Thanks to the authors of the truth-telling guest column of March 23, for explaining the differences between Horace Mann charters and Commonwealth charters.
A key difference is Horace Mann charters operate under the same superintendents and democratically elected school committees as public schools while Commonwealth charters do not.
In a first-in-the-nation ruling in September 2015, the Washington state Supreme Court released its opinion on charter schools, ruling that taxpayer-funded charter schools are unconstitutional. Their reasoning? Charters are not public schools because they are not governed by elected boards and therefore are not accountable to the voters.
“Charter schools are devoid of local control from their inception to their daily operation,” Chief Justice Barbara Madson wrote in the majority (6-3) opinion.
“We would hope that the legislature would now focus on what it should be focused on, which is fully funding K-12 basic education,” said Rich Wood, a spokesman for the Washington Education Association. “It makes no sense to drain money away from those underfunded public schools into privately operated charter schools that are not accountable to the voters.”
I agree.
Harriet Charland
Florence