Washington Charter School "Plan A"

Charlie Mas:

Okay, let's suppose - for the moment - that the money behind the charter school initiative is successful at both getting it on the ballot and getting it passed. So now Washington State has a charter school law as outlined in this document. I really encourage folks to read this document and learn what the new rules may soon be. You'd be surprised what strategies present themselves once you know the rules. If you know how to look for them, you'll see some holes in this proposal that create opportunities to subvert the whole deal.

I don't know if the Washington State Charter School Initiative provides much accountability, but it sure does have a lot of process. First there are authorizers. The Authorizers are the folks who can review and approve applications for the creation of charter schools and then must provide those schools with oversight. They get 4% of the school's operating budget for these services. The law creates a new state commission which will be an authorizer. School districts, if they want to participate in their own destruction, can apply to the commission to also be authorizers.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 29, 2012 1:27 AM
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