The Northwest Arkansas Times had an editorial today about the Arkansas Board of Education and their stance on charters. Something tells me they’ve been spending some time here at mid-riffs. It’s nice to see them enter the debate.
A few thoughts:
- The editorial uses circular logic to defend the actions of the board. First the editorial says the board must be highly selective because the charter school cap limits the amount to 24. The editorial then closes by saying we actually don’t need a cap because we have a highly selective board.
- The editorial makes the same tired argument that charters must be innovative to gain approval, while simultaneously pointing out the innovative techniques proposed by the charter school applicants that were denied.
- The editorial writers should have taken a close look at the Arkansas charter law before accepting and endorsing the board’s reliance on “innovation” as the ultimate test of a charter applicant’s worth. How charters become approved isn’t up to the Northwest Arkansas Times or the State School Board. It is up to the state legislature who wrote the law. As we have pointed out before, nothing in Arkansas’ charter school law can reasonably be construed as to empower the board to reject charter applicants for lack of innovation.
- The editorial literally says “It is the board’s job to identify charter schools that try something new that might lead to education reform, not just do the same thing as well or only slightly better.” Really!?! They honestly believe “better” isn’t something that was paramount in the legislature’s intent when they wrote the Arkansas Charter Law? Really!?
I have a question for the editors of the Times and the state board members who have arbitrarily decided that “innovation” is the test for approval. What exactly is it? Let’s stop this whole song and dance and just get on with it. They must know what it is, because they claim to know what it isn’t. So, just tell us: Exactly what is the innovation a charter school applicant needs to incorporate to get approval?
This line is particularly laughable:
Charter schools can make valuable contributions to our education system, but only if they do something better than traditional public schools.
But the whole question is, who decides what is better for us? Our overlords in the state bureaucracy? Or should we as parents be allowed to make that choice for our own families?
The Legislature writes laws broadly expecting them to be interpreted with common sense and adjustments to existing conditions. Therefore, the School Board is the appropriate entity to decide how to apply standards such as innovation. Allowing a charter to be set up just because a charter can be set up is a waste of time and money. There must be innovation. The freedom from admin oversight and direction is the reason charters can be innovative, thus to ignore that requirement is simply to say ‘OK, build a charter that can become your country club school for the arts (sports, STEM, etc.)’.
You are somewhat correct, Nell, it is sometimes necessary for the Board to interpret the law, but that interpretation must be based upon the guidance the legislature provides. Your assertion that they are to use “common sense” and “adjustments to exisiting conditions” is a looser standard than most courts would apply. In fact, it would be a constitutional violation for a legislature to delegate such broad discretionary powers to an executive branch agency.
There is also a procedure which must be followed when an executive branch agency interprets the law: They must do so via a rulemaking procedure which spells out their interpretation of the law and establishes a set of rules by which the law will be executed. As we have pointed out, nothing in the ADE’s rules governing charter school applicants mentions anything about innovation.
As far as your comment about “country club schools,” I wonder what charter schools you could possibly have in mind. A wealth of evidence shows that charter school attendees are on average less advantaged than typical public school students. If you want to see a “country club school,” perhaps you should look at schools in wealthy areas, perhaps near actual country clubs. There you will find high-achieving students and quality schools that keep out disadvantaged students via residential choice. Only those wealthy enough to afford the high cost of housing in those areas are allowed to attend.