The public schools will not be shut down. I Washington State what will probably happen either the state supreme court or federal court will impose an income tax upon the citizenry to fully fund education. It happened in Kanas City Mo. back in the 80"s; I think it will happen here.

Well, well, this is surprising. What could Inslee possibly have to gain here? He's not making any new friends, while creating a whole lotta new enemies given how bitter the education funding fight has been for years. Flipping the double bird the supreme court and the teachers' union makes me wonder if he's gonna throw the election.

@1: "The public schools will not be shut down. I Washington State what will probably happen either the state supreme court or federal court will impose an income tax upon the citizenry to fully fund education. It happened in Kanas City Mo. back in the 80"s; I think it will happen here."

Nope, and the state can suffer for quite a long time while these people move towards privatization of everything the states can do right when they're not criminally defunded.

Where does the $100k fine go to? I.E. If the fine goes back into schools maybe if we wait the problem will solve itself?

He's aiming for Vice President to President Clinton.

I sincerely appreciate your reporting, Ansel, but please go the distance. Explicitly state how our legislators voted on this issue. The Stranger is a local paper. At least say how King County's or even just Seattle's legislative delegation voted. State rep Brady Walkinshaw (a former Gates Foundation employee) and state senator Pramila Jayapal are running for Jim McDermott's seat in Congress. At least least say how they voted. I'm getting really tired of having to investigate voting records (not to mention campaign contributions and personal conflicts of interest) on my own, and I'm sure 99% of readers never even think to try.

Overall, however, there's not much surprise or even suspense here. Billionaires vs. pretty much anything or anyone else in Washington State? I'm on tenterhooks. Whatever will our elected officials do? No, I take that back. That our state's elected, untenured supreme court justices have applied the constitution and stuck to their guns thus far is a pleasant surprise. Not that I'm cynical or anything, but I wonder when and how (but not by whom) they will be taken out.

Another spineless neocon.

I love how Inslee's reason for not vetoing: "I am not interested in closing schools in a manner that disrupts the education of hundreds of students and their affected families.” Meanwhile the education of over a million students are further disrupted by taking their public funds away. And so, the needs of few outweigh the needs of the many. The oligarchs win again.

I love Inslee's reason for not vetoing*

Inslee started his term of Governor by throwing the Boeing machinists under the bus during their collective bargaining process, and he's ending it by caving on unconstitutional charter schools.

Why are Democrats supposed to support him again?

Because one size doesn't fit all. It's really that simple. Giving parents choices for educating their kids is a good thing.

@11 Giving rich white parents choices for educating their non-disabled kids is a good thing.

ftfy

Do all children deserve a quality education? Or only the ones with parents with enough savvy and time to ferret out the best schools?

It's time for a clean sweep of old toadies like Chopp and Inslee, who are happy to give corporate unconditional tax breaks to union busters and corporate tax evaders like Boeing, while helping the GOP block dealing with McCleary and raising the minimum wage even slightly. I'd toss Patty Murray into the shit can also for her decades of boosterish support of ruinous trade treaties that benefit gigantic multinational corporations while cratering the former middle class in the US.

@11, If charter schools objectively performed better than public schools, I'd back them wholeheartedly. But they don't.

Charter schools sound like a nice idea. "Choice" is a nice buzz word. I even think Gates sincerely means well in his push for charter schools. But they don't help.

I did my homework a couple years ago. I've done work in education. So I looked at the research. There are a couple of good studies out there on charter schools. While you might find a couple of good charter schools here or there, on average they actually do worse than public schools if you measure by test scores (you could argue that test scores isn't the best measure, but it is the only widely used data point out there for comparison). It's even worse when you consider that charter schools cherry pick the students, and almost always have highly motivated parents (kids of unmotivated parents end up at whatever public school is handy; its usually a lot of work to get your kid into a charter school). Few of them deal with special ed kids or other kids with special needs, all the types of students that public schools cannot deny. Even with all these advantages and select students, they have no better outcomes than public schools.

In Washington, some of the new charter schools are former private schools that just want to suck at the public teat. They are literally taking money out of the hands of the public school system and putting it in private hands. This state doesn't need take money from public schools and give them to private schools that perform worse. They need to suck it up and properly fund our existing public schools. Our public schools would be just fine if they weren't starved for cash.

@15: This, this, this, and this.

Where's Dan "The Lesser of Two Evils" Savage on this one?

Just another example of the profound difference between the R's & the D's. The R's will sell you into slavery. The D's will do the same, and will ask that you get a meal a day and half of Sundays off. (Not that the slavers will agree, but at least the D's will ask.)

You know what they say about compromising all the time: you compromise on everything you won't stand for anything.

What's wrong?

What's the matter venomlash?

@7 Neoliberal, not neocon.

@19 It's a little out of date, and it's a lot, but you might try reading this:
http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2…
and other charter links in their frame.

tl;dr Charter success is cherry-picking.

Admittedly, given SPS upper management's long-standing program to degrade both Special Ed and Spectrum/APP in favor of impossible-to-deliver "differentiated" instruction in single classrooms, I'm close to saying "fuck you" and supporting charters, but at very least, that should happen AFTER McCleary is complied with.

Changing the source of public funds doesn't suddenly mean that citizens have a say in its administration.

If elected officials put as much energy into crafting legislation that funds public schools properly and allows public schools the freedom to do what charters do, none of this would be an issue. But they don't.

Inslee just lost my vote. I gave him a couple of early mistakes, but this one seals the deal. Spineless Dems piss me off beyond belief.

Charters are a corporate scam with practically no positives above public schools. Fuck this senate / legislature. The charter moneyed arranged a bunch of kids and parents to go down to Olympia and push lawmakers by pulling on heartstrings. The next week, when I went with a cohort of public school teachers to do our own lobbying, many of the Dems we spoke to had already decided that charters were ok and even actively argued with us when we brought up evidence to help them see the dangers of charters. It was obvious to me that they had been bought out. Sad. Pathetic. And Inslee will now have a really hard time getting re-elected. I ain't voting for him, for sure.