Charters add to the "mess" . . .

I was not going to blog about the possible charter lawsuit again, but I first learned yesterday in a Washington Policy Center Post by Liv Finne that State Superintendent Dorn will not be filing a lawsuit to stop charter implementation.  He will instead be asking the legislature to amend I-1240 to allow for oversight by OSPI instead of by an independent commission.  The article at Washington State Wire referenced in the post suggests that this is a conciliatory step that Dorn is taking.  Given his often stated position on the unconstitutionality of the initiative, if the amended legislation is not forthcoming a lawsuit will most likely follow.

“Let me be clear,” he writes. “I am not arguing for or against charter schools, but simply raising the question of the initiative’s constitutionality. I-1240, however, creates a governance structure for charter schools which I believe violates our state’s constitution, and is not accountable to the people.”

The Seattle Times weighed in on the issue in one of today's editorials telling WEA that they should not move forward with a lawsuit.  They speculate in the piece on why the Association is choosing to focus on this issue at this time.

So why is the WEA lawyering up now? The union could be flexing its muscle in advance of the upcoming legislative session’s showdown over education reforms and funding. Or it believes voters would not mind having their will overturned.

I don't know that either of these is the driver for the possible suit.  They could share Dorn's view that it is unconstitutional.  I believe that his decision to seek a change to oversight is a blow to WEA's search for partners and will make it more difficult for them to move forward.  All of this simply adds to the intrigue or perhaps I should say "mess" that legislators will face when the session begins Monday.  Issues with majority/minority control in the Senate, threats over charters, desire by reformers to initiate additional changes, and the supreme court's stated position on funding will put education right in the middle of what will be a difficult session.

I fear that in the political environment this creates, compromise will emerge toward the end of the session that none of us can predict today and that will once again impact our Classroom 10 journey.  It would take place behind closed doors with no public input, similarly to what happened when we lost the opportunity for our instructional model to guide teacher evaluation in last year's last minute action.  This will be a long session and one that we in public education will want to monitor closely as the decisions that are made will have significant impact in the short and long term on our work.

Lagging behind . . .

I learned about a new social media video on this Heart of Innovation post.  It is modeled after the Did You Know videos that I have posted about such as this post on Did You Know 4.  The Social Media Revolution Revelation is the title of the video that is only about 2 minutes in length.  It is crammed with data, most new for me and once again shows me what a neophyte I am in this world.

Great football . . .

Looks like it will be Seahawks 3 and Redskins 1.  Washington won the first quarter, but then it was all Seattle.  Right this minute the Seahawks are up 24 to 14 with 5:32 left in the game.  Would have preferred a touchdown after the turnover on the five, but that extra three points feels pretty good right now.  The defense  did a great job after the first quarter when the Redskins scored 14 points on their first two possessions allowing no more points and less than 100 yards of offense.

Enough of the play-by-play, I'll wait until the game ends.  This sounds more like a twitter instead of a blog post.

Seahawks win, on to Atlanta!

Delaying or stopping . . .

Thanks to John for sharing a comment on my last post about  WEA's possible lawsuit to stop charter school implementation in the state.


I 100% support the challenge. The intent of charter schools is to provide another option for students. I do not take issue with that ideal. In fact, districts all around the state have already begun implementing different academies within the district to offer an alternate education for students who need them. The key to this concept is the work is being done WITHIN the district and therefore is under regulation and evaluation by the local elected school board and elected officials at OSPI and the legislature.

He does a nice job of sharing his position and the thinking behind it.  I don't take exception with his position or with his reasoning.  What I do take issue with, however, is the timing.  Even though I understand it didn't make sense to file before Initiative 1240 passed, filing now is also questionable to me.  I would have preferred that WEA took a more aggressive approach in the no campaign like they did in the governor's race that I blogged about here.  The vote was close enough that the Association could have had a greater impact on the outcome.

This situation feels a little like the state filing an appeal to the McCleary funding decision that resulted in the difficult situation legislators face when they begin the session later this month.  It simply delayed finding the revenue to meet what the lower court had ruled.  Not knowing the basis for the possible charter lawsuit makes it difficult to understand the likelihood for success. If the lawsuit goes through I hope it is because there is a better than average possibility for a favorable ruling.  If not, it makes more sense to me to let the charter process move forward.  The prospect of  charter supporters with the resources behind them and state resources fighting a lawsuit is a waste of time and energy.  

It will be interesting to follow this possibility to see what other agencies may join WEA.  My sense is that it will not go forward without multiple partners.  Whatever coalition may form, I believe it will not be able to match the resources that would be forthcoming for those that support charter implementation.  Whatever the outcome, they will not go away especially with the leverage from the successful initiative campaign.

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?

Safety Committee review . . .

Our Safety Committee met this afternoon to begin the review and evaluation of our current intruder/lock down plans and procedures.  Following the Sandy Hook tragedy we made the decision to expand the committee to include the building principals for this review so we had over twenty people attending.  Thanks to Sean Kelly the meeting also included Maple Valley Mayor Bill Allison, Maple Valley Police Chief Michelle Bennett, King County Sheriff John Urquhart, Officer Sam Shirley, Fire Chief Brad Doerflinger, and Jacques Imperial representing U.S. Representative Dave Reichert's office.

We tasked the representatives with the responsibility to review the current practices in every building and department in the system to identify our current reality.  This includes training, policies and procedures related to before, during and after an incident, coordination with other agencies before and during an incident, and communication throughout the process.  This information will be the foundation for conversations in our school community about other measures that we should consider as we identify what "safe" looks and sounds like in our schools and buildings.

The conversation this afternoon was productive, resulting in a better understanding of the questions and concerns of our parents, concerns of staff with problems already identified in our buildings, and some possibilities to pursue for an increased presence by city and county officers in our schools.  It is a good beginning to a necessary process as we struggle to balance access and safety issues with the welcoming cultures that we have come to expect in our schools.

Ignoring may lead to negative ladders . . .

techi.com

In the past I have shared that I have a Facebook page, but have done little with it.  I get notices that people want to "friend" me, but have for the most part ignored them.  Recently, I received a message that people are I think it said "unfriending" me or something like that.  This may be a reaction to my ignoring requests and that creates some dissonance for me as I think about the message it gives when I don't accept or respond in any way.  I guess it is time to figure this thing out or discontinue my reserving a space that is not used.  I don't want people to think that I don't want to friend them.

Some way I also joined LinkedIn and have started receiving the same kind of requests.  I know even less about this one and can't even remember when or why I joined.  So, I have some social media decisions to make.  Ignoring requests and the possible negative ladders of inference that may result is not what I want.  I've decided to try and change my behavior, not a new year's resolution, just a positive step in my social media image.

By the way, have you visited Tahoma's Facebook page?  I think with over 20,000 people in the city plus the thousands in our system living outside the city we should have more than 2,674 followers.  If you have not yet joined, please do and let your friends and neighbors know about it.