Charter school parents tired of waiting for solution

We are tired of waiting. For months, parents, students and community supporters have traveled to Olympia and placed hundreds of calls to tell the state Legislature our side of the story: The public charter school conversation is not about debating one type of public school over another, and it’s not about pitting students against each other.

It’s about bringing more great schools into our public school system and giving all Washington families more choices, period.

The people we elected to represent us have a decision to make: Put politics and misinformation aside and give public charter schools and the diverse students they serve a chance to thrive — or choose special interests over communities and slam the door on the dreams of 1,100 students and families like ours and on an innovative and accountable future for public education in Washington.

As parents, we’ve seen firsthand the promise and power of being able to explore different educational environments to suit our different children. We believe in public education — public education that allows families access to great education that works for their kids. We both have children attending traditional district schools in our neighborhoods. We love these schools and donate our time and energy to helping our children and their classmates succeed. We also have children who attend public charter schools: Rainier Prep, a middle school in the Highline area, and Summit Sierra, a high school in Seattle’s International District.

While advocating for the great schools our children attend, we’ve heard criticisms about public charter schools — criticisms that don’t match our reality. We want to set the record straight.

When compared with traditional district schools, public charter schools in our state serve a higher percentage of students of color, students eligible for free and reduced-price meals, and students who are English language learners. Public charter school students represent the diversity that makes our state so great.

And public charters are on a path to success. At Rainier Prep, students have shown one year of progress in reading in just half a year, while ninth-graders at Summit Sierra have more than doubled the national average on the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments in math.

In a state that needs more great public schools, shutting down schools that work for our children is not the answer. A one-year fix would leave our children stranded mere months from now. We need schools our children can settle into and graduate from, not short-term plans and short-sighted thinking.

Our children’s futures are not bargaining chips for our elected representatives to gamble away for political gain. We need a long-term solution to keep Washington’s excellent public schools open today.

This story was originally published March 4, 2016 at 3:56 PM with the headline "Charter school parents tired of waiting for solution."