In a June 3 editorial, “Time to try charter schools,” The Columbian endorsed the effort for Initiative 1240. Read it before the November election.
The initiative will free teachers and principals from “burdensome regulations.” Nowhere does the initiative indicate what those are. Could it be that charter schools can ignore any regulation that their employees believe to be “burdensome?”
The initiative adds “charter school” to the section of law authorizing “common schools” of the state. Nowhere in the initiative does it provide money to establish such schools.
The initiative sets up a bureaucracy to approve and govern charter schools. A “Charter School Commission” is made up of nine members appointed by politicians in Olympia. They are unelected and unaccountable to the voters of the state.