A possible charter challenge . . .

This recent post by Liv Finne at the Washington Policy Center suggests that the Washington Education Association is planning a lawsuit to stop implementation of charter schools in our state.

“Though our candidates won, we are disappointed that corporate interests with their $11 million were able to pass the charter school initiative. Looking forward, your board of directors has decided to fund a legal challenge against the new charters law and, as we did with McCleary, are seeking partners and developing an approach and timeline for this effort. More details about this will come.”

I was not able to find this statement on the WEA web page, but was able to verify that the WEA Board is exploring the possibility of partnering with other organizations in this potential suit.  Finne and the Center were advocates for Initiative 1240 and believe that there are shaky grounds for a suit that might delay, but will not stop charters.  In an earlier post, I speculated about the possibility of a law suit from OSPI and Superintendent Dorn because oversight would come from a commission and the governor's office and not OSPI.  I don't know if this will be the basis for the possible suit spear headed by WEA or if there are other grounds.

Battle lines are being drawn as we can see in today's Washington Policy Center post by Paul Guppy.  The post is about a study from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) used by WEA in their campaign against the initiative and a new CREDO study from New Jersey suggesting that charters in the state are outperforming public schools.

Executives of the teachers union, the Washington Education Association (WEA), have announced their intention to block implementation of Washington's new voter-approved charter law in 2013. The union’s goal is to preserve its privileged position in the system by preventing any child from attending a charter school within the borders of this state.

For the backward-looking WEA, the fight against charters isn’t over, but we can be confident they won’t be citing CREDO research anymore.

So, the WEA Board has authorized a possible legal challenge to the initiative.  What do WEA members and others think about this potential action?