OLYMPIA, Wash. – Education reformers in Washington State are trying to bypass decades of union obstruction with a ballot initiative that, if approved, would finally legalize charter schools.

And they believe voters may finally be on their side, following at least four failed attempts to legalize charters over the past 16 years.

Several recent polls indicate that upwards of 60 percent of registered voters now favor the idea of charter schools in Washington State. Forty-one other states already allow the alternative public schools to exist alongside traditional schools.

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A broad bipartisan coalition of parents, teachers, education advocates, community leaders and elected officials have been collecting signatures to put Initiative 1240 on the statewide ballot in November.

If approved, the proposal would allow for the establishment of up to 40 charter schools over the next five years.

The coalition has already run into opposition from the statewide teachers union, which tried to block the effort by challenging the language of the charter school petitions. After weeks of legal wrangling, a Thurston County judge tweaked the language last week, giving organizers the green light to continue their campaign.

Now the state’s League of Education Voters, an advocacy group leading the charge for charters, has until June 6 to collect the 241,153 signatures necessary to put the proposal on the ballot.

“The effort is going very well and we are finding that Washington voters are eager to sign our petitions to place I-1240, the Washington Public Charter School Initiative, on the November ballot,” Mark Funk, spokesman for the LEV’s YES on 1240 campaign, told EAGnews.org. “We’re confident we will have the necessary number of voter signatures required by the deadline.”

Union opposition is automatic

The Washington Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is expected to campaign heavily against Initiative 1240.

The WEA played a major role in defeating several similar efforts over the years, including ballot proposals in 1996, 2000 and 2004 and legislation introduced earlier this year.

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Like most teachers unions, the WEA hates the idea of competition from charter schools, and will continue to do whatever it can to keep school choice out of the Evergreen State.

WEA leaders recognize that charter schools draw students away from traditional public schools by offering innovative and creative new programs that produce improved academic results for many children. The competition with traditional public schools can result in less demand for unionized teachers, which eats into union dues revenue.

Don Brunell, president of the Association of Washington Business, said the union’s challenge to the petition language was probably designed to shorten the timeframe supporters have to collect enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot. It’s also the type of backhanded obstruction that is fueling public frustrations with the WEA – and taxpayers are tired of the games, he said.

Education reformers “have tried a number of efforts to improve education in the state and all of the efforts have gone nowhere because the union has blocked them. The frustration is we keep putting more and more money into education and the reforms we bring into schools get blocked,” Brunell told EAGnews.org.

“There is something that needs to change and charter schools are part of that change,” he said. Charters “bring another opportunity for people, particularly poor people, to get their children out of a failing public school.”

People are ready for change

Funk, of the YES on 1240 campaign, said that while voters have rejected similar ballot proposals in the past, “several public polls already show that a majority of Washington voters support allowing public charter schools as an option within our public education system.

“I-1240 opponents are simply out of step with the voters and, the fact is, most voters believe that Washington parents and students should have the option of public charter schools just like parents and students in most other states,” he said.

I-1240 incorporates the best and most successful elements of charter school programs established in other states, Funk said. It calls for strong accountability requirements to ensure the schools achieve outstanding results for students, he said.

“It’s been eight years since voters had a chance to vote on a public charter schools initiative,” Funk said. “The status-quo continues to fail far too many Washington students and we believe voters are eager to allow the option of high-performing charter schools in Washington. Forty-one other states now have public charter schools, and many of them are ranked higher in student performance than Washington schools.”

Brunell said there have been repeated attempts to work with union officials to allow charter schools and implement other education reforms. But nothing has convinced Big Labor to walk away from its self-preserving stance.

This year, the union used its influence in Olympia to keep charter school legislation from coming to a vote, and has spent millions in the past to repeal approved charter school laws through public votes.

WEA officials are expected to “dump a ton of money” into fighting I-1240, Brunell said. But the public’s perception of the union has shifted significantly in recent years, and many voters are no longer willing to swallow the WEA’s self-serving agenda.

“I think people have gotten to the point that they’re just tired of fighting with the union. At the end of the day, they would just walk away from the table and nothing happens … it just keeps getting delayed,” Brunell said of prior reform efforts.

“There is just a very deep sense of frustration. It’s the tipping point, people have reached it, you can just feel it.”