By Andrew Vanacore
The Times-Picayune
September 27, 2011

The Louisiana Department of Education will lay out a plan for keeping a closer eye on independent charter schools today that includes restructuring the department’s charter office, an increase in funding and more clearly defined roles for the different state officials involved in the job. Department officials, who will unveil the plan at a meeting of the state board of education today, are calling the strategy “preliminary” and saying it could still evolve based on an external review. They will need board approval for certain aspects, but they expect much of the new strategy to fall within the framework of existing board policy and state law.

The plan reflects heightened criticism aimed at the department since revelations earlier this year about teacher complaints filed against Abramson Science and Technology Charter School in eastern New Orleans. After numerous allegations came to light in July, including accusations of cheating on science fair competitions and a lack of proper supervision for students, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education revoked the school’s charter. But the fact that more than a year elapsed between the original complaints and final action by the board gave ammunition to those who have questioned the state’s ability to keep a close enough eye on charter schools.

In response, acting state Superintendent Ollie Tyler last month promised a comprehensive investigation into how the department handles oversight of charters, which enjoy greater autonomy than their traditional counterparts.

State officials have already said they plan to shift responsibility for charter supervision in New Orleans to the state-run Recovery School District, where New Orleans-based staff will conduct annual reviews at every school.

Officials from both the RSD and the department of education in Baton Rouge worked on the report that BESE will get today, which lays out numerous steps aimed at strengthening oversight that will affect all charter schools in Louisiana.

“Just as it’s important that we promote academic achievement in our schools, it’s also important that we protect the safety and health of all children,” said John White, the RSD’s superintendent.

The department has tentative plans to transform its charter office, known as the Office of Parental Options, into more of a policing arm rather than a means of providing support for schools.

In fact, that process began shortly after the Abramson case hit the news, when the department fired Folwell Dunbar, who served in the charter office as an academic adviser. Responsibility fell to Dunbar for both investigating the accusations against Abramson and helping the school improve, state records show.

In its report to BESE, the department makes clear that it will look to draw more of a line between those roles. Without mentioning Dunbar by name, the report says, “The previous field staff position, which focused on academic support of charter schools, will transition to a charter monitoring role.” Instead of an academic adviser, the department plans to hire a “school accountability and oversight manager.”

It’s also in discussions about moving responsibility for recruiting new charter operators out of the charter office and over to the department’s Office of Innovation. That means the state officials responsible for encouraging new groups to set up charter schools won’t also be in charge of holding them accountable — another potential conflict — though all of them would continue to operate within the same agency.

As previously announced, the RSD will take a more leading role in scrutinizing the charters under its direct purview.

The report acknowledges that the “roles and responsibilities” of the RSD and the charter office “with regard to on-going oversight have at times been unclear.” Now, the RSD will handle the monitoring and report its findings to the charter office in Baton Rouge.

At the same time, the charter office will expand from five to seven full-time positions, paying for the extra staff by withholding more state financing from charters outside the RSD that would otherwise flow directly to the schools.

The department will ask BESE to sign off on one aspect of the plan with a formal vote at its next scheduled meeting in October. It wants to give the RSD, along with the charter office, joint responsibility for making recommendations to the superintendent on steps such as revoking or renewing charters within the district. In the past, those recommendations have come solely from the charter office, with input from officials in the RSD.