charter school law

Grade for New Jersey's charter school system slips, according to national report

Commentary by: admin on April 5, 2012 - 11:50 am

by Diane D’Amico
Press of Atlantic City
April 5, 2012

New Jersey’s charter schools remain underfunded and too highly regulated by the state Department of Education, according to an annual report on education reform.

The Center for Education Reform report gave New Jersey’s charter school law a “C” as the state slipped from 19th to 24th among the 41 states, as well as the District of Columbia, with charter school laws.

The drop in rank comes as suburban backlash against charter school funding grows, though Gov. Chris Christie and acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf continue to promote the concept in struggling school districts.

“There are a lot of problems in New Jersey,” Center for Education Reform President Jeanne Allen said in a teleconference on the report, which was released Monday. She said the state’s charter schools remain highly regulated, get less funding than public school districts, and are authorized and monitored only by the state Department of Education.

In a phone interview, Allen said the fact that almost a third of all charter schools in the state have closed indicates there is something wrong with the current law and how charter schools are regulated. She said that nationally the closure rate is about 15 percent.

Christie has proposed several changes to the law, but in 2011 got Legislative support only for a provision to allow private schools to convert to charter schools. Christie wants to allow successful private companies to open schools and expand the pool of authorizers to other public entities, such as colleges or public school districts.

“These findings speak to the critical need to update and strengthen New Jersey’s out-of-date charter law,” DOE spokesman Justin Barra said in an emailed statement.

There are several bills in the state Legislature to modify the law, but some are on opposite sides of the issue. One bill

NC charter school law misses the mark in a national ranking

Commentary by: admin on April 3, 2012 - 1:33 pm

Tags: charter school law

by Bruce Ferrell/David Horn
North Carolina News Network
April 2, 2012

North Carolina’s law on charter schools received a grade of “C” and ranked 29th among the states. That is according to the Center for Education Reform.

The Center’s director Jeanne Allen said raising the cap of charters did not go far enough. She also said the approval process for such schools needs to be changed.

“It limits the approval to the State Board of Education which is not very inviting when it comes to applications and school districts have not been very positive in helping encourage people and groups to actually apply,” said Allen. She added that other states such as Indiana and Minnesota provide multiple ways for charters to get approved.

Charter schools operate separately from traditional public schools, but they receive government funding. The Center for Education Reform is a national education reform advocacy organization.

Florida Is the 8th-Friendliest State For Charter Schools, Report Says

Commentary by: admin on April 2, 2012 - 11:52 am

Tags: charter school law

by John O’Connor
StateImpact (NPR)
April 2, 2012

Florida ranks eighth in the nation for laws which promote innovation, equal funding and ease of expansion of charter schools, according to a ranking from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform.

That moves Florida up two places from last year’s report as the Sunshine State improved its score slightly.

Among the short-comings in the CER rankings? Florida does not allow enough independent groups to authorize charter schools, most of which must be approved by local school districts. That puts schools districts in the position of approving schools they may see as competition for public funding.

Florida also scores lower than other states for funding charter school facilities. The legislature has set aside money in the state budget, but a proposal requiring school districts share local construction and maintenance dollars was rejected by the legislature.

Florida scores well for the number of schools allowed — there’s no limit — and for “teacher freedom,” the ability of charter schools to set their own teaching policies outside of union contract negotiations.

The Center for Education Reform is a school advocacy group which favors policies that expand the availability of charter schools and other choice options and also promotes the use of virtual and online learning.

Charter schools backers say new approach needed

Commentary by: admin on March 5, 2012 - 7:23 pm

Tags: charter school law, Charter Schools, Mississippi

by Marquita Brown
Jackson Clarion Ledger
March 3, 2012

While state lawmakers debate how best to make allowances for charter schools in Mississippi, some people are still questioning why traditional public schools can’t be given the same freedoms.

It’s a question Tracie James-Wade asked Friday during a forum on charter schools at Koinonia Coffee House in Jackson.

James-Wade said her concern is the cost of opening charter schools in an already cash-strapped public school system. The traditional public schools that are performing well should be used as models for duplication across the state, she said.

“Why have a model school that you never duplicate?” James-Wade asked.

But charter school supporters argue traditional public schools have had decades to figure out what works best to boost student achievement.

“The problem is how we operate schools, and that is what charters are one solution to,” Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform, told The Clarion-Ledger last week.

The differences between charter schools and traditional public schools, she said, include how teachers are hired, retained and paid and how textbooks are chosen. All the money and time can be put into the traditional public school system, “but nothing very good happens in that school, nothing changes in that school.”

Like traditional schools, public charter schools do not charge tuition. Charters can be newly formed schools or they can be converted from existing public schools. Both bills getting most attention at the state Capitol include provisions for conversion schools, and lawmakers supporting those bills have said they hope that is the option most charter applicants take.

Charter school advocates say one major selling point is freedom from bureaucracy. Each school operates independently instead of being governed by a central office of administrators.

State representatives still need to take up House Bill 888, which would allow charter schools across the

Maryland charter school law ranked seventh worst

Commentary by: admin on February 29, 2012 - 6:24 pm

Tags: Center for Education Reform, charter school law, Maryland

“State charter school law ranked seventh worst”
by Blair Ames
Frederick News Post
February 29, 2012

The creation of great new public charter schools in Maryland requires just one simple thing, according to Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform, an advocacy organization.

“It’s a law that is very clear and open to actually allowing people to step forward to get those schools,” Allen said Tuesday.

Maryland is far from having what CER officials consider an adequate charter school law, she said. According to the center’s 2011 annual ranking and score card of charter school laws released in January 2011, Maryland’s law ranks 35th of 41 laws on the books.

As reasons for the poor rating, the report cited limitations with district-only authorizing, union requirements, school board control of charters and lack of funding for charters.

Mississippi claimed the worst ranking, while Washington D.C. was deemed to have the best charter law.

Allen will visit Frederick tonight to discuss Maryland’s charter law, what she believes is lacking and what needs to be done to improve the law. The event at the C. Burr Artz Library will be hosted by FrederickEducationReform.com.

Tom Neumark, a founder of FrederickEducationReform.com, said his organization wanted to inform the public and elected officials about the rankings and how the law could be changed.

According to Allen, fixing the law won’t be easy.

The state law would need to be totally rewritten for Maryland to have a quality charter school law, she said.

She suggested starting with adding an independent authorizer to form charter schools rather than school boards because school boards don’t know what it’s like to operate a charter school.

“They’re not set up to review, approve and even consider what a new school looks like,” she said. “They’re not in the new schools business.”

Allen said the Maryland legislature has shown no “appetite”

2011 Charter School Laws Across the States: Ranking & Scorecard

Commentary by: admin on January 26, 2012 - 8:41 pm

Tags: charter school law, Charter Schools

Download or print your PDF copy of 2011 Charter School Laws Across the States: Ranking & Scorecard

The Garden State’s Missed Opportunity: New Jersey Charter Application Review

Commentary by: admin on December 1, 2011 - 6:37 pm

Tags: charter school law, Charter Schools, new jersey

Download or print your PDF copy of The Garden State’s Missed Opportunity: Weak Charter School Law Emboldens Faulty Review Process

The hits just keep on coming

Commentary by: admin on June 22, 2010 - 1:50 pm

Tags: Charter School, charter school law, commentary, multiple authorizers, Patrick Henry, school choice, Virginia

dontchange The opening of Virginia’s latest charter school (one of only four operating around the state) has been nothing but a roller coaster ride, not to mention a textbook example of the more-often-than-not contentious relationship between school districts and their charter schools when districts hold all the cards under a weak charter law:

Since the start of their dance with Richmond Public Schools (RPS) in the spring of 2008:

- Patrick Henry was forced to go through the RPS approval vote process three times

- Patrick Henry was initially left out of this year’s RPS budget

- Patrick Henry is to be held to higher standards than other RPS schools, but will receive 21 percent less funding

- Patrick Henry was “generously” granted leased space from RPS at a cost of $1 per year – facilities which came with a crippling renovation price tag of close to $1 million

Enough already?

Apparently not. Yesterday, a school more than 2 years in the making, one that will offer families a longer school year and a curriculum focus not available in traditional Richmond schools, was faced with the possibility of being on the receiving end of one more hit – the potential refusal by RPS to hire their first principal just as the final preparations for their inaugural school year get under way. (more…)

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