Last Friday marked an important milestone for Washington parents who want high-quality public school options for their children and for the Evergreen State’s public charter school movement. When the bell rang for the first round of charter school proposals at 5:00 PST, a total of 22 charter school applications from deeply committed educators, parents, and community leaders had been submitted to the Washington State Charter School Commission and the Spokane School District.
It is so exciting to read the plans of some of our state and country’s most visionary school and community leaders who want more than anything else to give underserved kids a quality public school education. I am incredibly optimistic about what this could mean for many of our students: more opportunities to succeed.
Coincidentally, last Friday was also the day of oral arguments in WEA’s case challenging the constitutionality of public charter schools in our state. It is a telling juxtaposition. On one side were the educators and parents submitting hundred-plus-page applications on the heels of thousands of advocates working tirelessly to improve our education system through the passage of I-1240. On the other side were a few detractors of positive social change recycling the same arguments against public charter schools that courts around the country have already rejected.
We are confident that our public charter school law (ranked third strongest in the country) will pass constitutional muster at the trial court level and at the Supreme Court level, where the case will be ultimately decided.
Although Washington State has many excellent schools, thousands of low-income and minority children are not getting the high quality educational opportunities they need and deserve. For example, roughly a third of all Hispanic students in Washington state scored “below basic” – the lowest possible level – in eighth grade math on the 2013 National Assessment of Education Progress; only 13% of white, non-Hispanic students scored below basic. The gaps are similar for other groups of high-risk students in other grades and subjects; moreover, gaps remain about the same size as those fifteen years ago. The establishment of first-rate public charter schools in our state will offer new, high-quality public school options for those kids struggling in traditional public schools.
The approval process for the first batch of public charters in the state will be highly competitive, with 22 applications for only eight slots. Now it is up to the Washington State Charter School Commission and the Spokane School District to fulfill their enormous responsibility to determine which eight schools will best serve our underserved kids.
I am confident that the nine charter school commissioners and five Spokane school board members will take their charge of approving strong applications and denying weak or incomplete ones very seriously. In the weeks ahead, they will be evaluating the merits of each application carefully. At the same time, the judge in the case will be weighing the arguments on the constitutionality of our charter school law and could issue a ruling before the end of the year.
We are confident that the parties involved in both the administrative and judicial decision-making process will do so in service of the best interests of Washington’s schoolchildren.
Lisa Macfarlane is the Washington State Director for Democrats for Education Reform, a co-founder of the League of Education Voters, a past President of Schools First (Seattle’s levy and bond committee), the sponsor of two statewide education funding initiatives, and a PCO in the 46th District. Read Lisa’s full bio here.