Sean Gill of UW's Center on Reinventing Public Education has an opinion piece suggesting that traditional public schools may not deserve their monopoly status:

Some will say education is a public good – not just something that benefits individual students or families – and I certainly agree. But just because the government pays for it does not mean government must be the sole provider. . . .

As my colleagues determined, far too few students in 50 of our largest cities have access to the K-12 educational opportunities they need to succeed in life. Public charter schools are one option that could help provide these opportunities, and competition could drive traditional public school systems to improve. But competitors don’t have to be adversaries – there is much that schools of all types can learn from each other.

Charter schools — if the state Supreme Court reconsiders its decision that they are unconstitutional — could improve educational opportunity for many students in Washington.

Also, there's a lovely thought in this Puget Sound Business Journal story about data centers in Eastern Washington. (The foil of the story, which is subscriber only, is Alcoa's plan to close its two Washington plants.)

The data centers have helped increase the value of the city’s industrial and commercial land, however, and that’s helping increase tax revenue for the town.

Meanwhile, Quincy is trying to attract high-tech manufacturing facilities. Quincy was named one of the cheapest places in the country to build and run a high-tech facility, which the same study estimated would employ about 300 people.

Since computer makers already have Quincy facilities, area leaders see opportunity.

“Someone born 18 years ago in George or Coulee City or Wilson Creek now has the opportunity to do a local internship with some of the largest internet and technology companies in the world,” said Jonathan Smith, executive director of the Grant County Economic Development Council. “Nowhere else in rural America are these kinds of opportunities available.”

(Emphasis added.) That's a remarkable thing. (We looked at the economic impact of data centers in 2013.)