Leg approved R-55, voters have final say to overturn

If passed, R-55 to establish 45 charter schools statewide

Whether or not charter schools will be the next step in helping students in Washington meet academic standards set by the state is just one of many issues voters will need to decide on in the upcoming November elections.

Referendum 55 on charter schools is a bill that was passed by the state Legislature last March by a 51 to 46 vote in the House of Representatives, in an effort to establish public charter schools to help educationally disadvantaged students meet academic standards.

R-55, if approved by voters in November, would entitle 45 new charter schools to be opened across the state in a six-year period by which a board of directors would sponsor a charter school in cooperation with a local school board, in what is known as a charter agreement. This agreement would function as a contract in which guidelines for school curriculum and student achievement would be established.

Previous to this election year, proposals regarding charter schools have been made, once in 1994 under Initiative 635, and again in 2000 under Initiative 729. However, I-635 never made it to the ballot due to a lack of signatures, and I-729 lost the vote by a 51.8 percent margin.

Opponents of R-55, who brought the bill back to the ballot this year after petitioning a minimum of 98,867 signatures in June, are concerned that charter schools will take away funding from existing public schools, and leave local school boards without any say in how they are run.

"We have a choice between strengthening existing public schools or being distracted by charters," President of the Washington Education Association, Charles Hasse, said in a statement earlier this year when Gov. Gary Locke signed the legislation into law. "Gov. Locke's support for charter schools is ill-considered," he said, adding that what schools really need are smaller class sizes and qualified teachers.

Minnesota was the first state to authorize charter schools back in 1992, and since then 40 states and the District of Columbia have adopted charter school legislation to help create approximately 3,000 charter schools operating nationwide.

"I think it creates a separate system of public schools in the state," said Moses Lake School District Superintendent Steve Chestnut who feels the educational system that is currently in place provides the flexibility communities need. "The genius of our system is that it is controlled by local boards."

Other representatives from smaller school districts in the state also feel that charter schools will create separatism and competition for resources.

Jim Kowalkowski, superintendent with the Pomeroy School District and director of the Rural Education Center, said what bothers him most is that charter schools create the perception of elitism where only a limited number of students can attend. "Many rural schools across the state are suffering from declining enrollment and we are fighting for the resources that we have," he said.

On the other side of the argument, supporters of R-55 don't see charter schools as taking away any money from existing public schools.

"This bill will not take a dime from students at existing public schools," said state Sen. Joyce Mulliken, R-Ephrata, who went on to say that the money school districts receive on a per student basis would continue to fluctuate regardless of charter schools due to students that transfer in and out of districts throughout the school year. With regards to accountability in charter schools, which worries some opponents, Mulliken said "this bill has safeguards that make it different from past proposals such as audits and charter renewals."

According to the terms and conditions set forth in the R-55 legislation, all charter schools are required to have regular assessments by the state auditor, report annually to the school district in which the charter school is located, and at the end of the first three years of the charter contract may reapply for a renewal, but only if student progress meets the standards for renewal as established in 28A.655 of the Revised Code of Washington.

"People may be hesitant to support R-55 because they think it is a new charter school bill, but it is just reaffirming what has already been passed in the Legislature," said state Rep. Janea Holmquist, R-Moses Lake.

School districts are not going to be forced to apply for charter schools, so "if they do not want them they don't have to have them," said Steve Mullin, president of the Washington Round Table Association.

As charter schools are still a fairly new movement within the last decade, it is difficult to determine at this point if students are indeed making academic improvements in charter schools, but "evidence is mounting that charter schools are helping students to excel in school," said Robin Lake, the director for the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, who has conducted numerous studies on charter schools in the last 10 years. Lake cited a study conducted in 2003 with the Brookings Institution which she says indicates that charter schools are serving more at risk students, and in some cases making faster improvements than some public schools.