Note: The POST invited a former school board member to comment on an upcoming ballot issue regarding Charter Schools. We will also welcome a quality rebuttal from a respected person on the opposing side. The POST believes informed voters are the best people to lead our communities and nation.

By Kim Golding
Founding Member of Parents and Friends for Tacoma Public Schools and Former Tacoma School Board Member

Initiative 1240 is not the answer to our K-12 problems.  It will only make them worse.  Last year, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled in McCleary vs. Washington that our state has failed to fully fund its schools over the past thirty years. Initiative 1240 brings in no new money to pay for new schools. It would introduce 40 new charter schools in Washington with no plan as to how to support them. This will certainly mean dollars going to our existing neighborhood public schools will be diverted away from them.  In other states, private school students have opted to attend charter schools.  If this happens here, it means new students entering an already underfunded educational system, money which the state would otherwise not have to spend.  Initiative 1240 also drives the creation of a new bureaucratic agency which should cost about $3,000,000 over the first 5 years.

I’m also troubled by the initiative giving charter schools access to school facilities (for “at cost” or below market value) and levy monies.  It’s a loss to taxpayers.  Imagine all the work put into getting levies and bonds passed, only to hand over schools and funding to private organizations that don’t have to answer to the taxpayers.  

Over 20 years and in 41 states, charter schools have not created better outcomes, more innovation or better accountability on a large scale.   Not a single district in the U.S. that has charter schools can say they have closed the achievement gap.   Charter schools claim to be serving all students, but not only have they underserved them, they often push high-need students and students who speak English as a second language, right back to the schools where they came from because they are unwilling and unable to provide the level of services they require. Those students still have to go to school, and we still have to pay for it.

As the campaigning ramps up before Election Day, it will be important to ask a lot of questions.  Does it matter whether or not you like charter schools if we don’t have the money to pay for them?  Do we want to hand over the state’s paramount duty to an appointed charter school commission?   Why are charter schools on the ballot for a fourth time?  Here’s my answer:  We shouldn’t have them here.  We don’t need them.