if many folks read the comments. They sure aren't read by the folks who read the print edition. When will the Seattle Times have an open discussion of education issues? Never.

Here is the estimate from the Office of Financial Management

From the Times , a reporter that the latest Elway poll shows, same-sex marriage, tax limits, charter schools and pot legalization are ahead but only one - Tim Eyman's - is over 50%. “Because support typically fades as the campaign goes on, a ballot measure needs to be polling at 60 percent or better at the start of the summer to still have a majority in November,” Elway wrote. Elway’s poll showed I-1240, which authorizes publicly funded charter schools, led by 46 percent to 37 percent. Charter school measures have lost three times previously, in in 1996, 2000 and 2004. That leaves 17% of voters undecided.   The poll surveyed 405 registered voters from July 18 through July 22 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent. It's not money that will decide the charter vote; it's education on an education issue.  It's telling the full and complete truth about charters and, very specifically, about this initiative. It doing a cost-benefit analysis -...

I am preparing an annotated analysis of 1240 so that anyone and everyone can see exactly what it says (and does not say which is the case in many places). First, do NOT bother to write a comment " Melissa, there is no perfect bill or initiative" because I'm sorry - this is an aggressive and vague charter school initiative and there is every reason to be suspicious of it.   (Again, like many things that Charlie and I disagree with, if this initiative had been well-written and yes, "modest and reasonable" then I would have far less ground to stand on. ) So let's start with the opening section, 101 , which is basically a preamble.  You'd think I wouldn't find much here but they get out the gate with a lot of what is overblown and not data-provable rhetoric.

So there seems to be a couple of themes emerging from the pro-charter side.  First, it seemed it was about choice. " Why do you oppose choice for poor children?"   This is what one of the $100k donors said to me. So first of all, that's a fairly unfair and disrespectful thing to say.  There is no one that would oppose choice for poor children.   What is hard to understand is this belief that you can equalize everything in education for all children.   (Teach for America and charter school supporters believe this and it's a great slogan but it's not reality-based.) For example, we can't give every single child the option of a private school education (Bill Gates not withstanding as he recently lauded his childhood school, Lakeside, and said he wanted a Lakeside experience for all kids.  Don't we all, Bill, don't we all?)  Better education?  Absolutely.  But what is interesting is this idea that charters are so innovative a...

The Stranger Slog is reporting that Bill Gates' spending for I-1240 -which is not even on the ballot yet - is over $1M.     Fine, he wants a fight, he'll get one. People of Seattle please understand. This is NOT about right and wrong - it's about telling the truth. Gates, Allen, League of Education Voters, Stand for Children, all these people supporting charters will NOT tell you the truth about what this initiative will or will not mean to Washington State. They will give you hearts and flowers, challenge you on why you (yes, you) don't want to allow poor and disadvantaged children choices and tell you charters are better. Overall, they are not.   I will tell the ENTIRE truth about charters and this initiative (because folks, what we end up with is what is in THIS initiative). We won't win on money but we will win (or have a fighting chance) if people promise to do their duty as voters and listen and ponder what they are told. And, lo...

Update: LEV has a daily news round-up and yet are silent on these two pieces (despite the fact that they are helping to sponsor this initiative).  Now I get them not wanting to link to anything written here but not The Stranger?  Odd.  Our friends over at The Stranger Slog were kind enough to ask me to write a No on 1240 piece and had another parent write a Yes on 1240 piece.  The focus of each piece and the comments (and numbers of) are interesting. One thing I find interesting is The Stranger is becoming a bigger player as a voice of editorial power in this town.  I know some of you may disagree - I am not saying they are the Times - but in Seattle, I think many voters who do not want to listen to the Times have turned away to The Stranger. The Stranger, for all its smarty-pants, foul-mouth talk, does do its homework.  And, they do call themselves out when they get it wrong.  You don't find that kind of humility that often. As I ponder the...

I missed these on Saturday but the Times' Brian Rosenthal was out and about on Saturday and here's what he heard from signature gatherers (reported via his tweets): Charter school signature-gatherer's message isn't exactly accurate: "Hey, can you sign a petition to get more funding in education?" ‪ Charter school signature-gatherer says he's from California, 1 of ~400 ppl here. But he doesn't think they'll meet the deadline. ‪ Ran into 1st charter school petition signature-gatherer (at gay pride). He says he's getting paid $4/signature That's $14 an hour and $4 a signature.  No wonder their Craigslist ad says you could make $1,000 a month.   And yet they had to import them from California?  Interesting.   Update:  I had thought the Yes on 1240 would have thru July 6th to get signatures but it seems it is July 5th with all petitions due to the Secretary of State's office by July 6th. Opinions please; will the...

The charter school initiative, if approved, would create a time bomb that would seriously threaten Seattle Public Schools. The threat doesn't come from the possibility of a charter school organization creating a school in Seattle - at least not if they get their own building. The threat comes from the possibility of a conversion. A conversion occurs when a majority (50% plus 1) of either the teachers or the families at a school request conversion to a charter. If that were to happen at an attendance area school, then the school would become, essentially, an option school. The attendance area boundaries all around the school would have to change to cover the converted school's attendance area so that every student had an attendance area school. There is no school in Seattle that has any excess capacity to speak of. Any addition to the attendance area of any school - particularly one of this scale - would result in the instant overcrowding of the school to something like 13...

Here is the Decline to Sign flyer .   There are two to a page to save printing costs.  It's fairly basic but we wanted to hit the biggest charter issues.  Where to take these?  First, consider going local (but there are other venues as well): - farmers market near you - ferries - supermarkets - Target - UW - Red Square (better on weekdays) Sat 3 p.m./Sun 2:00 p.m. US 2012 Olympic Team Trials for Diving - could get to people from all over the state King County Aquatic Center, Federal Way  Friday,  June 22nd - King of the Beach Volleyball sign-ups at Alki in West Seattle , 6 p.m. Sat, June 23rd  -Rock n' Roll Half/Marathon, Seattle Center, 7 am to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 24th -Gay Pride parade 11 am - starts at 4th and Union to Denny Way and 2nd. Plus tons of other events. Beacon Rocks!  Beacon Hill festival from 1-5 p.m. Tuesday, June 26th - June 26th - Foster the People concert at WaMu theater at 8 p.m Where not to g...

It seems that some signature gathers for I-1240 are making some false claims.  Now this may be entirely legal (I'm actually not sure but others are looking into this; I think the burden falls on the voter to read the initiative.) But I'd like to document them so on the Tuesday and Friday Open Thread, please list if you hear an I-1240 signature gatherer making a false claim. Here's mine: On Monday, Jun 18th, at about 10 am I was at the Northgate Target where I heard a woman being told that I-1240 was just a "pilot" program for charters.  That language is nowhere in the initiative.  And again, I invite you to correct me if I get anything wrong.  I did correct one error in my reading; charters can contract out only management (and nearly everything else) to a for-profit.  They can contract out only operations to another non-profit (which is what most CMOs - charter management organizations are).   They are one of the biggest growing sectors in char...

Just checking in over at the Yes on 1240 website and they finally(!) have the text of the initiative up.  Still, you have to wonder - if they want you to sign the petition for it and vote for it, why wouldn't it have been there in the first place? They now have about $750k in their coffers from: Democrats for Education Reform WA PAC (that would be contributors from Leslie Hanauer, Steve Sundquist and others) Gates has given $386k Education Voters Political Action Fund (that would be the Amazon family, the Bezos, about $75k) Stand for Children WA PAC (more Bezos family members) Went by Costco today.  Please to see that they don't allow any kind of solicitation or petitioning on their sites.  

This week, Orlando, FL is hosting the U.S Conference of Mayors.  According to Reuters, "hundreds" of mayors endorsed "parent trigger" laws... "...aimed at bypassing elected school boards and giving parents at the worst public schools the opportunity to band together and force immediate change." Well, it does force change but is it change the only outcome parents create?  Generally so.  The adage "be careful what you wish for" surely applies here to those parents. I called Mayor McGinn's office and they are going to let me know if he voted on this issue and if he did, how he voted.  It will be a great disappointment if he voted yes.   Parent trigger laws are in place in several states including California, Texas and Louisiana and are under consideration in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. So far, though, the concept has never successfully been used to turn around a school. Though it has not yet been shown t...

Let's start with Diane Ravitch's call at her blog for ed reform stories from around the country.  It's staggering to read and most are about charters. Last Stand for Children First Illinois about how turnaround schools happen in their state. Diane's blog again - a story about the " American Indian Charter School " in Oakland, CA.   The school is about 86% Asian-American, not Native American.  It has been a high-performing middle school but parents and former teachers complained.  An audit found that $3.7M were wrongly spent by the founder and his wife.  (The founder told Newsweek that he thought it would help to get rid of school boards.  He also said he would prefer the Ku Klux Klan to the teachers' unions.)  I'm with Diane; if you can't trust them with the money, do you believe the test scores? Via Huffington Post by the Detroit News, some pretty sad but not surprising news:  The majority of the Motor City's charter high schools...

I didn't say this in either of my threads on not signing the charter school petitions or about the pro campaign. Any statements I make about what is and isn't in initiative 1240 are based on my reading of the initiative.  Two other parents read it thoroughly as well (I won't name them because I didn't ask yet) and we cross-referenced our reading. Anything I say, I am happy to back up with a citation of page and section from the initiative.   Just ask. I am confident in my reading of the initiative but if someone sees something I missed or perhaps have wrong, speak up.  But again, I worked with other people to make sure of my understanding of this incredibly dangerous initiative. There in no link to the initiative at the pro-side's website.  They are not going to fully explain everything in the initiative.  They are not going to name citations from the initiative to back up what they are saying are "facts".  You are only going to see that here....

A bit tepid, their website .  It's called - big surprise - "Yes on 1240".  (Interestingly, a web designer I know told me "No on 1240" domain name is taken - very clever.  Only I don't think anyone would want it because, as the designer pointed out, it would read in the URL "noon1240".) There are several things to note about this website: There is NO link to the actual initiative.  Why wouldn't you want people to be able to read what you want them to support?  That says it all.   They say "There will also be an evaluation at the end of the five-year period to determine whether additional public charter schools should be allowed."  See, it's not a pilot project.  Also, if this thing passes, I'd bet money they will ask for the cap to be raised in three years. Of course, they are urging people to "simply" sign the petition so voters can "consider the facts."  I find this very funny because it has NEVER...

The judge in Superior Court heard the challenge to Initiative 1240 yesterday and rejected most of WEA's reasoning (with a few tweaks).    Stand for Children issued a statement saying all the changes from the WEA had been rejected but apparently they don't bother to keep up with what actually happens in court.  They say they will use a combination of volunteer and paid signature gatherers (but there is no legal way to find out how many of each but I suspect an ARMY of paid).  They need about 250,000 signatures to be on the ballot but it would be good to get at least 300,000 for safety's sake. The title now says "Initiative Measure No. 1240 concerns creation of a public charter school system." I totally agree with this as voters need to know this is a system and not just a few schools. The concise description is still over by 3 words but the WEA missed that. Bill Gates has given $200k to the cause and Nick Hanauer has kicked in money as well.  It ...

The Washington Education Association has filed a challenge to the ballot title and summary for 1240, the charter school initiative. A hearing is set for tomorrow morning in Thurston County Superior Court. I don't know that the judge will actually rule on it tomorrow (Friday is the day the judge hears all motions so I don't know if there will be time.) The judge must rule within five days (and undoubtedly will be asked to hurry it as they need as much time as possible to get signatures). I will gently point out that if time was the issue, the supporters should have made the decision to get this filed much, much sooner. They have no one to blame for themselves for this short window of time. From the News Tribune comes their coverage. This is a funny story for me as yesterday, I traveled to Olympia to file a challenge as well. I was not successful. It is a Kafkaesque tale to be sure and a reminder that while we have laws, we may not always be able to access them as regu...