Our state was not a finalist in the second round of RTTT funding. Were we even in the running? I mean, seriously in the running? Honestly, I can’t remember. I do remember something about changing teacher evaluations… but really, state driven evaluations seems a bit odd for WA state. The east side using something handed down from the west side sounds more than a bit far fetched. There are still people running around trying to split off and form their own state.
I’m sure the real killer for us was the lack of charter schools. Unfortunately for those in the other Washington, the citizenry here has rejected charter schools multiple times. And even worse, our state constitution allows the citizens to reject legislation passed by the state government, as they did in 2003-2004. Some would say that our “strong” teachers’ union is the reason it didn’t pass, but my personal opinion is that charter schools are a somewhat stupid idea for a state with a huge number of rural schools.
According to a state report in May of 2010, there are 151 small districts (less than 1000 students) and only 29 large districts (more than 10,000 students). Now, charter schools may be great in urban areas… and the large districts do represent a huge number of students who may or may not benefit. But imagine you are in charge of school district with less than 1000 students. Every penny you get get is pinched until Lincoln hollers. Then someone decides that they need to start their own charter school… maybe it’s only 50 students. Suddenly, the school has lost a huge amount of money. Enough to force the cancel of the entire sports programs (which may be the only reason half of your students even bother to show up). Or reduce the number of bus routes – and increasing the number of days missed due to weather. You can’t have children standing out in semi-blizzard conditions waiting for a bus that has to travel twice as many miles as before (or got stuck in a ditch). Or the textbooks go for 20 years instead of ten. There are always areas to cut, right?
While the argument against having a charter school in a rural district may seem logical, I wouldn’t trust us with a charter school law. Our state citizenry is not exactly known for it’s practicality or ability to work well with others. Seriously, in a school of 100 students, the loss of a family could be catastrophic and said family could probably get what they wanted just by going in and suggesting it, but they wouldn’t do that. The fact is that we’re nuts. We do crazy sh*t all the time. We truly believe that all government is bad and everyone is out to get our money. Any truth of this usually gets lost in vitriolic rhetoric. And we’re stupid about it too. Remember this is the state who spent who knows how much defending some guy’s right to post a sign saying Christmas is stupid next to a “Holiday” tree in the capitol. A few of pissed off parents and suddenly Bridgeport school district has 13 elementary schools and 5 middle/high schools… not to mention the various law suits about not getting enough money, discrimination in pupil selection and inclusion of religious instruction (oh, you know it would be there. please.).
So where will that leave the state in RTTT? Far behind. Hopefully, the state will stop wasting money attempting to chase dollars that aren’t going to come. The changes needed to qualify for the funding may work well in mega-cities or in states who have historically severely under-funded their educational system, but they aren’t necessarily good for us. I haven’t seen a lot of longitudinal studies on the reforms required, but I do know one thing; one size does NOT fit all, even in t-shirts.
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