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Home / Washington Business - May/June 2004 / President's Column: Quit Monkeying Around; Give Charter Schools a Chance |
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President's Column: Quit Monkeying Around; Give Charter Schools a Chance |
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Written On: May/June 2004 |
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Written By: by Don C. Brunell, AWB President |
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The Washington Education Association (WEA) needs to quit monkeying with the new law that authorizes charter public schools. The law allows just 15 such schools over the next three years, most of which must focus on serving educationally disadvantaged students.
Instead of embracing this opportunity to improve learning for our children, the teachers’ union has become anti-choice — at least when it comes to education. They want to deny giving a choice to parents who cannot afford to send their kids to private schools or move to better public schools in the suburbs.
If the union’s Referendum 55 qualifies for the November ballot, all the work at the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Office to secure $5 million per year in federal charter school funding will come to a grinding halt. If the referendum passes, Washington will remain one of only 10 states in the nation without a charter public school law.
What a travesty! After all, isn’t the goal of public education to teach our kids as effectively and efficiently as possible? Traditional and charter public schools can comfortably co-exist, and the traditional schools may even improve with a little healthy competition. What’s wrong with that?
Forty other states have charter public schools and there are thousands of success stories of how learning improves when students, parents and teachers come together and form their own charter public schools.
Vaughn Next Century Learning Center is Charter School Success
Last spring at AWB’s Annual Spring meeting in Spokane, Dr. Yvonne Chan, founder of the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Los Angeles, got a spontaneous standing ovation for her work and enthusiastic leadership in education. Dr. Chan and her school were transformed by the freedom they gained from California’s 1992 charter school law.
Vaughn students live in poverty. More than two-thirds of its 1,500 elementary-age children are learning to speak English as their second language. Ninety-five percent of the students are Hispanic, and five percent are African-American.
Vaughn was a failing school for decades before Dr. Chan arrived and transformed it into a charter public school in 1993. Since then, student achievement has soared, attendance is near perfect and the founders have achieved goals other schools only dream of, including:
• Class size reduction to 20 in all grades.
• Universal preschool education.
• Accelerated English learning.
• Special education full inclusion
• A school-based clinic, museum, family center and business co-op.
• A community library and university professional development center.
• A school-wide teacher peer-review system.
• A performance pay plan for all staff.
This year, Washington state lawmakers finally passed legislation that will allow parents and teachers to create charter public schools to help turn around persistently low-performing traditional schools. Gov. Locke signed the bill, saying that charter public schools will help disadvantaged students and struggling public schools.
That being the case, why is the WEA trying to kill charter public schools before they have a chance to get started? After all, if they don’t work, parents will return to traditional public schools. And if they do work, children will get a better education.
Just what is the WEA afraid of?
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