Are Charter Schools Public or Not Public in Washington State?

The following item appeared this morning in Politico.com’s education edition:

– “I guess it’s ironic or something that the only public school that will be open in Seattle tomorrow is a charter school,” tweeted [http://bit.ly/1VMDdnj ] education researcher Robin Lake, a nod to the Washington state Supreme Court ruling late last week that the state’s charter school law is unconstitutional.

What is even more ironic is that Robin Lake (of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington), which advocates for charters and “portfolio districts” and is Gates-funded) continues to refer to charter schools as “public schools” even after the Washington State Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that charter schools were not eligible for public funding because they are not “common schools” (public schools), as defined in the state constitution, not answerable to an elected board but to a private board.

Apparently the Center on Reinventing Public Education does not accept the ruling of the state’s highest court as meaningful or definitive. What part of the ruling do they not understand?

from novemoore http://ift.tt/1VNWSmJ