The Republican-controlled State Senate demonstrated how to get things done in a divided government, pushing through bipartisan legislation on Wednesday to keep voter-approved public charter schools open in Washington. The Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee passed Senate Bill 6194, which has 16 co-sponsors, on a 6-to-1 vote.
The bill is necessary to overcome last fall’s State Supreme Court decision that public charter schools are unconstitutional. It does so by funding the schools with money from the state lottery.
A companion bill in the State House, HB 2367, also has co-sponsors from both parties, but it remains to be seen whether House Speaker Frank Chopp will bend to the will of his own members and schedule a vote.
Simple solution: Declare the Pac-Med building a charter school. The Choppster will be falling all over himself to fund his relative’s lifestyles.
It does so by funding the schools with money from the state lottery.
In other words, it takes money from the common schools:
… after July 1, 2004, all Lottery revenue for education will be directed to the Education Construction Fund. The Education Construction dollars are used for the maintenance and repair of higher education institutions and to build, remodel, and renovate K-12 schools.
Our Supreme Court just ruled that taking money from common schools for charter schools is unconstitutional. This new proposal to take money from the common schools for charter schools, should it actually go anywhere — and pushing a bill out of a divided committee in a chamber one controls is not actually an example of “how to get things done” — will suffer the same fate as I-1240 did, and for exactly the same reason.
Don’t worry, the WEA will be fine, and they still won’t be held accountable for poor teacher performance. Maybe small rural towns will have to start maintaining their schools, no more monkey business with schools like in Randle where they just suspended maintenance for about 4 years until the school fell apart and we, the taxpayer, got to pay for a new one.