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8 Sentences Would Give Arizona Lawmakers the Power to Micromanage and Second-Guess Charter Schools

By Jeanne Allen

The just-released 17th edition of the Center for Education Reform’s yearly scorecard of state charter school laws once again finds the Arizona charter law right up there at the top of the list — one of only two states (plus the District of Columbia) to receive an “A” this year.

Arizona was among the pioneers of the American charter-school movement when it passed its law authorizing public charter schools back in 1994, and has led the way ever since, in no small part because of its high scores in the areas of school autonomy, teacher freedom, and the wide latitude it allows for freedom to innovate.

Unfortunately, there are some dark clouds on the horizon. A prime example of “regulatory reload” has made an appearance in this year’s session of the Arizona legislature. A remarkably successful charter community, comprised of 547 schools and serving some 180,000 students, is targeted for a massive and virtually open-ended regulatory intrusion.

The legislative vehicle for this regulatory overreach is SB 1178, a “strike everything” bit of legerdemain that allowed the Arizona House Education Committee to bring back from the dead a bill that was defeated in a Senate committee a few days earlier. It would require an annual report accounting for every penny that a school spends, and authorizes the auditor general to “request” any additional information he may wish to see, a “request” with which the school “shall comply.”

In one breathtaking move, the bill’s eight sentences of text would give the state government the authority to micromanage and second-guess every decision that a charter school operator may make about apportioning its resources to provide a quality education. The amazing thing is that this massive intrusion into charter school operation is the work of comfortable Republican majorities in both chambers of the legislature.

The record of charter schools in Arizona over the past several years is extraordinary. Their students have outperformed the state average at virtually every grade level and subject, and have earned top scores in the nation in the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Ordinarily, policymakers would regard a record like that as something well worth preserving and encouraging. Instead, legislators appear to be preparing to cripple Arizona’s charter schools. Cooler heads need to prevail, and soon.

Jeanne Allen is the founder and chief executive of the Center for Education Reform. Follow her on Twitter, at @JeanneAllen.