Seattle Schools Community Forum

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 sa...

Update: in the "We Must Keep Our Standards High" category, from Diane Ravitch: Malala Yousafzai is the Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban on her way to school; she survived to became a world-famous advocate for girls’ education.  She won the Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy and courage.  She decided she wants to go to Stanford University to study politics and philosophy. But Stanford will not accept her unless she takes the SAT and presumably scores the requisite points. I think this is one reason why my husband liked Berkeley over Stanford (he had degrees from both). end of update. Finishing the first early days of the school year ; how goes it? I would urge you to consider carefully the FERPA form you will get in your First Day packet.  Personally, I would sign away as little as I could.  I will verify this but I have been previously told that it is a principal decision about whether students can or cannot be in the student yearbook if ...

Someone, quick, get me a lawyer! Naturally, I go out of town and this ruling comes down and I am scrambling to get info and understand it. Here is the basic understanding of Judge Rietschel's ruling per Diane Ravitch: “ In a ruling issued today (pdf), King County Superior Court Judge Jean Rietschel has tossed out the heart of Washington State’s charter schools law on the grounds that it violates the constitutional provision that state education revenues be “exclusively applied to the support of the common schools.” “But, Judge Rietschel concludes: “ A charter school cannot be defined as a common school because it is not under the control of the voters of the school district. The statute places control under a private non-profit organization, a local charter board and/or the Charter Commission.” “In other words, charter schools may not be funded with state dollars dedicated to funding our state’s common schools.” That last part is the key.  She said that under the co...