What's your opinion on charter schools? 41 states allow them, by WA state still does not.

An initiative on charter schools is barely passing now in Washington state with a lead of less than 1%. at 50.8% in favor vs. 49.2% against.

Link: The Seattle Times | News, sports, weather, events in the Northwest

I voted for it.

Competition is good. But the WA state teachers' union (WEA) is against it and automatically fight against it. There have been 4 or 5 initiatives on charter schools in Washington state. Each in the past have failed. Look at how the WEA tried to thwart the initiative getting to ballot.

Here is some background:

Washington reformers trying to end decades of union obstruction by legalizing charter schools
By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Education reformers in Washington State are trying to bypass decades of union obstruction with a ballot initiative that, if approved, would finally legalize charter schools.

And they believe voters may finally be on their side, following at least four failed attempts to legalize charters over the past 16 years.

Several recent polls indicate that upwards of 60 percent of registered voters now favor the idea of charter schools in Washington State. Forty-one other states already allow the alternative public schools to exist alongside traditional schools.

A broad bipartisan coalition of parents, teachers, education advocates, community leaders and elected officials have been collecting signatures to put Initiative 1240 on the statewide ballot in November.

If approved, the proposal would allow for the establishment of up to 40 charter schools over the next five years.

The coalition has already run into opposition from the statewide teachers union, which tried to block the effort by challenging the language of the charter school petitions. After weeks of legal wrangling, a Thurston County judge tweaked the language last week, giving organizers the green light to continue their campaign.

Now the state’s League of Education Voters, an advocacy group leading the charge for charters, has until June 6 to collect the 241,153 signatures necessary to put the proposal on the ballot.

“The effort is going very well and we are finding that Washington voters are eager to sign our petitions to place I-1240, the Washington Public Charter School Initiative, on the November ballot,” Mark Funk, spokesman for the LEV’s YES on 1240 campaign, told EAGnews.org. “We’re confident we will have the necessary number of voter signatures required by the deadline.”

Union opposition is automatic

The Washington Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is expected to campaign heavily against Initiative 1240.

The WEA played a major role in defeating several similar efforts over the years, including ballot proposals in 1996, 2000 and 2004 and legislation introduced earlier this year.

Like most teachers unions, the WEA hates the idea of competition from charter schools, and will continue to do whatever it can to keep school choice out of the Evergreen State.

WEA leaders recognize that charter schools draw students away from traditional public schools by offering innovative and creative new programs that produce improved academic results for many children. The competition with traditional public schools can result in less demand for unionized teachers, which eats into union dues revenue.

Don Brunell, president of the Association of Washington Business, said the union’s challenge to the petition language was probably designed to shorten the timeframe supporters have to collect enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot. It’s also the type of backhanded obstruction that is fueling public frustrations with the WEA – and taxpayers are tired of the games, he said.

Education reformers “have tried a number of efforts to improve education in the state and all of the efforts have gone nowhere because the union has blocked them. The frustration is we keep putting more and more money into education and the reforms we bring into schools get blocked,” Brunell told EAGnews.org.

“There is something that needs to change and charter schools are part of that change,” he said. Charters “bring another opportunity for people, particularly poor people, to get their children out of a failing public school.”

People are ready for change

Funk, of the YES on 1240 campaign, said that while voters have rejected similar ballot proposals in the past, “several public polls already show that a majority of Washington voters support allowing public charter schools as an option within our public education system.....
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