“Debate Swells as Decision Nears on Virtual Charters”
by John Mooney
NJ Spotlight
July 12, 2012
The prospect of New Jersey’s first online charter schools continues to stir up debate, even as the Christie administration moves closer to announcing its decision on the virtual schools.
A group of a half-dozen of the state’s most prominent education organizations delivered a letter to acting education commissioner Chris Cerf this week, asking him not to approve final charters for two all-online schools until a number of legal and policy issues could be resolved.
The letter was signed by the New Jersey Education Association, the Education Law Center, and the New Jersey School Boards Association, as well as state associations representing principals, superintendents, and other administrators. Also signing were the state NAACP and the Latino Institute.
The main arguments were legal ones, with the letter making numerous citations of specific statute and regulation. It took up the now-familiar argument that the state’s 15-year-old charter school law does not accommodate for online schools, nor grant the state the power to approve them.
“We have significant concerns that the Department of Education lacks legislative authority to authorize virtual or online charter schools under the Charter School Program Act of 1995,” read the letter.
“There is no mention of virtual charter schools in the Act or its legislative history, which makes it clear that this new form of charter school was never contemplated, and has never been authorized, by the Legislature,” it read.
The letter went on to maintain that there also remained “numerous broad public policy questions that the Legislature must address,” from how the schools would be funded to rudimentary questions as to how attendance would be monitored.
Among them was a key point for critics: the role of for-profit companies in operating the schools. It is particularly germane, since K12 Inc., the nation’s
