After nearly a year of deliberation, the state Supreme Court ruled 6-3 late Friday afternoon that charter schools are unconstitutional.
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.
Education policy analyst and public school advocate Diane Ravitch had this to say about the ruling:
This is a big win for parents and public schools.
I would agree and further state that I hope this is the first of many such decisions that put a stop to charter school programs that drain money and resources from the public schools while resisting any oversight from the same public whose tax money they are taking.
Listen I understand that there are some poorly run public schools in this country, and that parents really want alternatives.
But I also understand that there is a very determined anti-public education movement that uses charter schools and homeschooling as a way to undermine public schools, and their motives have far more to do with their religious faiths and ideology than they do with improving educational opportunities.
Make no mistake, public education and public school teachers are under constant fire in America and charter schools are the Trojan horse the opponents are using to get past our defenses.
(H/T Common Dreams)
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