THE SHOEBOX CONSTITUTION?
By Charlotte
Iserbyt
September 12, 2015
NewsWithViews.com
There
has been much coverage regarding the recent Washington State
Supreme
Court declaring Charter Schools unconstitutional.
The crux of the ruling is centered upon upholding a taxpayer’ right to vote and maintain local accountability. The Court disallowed Charters as they deemed them unconstitutional taxation without representation. Isn’t that why we fought the Revolutionary War? Charter schools have appointed boards while using taxpayer money, but the tax payer has no say in how the money is to be spent. The Court said:
“But the new schools came with a trade-off: the loss of local control and local accountability”
It appears that certain conservative think tanks, editors, and organizations, do not agree with the Washington State ruling. For instance, The American Enterprise Institute (AIE) has this to say about the ruling:
“This interpretation matters to our very ideals about civil society. Any decision by state officials that erodes the public nature of charter schools because they fail to fit inside a shoebox definition of a “local, free school” usurps our right to access a diverse set of learning options.”
Should “diversity” and “opinions” trump a state’s Constitution Laws?
The
AIE then makes many other elaborate arguments, at the above site, as to
why the Court decision is wrong. But, they never point out that voters
lose 
their
right to vote. It seems to appear that they would prefer to support the
“ambitions” of those who promote “Choice”
and “Charters”… you know… Bill Gates, the Walton
Foundation, Tom Vander Ark, Arne Duncan and Barrack Obama, Jeb Bush, the
Koch Brothers, Heritage Foundation, the privatizers, etc. rather than
protect the “rights” of American citizen’s
to vote.
Others in the conservative movement cited the fact that Washington State voted and passed a Charter initiative in 2012. An article regarding this issue posted in the Daily Caller cited that the Charter initiative, I-1240 was passed by a narrow 1% vote and legalized Charter Schools in Washington State.
The Court responded to this Charter initiative accordingly:
“In sum, the Charter School Act violates article IX, section 2 [of the Washington State Constitution] because charter schools are not common schools despite the Act’s attempt to so designate them. The Act’s designated funding mechanisms fail, and these provisions are not severable for the remainder of the Charter School Act…”
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The American Enterprise Institute appears to have a remedy for the Supreme Court ruling:
“Washingtonians’ demand for parental choice is tenacious. If history holds true, families and taxpayers will take this decision back to where it belongs: to the people.”
Isn’t
that interesting. In other words the AEI suggests that the issue go back
to the people so that they can vote to eliminate their right to
vote. Would such 
reasoning
be the result of the elimination of Formal Logic in schools some time
ago; and, could such reasoning qualify one to become.
� 2015 Charlotte T. Iserbyt - All Rights Reserved
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Charlotte Iserbyt is the consummate whistleblower! Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America's classrooms. Iserbyt is a former school board director in Camden, Maine and was co-founder and research analyst of Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM) from 1978 to 2000. She has also served in the American Red Cross on Guam and Japan during the Korean War, and in the United States Foreign Service in Belgium and in the Republic of South Africa.
Iserbyt is a speaker and writer, best known for her 1985 booklet Back to Basics Reform or OBE: Skinnerian International Curriculum and her 1989 pamphlet Soviets in the Classroom: America's Latest Education Fad which covered the details of the U.S.-Soviet and Carnegie-Soviet Education Agreements which remain in effect to this day. She is a freelance writer and has had articles published in Human Events, The Washington Times, The Bangor Daily News, and included in the record of Congressional hearings.
Charlott's Blog:
http://www.abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/
Website: www.deliberatedumbingdown.com
Website: www.americandeception.com
E-Mail: dumbdown00@yahoo.com
