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Policy Today: The elusive silver bullet of tax policy

AG asks Court to reconsider charter schools decision, makes a key point about initiative funding

Yesterday Attorney General Bob Ferguson asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision that charter schools are unconstitutional. His motion states, Ultimately, the State urges the Court to reconsider its decision to set aside the entirety of Initiative 1240, as adopted by the people. But even if the Court rejects that request, it should narrow […]

Taxes: The grass is always greener…

With the first meeting today of Gov. Inslee’s legislative McCleary workgroup, we’re likely to see another round of calls for new taxes – specifically, an income tax and/or a capital gains tax – to fund the rest of the state’s K-12 obligations. Arguments in favor of new forms of taxation include: Washington’s tax system is unfair and regressive, […]

InFocus podcast: Rent control, WA wine industry, state revenue & employment reports, and charter schools

Policy Today podcast, Common Ground edition: Rep. Drew Hansen

90 Seconds podcast: Charter schools help urban minority, low-income students most

Stanford study shows improved charter school performance – especially in urban areas

Even before the state Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional, charter schools were a topic that engendered heated debate (at least here in Washington; charter schools are perfectly constitutional in 41 other states). Therefore, data, backed up by solid research, provides a welcome relief from the rhetoric. For some years now the Center for Research on […]

What's to be done about charter schools, part 2

Yesterday I went over some of the possible responses to the state Supreme Court’s decision that charter schools are unconstitutional. I neglected to bring up an odd point from the majority opinion, which comes in the footnote to this sentence (page 12-13): . . . under the terms of the Act’s provisions the source of […]

What's to be done about charter schools?

The Olympian had a good article over the weekend on the various ideas floating around about how to resolve the charter school situation. These include: Ask the Court to reconsider, which the attorney general is planning to do. This “is a long shot.” Amend the constitution. Make charters more like alternative schools, which are overseen […]

Highlights from the Supreme Court opinion that charter schools are unconstitutional

To the surprise of many, Friday afternoon the state Supreme Court found charter schools to be unconstitutional. Voters approved them with Initiative 1240 in 2012, and Washington’s first public charter school opened last year. Eight additional public charters opened this fall. In 2013, the League of Women Voters of Washington, the Washington Education Association and […]