WEAC Testifies Against Charter School Expansion
WEAC's position
on charter schools In testimony before the Legislative Council Special Committee on Charter Schools, WEAC Research and Professional Development Consultant Russ Allen outlined WEAC’s position on charter schools. It is: • Charter school employees should be full partners in the design, implementation, and governance of charter schools. • Charter school employees should be employees of the school district and, therefore, eligible to participate in the Wisconsin Retirement System. • Only local school boards should have the power to create charter schools. Other municipalities, colleges or universities, and private or for-profit entities should not. • Charter school funding should not disproportionately divert resources from traditional public schools. • Charter school programs must be qualitatively different from what is available in mainstream public schools. • Charter schools should not be used to select easy-to-educate students or to eliminate or reduce the number of special education students in the charter school. • Wisconsin’s charter school law should not be expanded. “It is WEAC’s position that the existing charter school law is working reasonably well,” Allen testified. WEAC is represented on the Legislative Council Special Committee on Charter Schools by Noelle Mudrak, a teacher at Horizons Elementary School in Appleton. Many members of the committee, however, are advocates of charter school expansion. |
The state's current charter school program is working “reasonably well” and should not be expanded, a WEAC representative told a legislative committee Tuesday (October 17, 2006).
WEAC Research and Professional Development Consultant Russ Allen said locally elected school boards “were created for the explicit purpose of governing local schools,” and that charter school authority should not be expanded to municipalities, colleges or universities, or private or for-profit entities.
Testifying before the Legislative Council Special Committee on Charter Schools, Allen said the committee should explore whether any valid and reliable research exists showing that independent charter schools are more effective than charter schools authorized by local school districts.
“If research on this issue has not been done - and I don’t believe it has - it is our recommendation that there be a study by an independent authority to determine if there are significant differences in the quality of education provided among the various chartering authorities in Wisconsin," Allen said.
Local school boards, he said, “have the institutional experience and knowledge required to operate public schools.”
“In contrast, county and city government and universities were never designed to run public schools,” Allen said. “Why would we want to duplicate what we already have in place by increasing the number of independent chartering authorities, none of which have any demonstrated track record of having operated a school? In addition, there doesn’t appear to be any demand on the part of colleges, universities or municipalities to operate charter schools.”
In his testimony, Allen also addressed the cost issue, saying the Legislature needs to change the way the state funds independent charter schools.
“Currently, these schools are paid for by reducing state aid to Wisconsin’s school districts,” he said. “During the 2005-06 school year, more than $35 million was transferred from existing public schools to independent 2r charter schools. (Districts do have the authority to raise local property taxes without a referendum in order to make up the reduction). The state Legislature should create a separate revenue stream to fund independent charter schools.”
Given the severe impact of school district revenue controls on schools throughout the state, he said, “few districts are in the position to sacrifice additional funding to support more 2r independent charter schools.”
Posted October 20, 2006