As the legislative session gets underway in a couple of weeks, it appears the House Education Committee is preparing another hostile move against charter school families.  In November the Committee convened a work session at which some Committee members referred to charter schools as a temporary “pilot project;” an early hint that some lawmakers are planning to block continuation of the state’s voter-approved charter school law.

Considered perhaps the best charter school law in the country, the statute is up for re-authorization in 2020.

In another signal of intent to hurt charter school families, the Committee chair Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos seemed to blame the recent closure of Ashe Preparatory Academy on the state Charter School Commission, noting,

            “I am thinking that something went terribly awry. I am looking at you and your commission, as the authorizer.” 

The public should not be fooled by this misdirection.  Joshua Halsey and the Commission are not to blame for the closing of charter schools. The blame lies squarely with the WEA union, which hates charter schools and has mounted a campaign to starve these public schools of funding and force them to close.  The WEA union’s hostility to charter school families stems from its fear that “unions shrink as charters grow,” as explained in a Wall Street Journal report by the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank which supports charter schools. 

Washington lawmakers, prompted by the WEA union, discriminate against charter school children, by denying Ashe Prep and other charter schools equal funding.   Ashe Prep closed because of lack of budget equity, not because of any failure on the part of the Charter School Commission.

Lawmakers deny charter school families access to a public school building and to capital funding support. Further, charter school families are denied access to their share of local levy funding approved by the community.

In Representative Santos’ district, for example, that amounts to about $3,000 in local levy funding per student, or about a 17 percent cut.  And even though charter schools are brand new schools, they are blocked from receiving the usual start-up funding from the state.

Representative Santos is a well-known opponent of public charter schools.  In February 2016, she tried to kill all charter schools.  This effort was defeated when SB 6194, to provide charters limited funding, was pulled from her committee and passed on the House floor with bipartisan support.  The governor later let the school funding bill become law without his signature.

Now, three years later, Washington’s charter schools have more than proven themselves.  Charter schools offer a better learning option for many families, particularly for low-income, minority children who would otherwise be assigned to a failing urban school. Charter schools are popular because they reduce the “opportunity gap” between black and Hispanic students and white students.

Instead of making life harder for charter families, lawmakers should show their support for all parts of the education system by re-authorizing the charter school law and ending funding inequities among different types of public school.  There is no reason any child should be denied equal funding.  Lawmakers should place the services we provide charter public school children on a sound, and equal, footing as the resources we give to other public school children.