Seattle may close up to 11 public schools due to declining enrollment and "excess capacity." This shoots a huge hole in claims by the Washington Education Association that our state's new charter school law will bleed money from public schools (as students opt out for charters) while overhead costs remain the same.

The WEA is set to gather signatures for a statewide ballot initiative to overturn the new charter school law, approved by the legislature after a 10-year struggle. The union is leaning heavily on the "less money, same overhead" argument in its spiteful campaign to undo the new law, and deny public school students greater educational choice.

Yet here we see that in Seattle, even before the first charter school has opened, there's already clear recognition from school district officials that as enrollment continues declining, you have to consider closing more facilities. That'll sure cut total overhead costs, won't it?

And if, as even charter opponents concede, public charter schools cause more students (and the state money that follows them) to leave traditional public schools, further consolidation might make sense, too.

If public schools - and especially the wretched WEA leadership - would actually focus on meeting the bracing challenges posed by more rigorous public charter schools, they might be able to expand, not contract.

The handwriting has been on the wall for some time in Seattle, where low expectations, political correctness and excuses are the norm in public schools. Consider this:

Enrollment has fallen from 86,000 students in 117 schools in 1970 to 47,000 students in 100 schools today, officials say.

So obviously, we should stifle innovation, as the WEA urges.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at April 16, 2004 11:26 AM

---

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.rosenblog.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/225

---

---