Editorial
Leave charters alone

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The state's largest teachers union has decided to challenge the new charter-school law. What a waste of time and money. All the effort to get voters to overturn the law will do nothing to improve public education in this state.

Surely, the union has more important work to do.

The charter-school law passed by the Legislature and recently signed by Gov. Gary Locke is a limited experiment that allows new and conversion charter schools to freely employ approaches that work, particularly in educating disadvantaged students.

Some traditional public schools are successfully raising student achievement. But they are too rare. Spreading their successes systemwide is the state's most urgent task.

Charter schools can serve as very visible models of innovative, high-quality public schools. A few shining examples will give needy students a top-notch education and energize traditional public schools to use similar approaches.

In the worst case, some ill-conceived charter schools would fail and be shut down. Clearly, that would not be good for students. But it couldn't be any worse than attending chronically low-performing schools where there is no hope.

The charter-school debate has polarized the state and monopolized the conversation about public-education reform long enough. It's time to move on.

In reality, 45 new charter schools over six years will not change the state's educational landscape that much. Teachers' time would be better spent focusing on reforms that will.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company