[Local-Maine-Schools] Critique of Maine’s proposed charter school bill

[Brian Hubbell]

Local Maine Schools list,

In the final week scheduled this year for the Education Committee's
legislative hearings and work sessions, the LePage administration's charter
school bill has just been published.

On MDI as minimum receiver of state funding for our public schools, we have
some grave concerns about how this bill disenfranchises local citizens and
taxpayers from charter school authorization and oversight   Moreover, the
bill also obligates local taxpayers to transfer public funds at the same
per-pupil rate that we spend on public schools to any  private "educational
service provider" that the state, through a governor-appointed board,
franchises in our area.

A more detailed critique follows below.

The bill is scheduled for a public hearing in the Education Committee this
coming Thursday, May 12 at 1:00 PM.  Our Senator Langley is the chair of
this committee.  If this bill concerns you also, please let Senator Langley
know. His email address is: SenBrian.Langley at legislature.maine.gov

Brian Hubbell,
Bar Harbor

--------------------------

*Critique of Maine’s proposed charter school bill*




LD 1553: An Act to Create A Public Charter School Program in
Maine<http://www.mainelegislature.org/LawMakerWeb/summary.asp?LD=1553&SessionID=9>
, sponsored by Senator Garrett Mason

Bill Summary:

This bill establishes a process to authorize the establishment of charter
schools in the State.

Synopsis and concerns:

Bill seeks to provide a mechanism for new private non-profit and for-profit
entities to gain access to public funding in order to provide more narrowly
directed educational programs to undefined subsets of students.

The law would obligate local property taxpayers to fund these independent
charter school operations at the same per-pupil rate by which they fund
their local public school. This obligation apparently would extend to
“virtual” charter operations located elsewhere, if local students chose to
attend.

Such charter operations may be authorized (and the terms of their contracts
set for a period of 5-15 years) independent of local approval or oversight
through a new, non-elected “State Charter School Commission.” This
Commission would be appointed by the State Board of Education, themselves
appointees of the Governor. Qualifications, duties, and accountability for
members of this Commission are unspecified.

Charter “authorizers” such as this new state Commission may retain up to 3%
of locally-provided public funds for administrative oversight. Non-profit
charter operators may subcontract the actual school operations to private
“educational service providers.”

These charter operations are allowed autonomy over “decisions concerning
finance, personnel, scheduling, curriculum and instruction.”  Charters are
governed by an independent board with no direct accountability to either
local voters or the local taxpayers who are nonetheless obligated to finance
them.

Charter operations would be “exempt from all statutes and rules applicable
to a public school, a local school board or a local school district” and
“exempt from the restrictions normally associated with any state-funded
categorical education funding program.”

Charter schools would not be required to provide comprehensive K-12
education and may instead be authorized to provide programming to limited
age- or grade-levels, after which their students could be returned to public
schools which would then be responsible for the students under conventional
measures.

Facilities used for charter school operations are exempted from local
property tax.

Charters are relieved of obligations to prevailing wages and apparently are
granted reduced restriction to requirements for teaching qualifications.

Charter programs are nominally required to be available to all students, yet
the law specifically provides for charter operators to focus only on special
programs - presumably at the expense of broader educational offerings.

Authorized to concentrate programming around a “special emphasis, theme or
concept,” charter schooling providers would be allowed to direct attention
to specific subgroups of students, apparently relieving them of educational
obligations to other subgroups.

Charter operators may avail themselves of federal financing not available to
public schools.

Charters may favor admission to siblings of their current students and
children of the charter’s founders, governing board members and full-time
employees - presumably to the exclusion of others.

Local public schools would remain ultimately liable for all the obligations
to provide a free and appropriate education in any areas not served by a
charter’s operations, including extra-curricular and special education.

In summary, the bill exposes local taxpayers to a liability of potentially
large private expenditures without corresponding public oversight.
 Following a long period during which we’ve been told that Maine can’t
adequately support the overhead on its present schools, it seems misguided
to divert strained public resources to broader categories of quasi-public or
private school operators with substantially removed public oversight.
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