Gov. Jay Inslee is letting a law providing money for charter schools in Washington go into effect.
Inslee said he is allowing a charter schools bill become law so that students already enrolled can continue to attend their current schools. "I am not interested in closing schools in a manner that disrupts the education of hundreds of students and their affected families," he said.
Inslee, a Democrat, has received substantial support from the Washington Education Association, the public school teachers' union, which opposed the bill. Using a rare maneuver, Inslee declined to sign the bill but let it become law. He sent a formal notification of his action, with his reasoning, to the Secretary of State's Office. Inslee expressed sharp concerns with the bill, including that it would "allow unelected boards to make decisions about how to spend public money."
Underling how the enactment of the charter schools measure will be viewed by many of his supporters, Inslee's office put out the word in the middle of Friday afternoon, a time often reserved by political leaders for news they want to downplay. Inslee's letter to the Secretary of State is here.
Crosscut's Tom James looked at the major charter school issues facing the Legislature and Inslee in a February story.
