By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

SEATTLE – The Washington Education Association, the largest teachers union in the Evergreen state, recently announced plans to legally challenge a voter-approved law that will allow up to 40 charter schools in the state.

“Though our candidates won, we are disappointed that corporate interests with their $11 million were able to pass the charter school initiative,” the union said in a statement to members that was released over the holidays. “Looking forward, your board of directors has decided to fund a legal challenge against the new charter law.”

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Nobody knows what the grounds for such a lawsuit might be. Pretty much everyone agrees it would be a petty move inspired by nothing but greed. Charter schools generally hire non-union teachers, so the new schools won’t be a source of dues revenue for the union.

That’s too bad for the union.

The fact is that the voters of the state approved the initiative to introduce charter schools. Most newspapers throughout the generally progressive, pro-union state endorsed the ballot proposal. And as the Washington Policy Center notes, a lot of research has determined that charter schools are successful options for students in public schools in other states.

“The lawsuit may delay Washington’s charter schools, but it will not stop them,” the WPC wrote. “The lawsuit scheme provides additional evidence the union is a reactionary force determined to block change. Union executives want to protect their monopoly, power and influence within the system, regardless of the cost to disadvantaged children trapped in failing public schools in Washington State.”

The Seattle Times also attacked the idea of a lawsuit.

“The Washington Education Association does not like charter schools because it cannot control them,” the Times wrote in an editorial. “The union believes the $11 million spent by advocates manipulated voters into supporting the nontraditional public schools in the election last fall. Those are flimsy reasons on which to base a constitutional challenge.”

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Could the teachers union be any more obvious about its greed? If these people really cared about kids, they would allow them a little bit of school choice and focus their efforts on making traditional public schools the best they can be, so most students won’t be tempted to transfer to charter schools.

But all of that sounds like a lot of work. Why bother when the union can simply shop around for a politically-friendly judge who is willing to kill the competing schools before they even open their doors?