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Arianna Prothero
Education Week
February 24, 2015

As much as $116 million in public dollars could be funneled to private schools in Indiana this year, the majority of which are affiliated with a religious institution.

The CEEP report says that in some cases, Indiana students from families making 370 times more than the federal poverty level are eligible for vouchers. Indiana also earned top marks last summerin a state-by-state ranking of voucher programs by the Center for Education Reform, a Washington-based research and advocacy group that supports school choice.

By Nick Balatsos
Casper Star Tribune
February 24, 2015

Tiffany Leary has her fingers crossed.

She recently delivered an 870-page application to the Natrona County Board of Trustees that, if approved, would allow her to create the county’s first charter school.

The Guild Charter School would be another option for K-8 Casper students who want a challenging learning environment. It would offer individualized learning programs and a unique curriculum, Leary said.

Parents who support the school say it could benefit the community by serving a niche of students who score high on IQ tests, but don’t meet the threshold for acceptance into the district’s gifted and talented program.

But Leary clarified the school would be open to anyone.

The school would be publicly funded and independently run and would operate under a contract, or charter, outlining its mission, just as the four other charter schools in the state do.

During a trustees meeting Monday, Leary plopped a heavy black binder containing the school’s application in front of Superintendent Steve Hopkins for consideration.

Now, she has to wait.

Hopkins said he and the board will take a month to look over the application and make sure all the required components are present.

A review team will be formed and given the resources they need, including access to people at the Wyoming Department of Education who are more familiar with charter schools, he said.

Once the application is considered complete, the board has 60 days to approve or deny it, according to state law. Within the first 30 days, a public forum must be held to gauge community support.

Hopkins said the district has had people in the past express interest in starting a charter school, but as far as he remembers, this is the furthest anyone has gotten in the process.

Leary, a Casper parent, and her friend Wendolyn McGregor, an instructional facilitator and former gifted and talented coordinator for the school district, started working on the application in September after delivering a letter to the board of trustees, letting them know their plans for the school.

Now the application has been delivered, some would say the duo faces an uphill battle in Wyoming. The state’s laws on charter schools have been ranked consistently among the worst in the country by advocacy groups.

The Center for Education Reform and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools have both criticized the state’s laws regarding what agency can approve a charter school.

In Wyoming, since 1995, the local school board is the only agency that can approve a new charter. In other states, universities, private organizations or state charter commissions approve the schools.

A bill introduced this year might have improved those rankings.

Rep. Sue Wilson, R-Laramie, sponsored a bill that would have given the community college commission authorizing authority, but it failed to earn a committee’s endorsement.

Some see the current set-up as a conflict of interest, forcing local districts to make a decision that could result in fewer students.

Hopkins said he has “heard that debate” and has chosen “not to weigh into it,” but he assured the group’s application would get a fair review.

“These folks have worked hard on the application. They deserve to have a thorough review,” he said.

During the meeting, several parents spoke in favor of the new charter school.

For Travis Dunn, a parent of 10 children of ranging intellect, the school would provide a unique place to learn. He said the public schools aren’t cutting it for his child.

Similarly, Andrea Harrington called the school “a new paradigm” for Casper.

“We just need another opportunity to offer (our kids),” she said.

Students at the school would attend classes four days a week. The shorter week could reduce costs and result in fewer missed days for students, according to the school. For teachers, the extra day off could also allow for more planning time.

The school will offer a challenging curriculum, small class sizes and strength- and experiential-based learning to set it apart from the district.

By Wilford Shamlin III
The Philadelphia Tribune
February 20, 2015

Reactions to the approval this week of five new charter schools, which meant denials for 34 other proposals, drew wide range of public remarks, including a very public chastisement from the Democrat chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The five charter school applications were approved for opening in September 2015.

State Sen. Vincent Hughes said any approvals would only worsen the district’s financial conditions.

“As a result of these cuts, the funding of our charter schools has come largely from inside the district, with dollars being taken from traditional public schools to fund charter school,” Hughes said. “Essentially, we have a district within a district. And they are separate and very much unequal. In the end, the academic success of all of the children is at risk.”

Of the 34 applications denied after hours of public testimony, only three ended in a 3-2 split vote but an overwhelming majority failed to win three votes from the Philadelphia School Reform Commission at a special meeting Wednesday.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf opposes any new charter school approvals because it would only add to the district’s financial strain, a position supported by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union and its affiliate, American Federation of Teachers.

Approving even a single application made the vote more controversial because of the potential impact on a school district that has made significant cuts in staff positions, programs and services.

In the face of a barrage of intense public criticism, the state-controlled panel responsible for operating and setting the budget fat or a school district buried in serious debt authorized five existing charter school operators that run KIPP, Freire, MaST, Mastery Charter, Independence Charter schools to open new schools, adding some 2,600 new seats. However, there will be fewer seats with two charter schools closing in 2014.

AFT President Randi Weingarten released a statement that calculated the financial impact of each new charter seat at $7,000, which would equate to $50 million in four years. She pointed out the need for increased accountability issues which has rocked traditional public schools and privately managed charter schools alike.

Hughes questioned the Philadelphia School Partnership’s offer to donate $35 million in support of charter school expansion and improvement initiatives. He said the offer would fall short of the increased cost as a result of opening five schools.

PSP, which solicits private donations with the goal of investing the funding into school improvement initiatives, said the offer was intended to lessen financial strain to the district so charter school approvals would be decided solely on merit. However, Hughes expressed reservations about the offer, saying, “Their well-intentioned offer of $35 million to help expand charter schools may very well be the golden goose that laid the rotten egg.”

Fernando Gallard, the district’s chief of communications, said the offer was a discussion for Superintendent William Hite or his designee rather than a matter for the school reform commission.

In a statement released by PSP, executive director Mark Gleason said, “While the SRC approved five schools with a history of providing increased educational opportunity to disadvantaged students, PSP is deeply disappointed that nearly a dozen other schools with similar records were rejected despite their desire to locate in neighborhoods where families urgently need better schools.”

PFT President Jerry Jordan blasted the school district for using cost-savings as a justification for cancelling the teachers contract, a move that was later nullified by a state court. The statement read: “The same SRC that used the district’s budget crisis to justify cancelling the PFT contract has, in just a few minutes, made a decision that will cost million of dollars, and could negatively impact our city’s children and communities for years to come.”

Jonathan Cetel, executive director for PennCAN, an advocacy group pushing education reform, said in a statement released Thursday, “Unfortunately, yesterday’s vote by the SRC means thousands of families will remain on charter school waiting lists while $140 million is invested in the lowest-performing one percent of schools in the state. At PennCAN, we believe that the School District of Philadelphia needs more money, but additional resources only make a difference if they are invested in schools that work.”

James Paul, senior policy analyst for the Commonwealth Foundation, supported the idea of new charter schools that would replace schools plagued by academic performance and financial management.

“Some will question how Philadelphia can afford these new charter schools. But for the sake of kids trapped in failing and violent district schools by virtue of their ZIP code, a better question is how can get the city afford not to,” he said.

Kara Kerwin, president of The Center for Education Reform, said proposals to create an all-girls college preparatory charter school that provides instruction in science and technology fields where females are under-represented.

“It’s a shame that more Philadelphia parents will be forced to wait for a better opportunity for their child,” she said.

By Jennifer Dixon and Lori Higgins
Detroit Free Press
February 19, 2015

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers called a new report that grades Michigan’s authorizers a “step in the right direction” as the state continues to discuss improving charter authorizing. But critics said the Education Trust-Midwest study was misleading and failed to recognize effective authorizing practices.

Gov. Rick Snyder also weighed in, calling some of the findings “concerning.” Snyder, in an interview with the Free Press editorial board, said today that he wants to partner with state Superintendent Mike Flanagan, who himself has been addressing authorizer accountability.

“Because if people aren’t doing their job right, there is a need for action,” Snyder said. “Nobody wants to see more charters being created if they’re not going to provide a quality education to students.”

Ed Trust-Midwest, a nonpartisan education advocacy organization, gave letter grades to 16 of the 40 school districts, community colleges and public universities that authorize charter schools in Michigan. It called for Michigan to sanction authorizers that consistently do business with low-performing operators and potentially remove them as authorizers if their schools fail to improve.

Most of the authorizers that got an A have one charter. Four authorizers, including two of the largest, got a B, including Grand Valley State University, which has 63 charter schools.

Tim Wood, who runs Grand Valley’s charter office, said the report “doesn’t tell the entire story.” He said Grand Valley was scored lower because one of its Detroit’s schools is in the bottom 5% of Michigan schools. He said Grand Valley has been Lincoln-King Academy’s authorizer since 2013, and school board members and school leaders are “working very diligently to move out of that bottom 5%.”

Central Michigan University, with 73 schools, got a C.

In a statement, Cindy Schumacher, executive director of CMU’s charter school office, said: “CMU is confident of its authorizing practices and the strong reputation we have developed over the past 20 years on the state and national levels.”

Jared Burkhart, executive director of the Michigan Council of Charter School Authorizers, said the report used a “weak and politically driven methodology and fails to recognize effective authorizing practices.”

The Michigan Association of Public School Academies, which represents charters, said the report used “flawed data and reaches conclusions that aren’t supported by facts.” The Center for Education Reform in Washington, D.C., called the report misleading because it graded only some authorizers.

Ed Trust-Midwest said it measured only charter schools with three years of academic data, which is why only some schools and authorizers were included in its report.

Michelle Zdrodowski, spokeswoman for Detroit Public Schools, which got a D, said the report measured half its charters.

“Recent rankings have listed other DPS-authorized charter schools as among the best in Michigan, and the significant improvement in the academic performance of our most challenged schools is a testament to DPS’s strong authorizing practices,” she said.

Alex Medler, vice president of policy and advocacy for the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, which has been critical of Michigan’s authorizers, said authorizer evaluations are “valuable tools in the larger effort to strengthen charter school oversight. Ultimately, and more importantly, they can help the state to improve charter school performance.”

Medler’s Chicago-based group has called for reforms since the Free Press published an eight-day series, “State of Charter Schools,” which found charters receive $1 billion in state taxpayer funding with little accountability, transparency or academic achievement.

NACSA’s president and CEO, Greg Richmond, sent a series of letters noting that stronger policy, stronger authorizing and stronger governance are needed in Michigan. His recommendations included a requirement that authorizers follow professional standards, such as those developed by his group, and disclosure of how they spend taxpayer dollars to oversee their charters.

In August, Superintendent Flanagan put 11 authorizers on notice that they are at risk of being suspended from opening new charters. Flanagan has said a final decision is on hold until the governor announces reforms this year.