Charter Schools Ruled Unconstitutional

Among the many anti-family, anti-public, un-American bills repugs will file in the Kentucky General Assembly for its January session will be ones authorizing private charter schools in the Commonwealth.

Despite the fact that such schools - specifically, the shoveling of millions of tax dollars to private charter school corporations and freakazoids - have been ruled unconstitutional.

karoli at Crooks and Liars:

This is a huge ruling from the Washington Supreme Court late on a Friday afternoon.

According to the Seattle Times, the Washington State Supreme Court has ruled charter schools to be unconstitutional.

After nearly a year of deliberation, the state Supreme Court ruled 6-3 late Friday afternoon that charter schools are unconstitutional, creating chaos for hundreds of families whose children have already started classes.

The ruling — believed to be one of the first of its kind in the country — overturns the law voters narrowly approved in 2012 allowing publicly funded, but privately operated, schools.
...
In the ruling, Chief Justice Barbara Madsen wrote that charter schools aren’t “common schools” because they’re governed by appointed rather than elected boards.

Therefore, “money that is dedicated to common schools is unconstitutionally diverted to charter schools,” Madsen wrote.

SNIP

The ruling is a victory for the coalition that filed the suit in July 2013, asking a judge to declare the law unconstitutional for “improperly diverting public-school funds to private organizations that are not subject to local voter control.”

It seems as though a door may be open for restructuring charters in such a way that they can still operate under the aegis of the public school district with general funds, but the Charter Management Operators and other money-skimmers will definitely have a difficult time with whatever is coming.

I fully expect this won't end with this ruling, because there's simply too much money to be had with charter schools.