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This piece originally appeared in The Seattle Times on Oct. 15, 1996
Seattle Times endorsement: `No' on two education initiatives
Editorial Page staff
The Seattle Times
Over the next three weeks, you'll hear the term ``school choice'' bandied about like it's the fat-free ice cream at a Weight Watchers convention.
Read the fine print and remember that old adage that if something sounds too good to be true,
it probably is. Neither Initiative 177 nor Initiative 173,
the charter-school and school-voucher proposals respectively, are the great elixir
for all that ails public education. Far from it. They're two destructive propositions that
would harm public education in this state for years.
Initiative 173 | Initiative 177
- The charter proposal, I-177
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The charter plan, I-177, sounds intriguing at first. Charter schools, formed by parents, teachers and others, operating free of a five-pound book of regulations, are a fine idea if done right. I-177 does charter schools all wrong.
Charter schools are public schools created and managed by parents, teachers and administrators, held accountable through a performance-based contract with a school board or other public entity.
The schools created under I-177 aren't accountable. The initiative drafted by husband and wife duo Jim and Fawn Spady doesn't provide charters, or contracts, promising a specific level of academic performance. The only way a Spady charter school could lose its license is for blatant mismanagement.
Unlike most states that have introduced charters in a slow, reasoned fashion, the initiative allows an unlimited number of charter schools to spring up. That is just one reason why some of the brightest minds in the state who favor charters won't get anywhere near this poorly written proposal. They suspect if I-177 passes, it will give charter schools a bad name. They're quite right.
Charter schools ought to be launched as a pilot program, whereby schools experiment with specialized instruction in say, art, science, Montessori technique. If charters begin in a limited manner, the public schools left behind have time to adjust to the changes. And the people who would start charters have the opportunity to learn from others' mistakes.
Another troubling feature is I-177's ridiculous requirement that people vote on charter schools every time a school bond or levy appears on the ballot until that district agrees to allow charters. Utter nonsense. Most parents in most districts are satisfied with their schools. Why should they have to endure this? The only workable explanation is it is an attempt to ram charter schools down everyone's throats.
Even the best charter-school proposals are founded on a shaky assumption that parents, teachers or anyone else can run a school better than the folks who have dedicated their lives to the profession. No matter how well-intended, many folks who would start a charter school have never hired personnel before, never dealt with basic building and fire codes, never administered anything.
Many parents and teachers in Arizona will tell you, it's harder to operate a charter school than they ever imagined. Success is by no means guaranteed.
I-177 is a terribly flawed plan. Washington parents and taxpayers ought to thank the Spadys for bringing such high visibility to this issue and ask state lawmakers to deliver a smarter charter proposal.
- The voucher proposal, I-173
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Adding to the confusion this year is another initiative, I-173, again based on heavy recitation of the mantra of school choice. I-173 allows parents to use state-funded vouchers at private schools.
As currently drafted, the vouchers could only be used at nonsectarian schools. But the eccentric sponsor of the initiative, Ron Taber, who is spending nearly $1 million on his bid for state superintendent of public instruction and I-173, indicates he would bankroll a court challenge to assure vouchers can also be used at religious schools.
I-173 would drain the state budget and harm children left behind in public schools. It is, in a word, insidious.
Though the ads will tout school choice and parents rights, this is an overt attempt to throw public schools into chaos. The public pays for these schools -- and then what? -- hopes the kids get an education. There is no accountability.
If voters don't pay serious attention, they'll find that Taber is attempting to propel Washington into unknown territory. No other state has a statewide voucher program. A couple of cities, Milwaukee, for example, use vouchers as a scholarship at private schools for poor children. That's entirely different.
Entertainer and common-sense thinker Garrison Keillor ruminated about school choice and vouchers among other things, in a recent New York Times Magazine piece. In his typical, humorous way, he talked about the allure of oddly named, but ultimately un-American schools.
What would they be called, he wondered: ``Our Lady of Sorrows, Foursquare Millennial Gospel, Moon Goddess, Malcolm X, the Open School of Whatever, the Academy of Hairy Legged Individualism ...
``And who could argue with the idea of free choice?'' Keillor asked, ``until you stop and think about the old idea of a public school, a place where you went to find out who inhabits this society other than people like you.''
Vote no on I-177 and I-173, two unworthy proposals that would undermine public education in this state for a very long time.
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