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LETTERS 97 |
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Letters 97 June 27, 1997 Honorable George Pataki Dear Governor Pataki: I am writing to you to comment on your Charter School Program initiative on behalf of the Educational Priorities Panel, a coalition of 26 civic organizations that have worked together for 21 years to monitor the impact of administrative and budget decisions on public school students in New York City. Before providing you with our comments, I need to make it clear to you that the Educational Priorities Panel takes no position on the creation of charter schools in New York State. Because EPP is a coalition, we adopt policy positions only when there is a consensus among all our member organizations. Since 1984, the Panel has been on record in opposition to taxpayer supported vouchers for private schools. It is highly unlikely, however, that our coalition will adopt a position in favor or against charter schools because there are significant differences among our members on this issue. Some of our organizations believe that charter schools represent a form of constructive competition to a public school system that has failed, so far, to embrace genuine reform. These organizations make the argument that the creation of charter schools will tap into the energy, creativity, and commitment of community groups and that they are a positive alternative to a voucher system. Other member organizations take the opposite point of view and believe that charter schools are just an interim step towards vouchers and the total privatization of public education. From their point of view, the creation of a charter school system represents an abandonment of the public school system in favor of the creation of private schools at public expense. Given these contradictory positions among our organizational members on charter schools, our review of Governor’s Program Bill #52 establishing a charter school system rests solely on issues related to responsibility of government officials to the public for the use of taxpayer funds, not whether such a system should be created or not be created. We have these points to make: The six objectives for charter schools in section (§ 2850.2 ) are commendable. EPP supports the legislation’s primary goal for these schools of improving student learning and achievement and the remaining five goals of providing more student learning opportunities (especially for those who are at-risk of academic failure), innovative teaching methods, professional opportunities, and performance-based accountability. Sections on accountability by charter schools for meeting these objectives need to be strengthened and unambiguous if they are to be credible. EPP has been surprised by the difficulties we have encountered in attempting to measure the various claims about improved student outcomes made by proponents of "school choice" and "small schools." The problem areas of public accountability have revolved around 1) the gathering of data, 2) comparability to data gathered from other public schools, 3) access to the data by parents, sponsoring organizations and neutral researchers, and 4) the public disclosure of the data. EPP supports accurate, universal, and public accountability for student outcomes. We do not believe that charter schools should have anything to fear from assessments of student achievements levels routinely made of all other publicly funded schools. We do not understand why Program Bill #52 allows such wide discretion to the state commission on charter schools in determining what assessments will be made and on the reporting of such assessment data. Our assumption is that the bill’s requirement for a report on charter schools to the governor, legislative leaders, and the Board of Regents makes the report a public document, but why not specify that this report be included in the 655 report and be comparable to the reporting on public schools? A taxpayer should be able to open up a future issue of the 655 report or get on the Internet site for school report cards, both generated by the State Education Department, and read all the relevant indicators of student achievement for each charter school. Our specific concerns are the following: §2855 on general requirements states in article 1.(b) that a charter school shall meet the same student assessment requirements applicable to other public schools "except as otherwise specifically provided in this article." The last section of §2855 essentially gives the state commission on charter schools broad and unlimited power to determine whether a particular provision of law is applicable to charter schools, which would include student assessment requirements, a power that "shall not be reviewable by any other state agency or department." In essence, since the objectives for charter schools are focused on improved student outcomes, why create the possibility of exemptions from testing and assessments required of all public schools? Another possibility would be to require the same student assessment and reporting for charter schools that are now done for non public schools. Either Program Bill #52 creates a level playing field or there isn’t one. § 2859 on review and assessment also contains similarly ambiguous language. Article 2.(a) requires a charter school report card to include "comparative academic and fiscal performance of the school," but once again the data in the report card will be "prescribed by the state commission on charter schools in conjunction with the commissioner in regulations adopted for such purpose." Similarly, section 3. (c) states that the academic progress of students attending charter schools shall be measured against comparable public and nonpublic schools "wherever practicable." We do not understand the intent of the language in these two sections under § 2859. Are there to be two types of report cards, one for public schools and one for publicly funded charter schools? An important omission, given the stated objective of providing learning opportunities for students at-risk for academic failure, is the absence of a requirement in this article for data on the proportion of students eligible for free lunch. The most troubling aspect of § 2859 is the absence of language allowing access to data on charter schools to be made available to third parties, namely neutral university-based researchers who might be interested in providing a more detailed analysis of student progress, for example, on year-to-year student gains. Admission policies as outlined in the legislation need additional provisions in order to ensure fairness and absence of discrimination. In article § 2855 2. (b), we support requirements for a random admission process when the number of applicants exceeds the capacity of the grade level or building with the clearly delineated and limited allowances for preferences. What is strikingly absent from this section of the bill is any requirement for a public notice to a community that a charter school is open for admissions and how to submit "a timely application." Without such a requirement, a charter school could select all their students before the public knows that the school will open and parents have an opportunity to apply. In article § 2855 (a) we believe that the provision requiring charter schools to be nonsectarian in its programs is an important safeguard. But we also note an important contradiction in this section that states that admission is not to be limited by gender, yet allows the establishment of single-sex schools, which, of course, limits admissions to only one gender and is discriminatory. Similarly, there is a provision against discrimination on the basis of disability and other sections of the bill require adherence to federal guidelines under IDEA, yet a charter school’s committee on special education may deny placement to students if they believe that the school cannot offer services that meet their needs (§ 2855 2. (f)). The school district’s committee on special education, on the other hand, is given no authority to evaluate whether the charter school could be reasonably expected to accommodate the needs of children with disabilities nor is the state commission on charter schools required to resolve these issues. The legislation would be strengthened by a requirement that there be public reporting of all gifts, donations, and grants made to charter schools. Article § 2858 3 allows such additional funding, but EPP strongly recommends that a detailed and public report be made of these additional funds for the purposes of evaluating 1) whether per-pupil funding levels are similar to public schools within the same school district and 2) whether the charter school may be requiring excessive parental support that would, in essence, subvert the legislation’s prohibition against tuition charges. It appears to us that charter schools will be provided with a slightly different per-pupil funding level than public schools in the same district. Section § 2858 1 sets the per-pupil funding level for charter schools on the basis of the prior year’s per-pupil funding level, but requires a supplement based on prior regional consumer price index changes over a 24 month period starting April 1 of the calendar year. We need clarification of why this funding mechanism is necessary. In addition, we do not understand the meaning of lines 14 to 16 of this article, "amounts payable pursuant to this subdivision may be reduced pursuant to an agreement between the school and the chartering entity set forth in the charter." The language of this article is quite clear that payments from the school district are to go to the school, not to the chartering entity. We do not understand whether this language allows both the school and the chartering entity to voluntarily agree to lower funding levels from the school district or allows the chartering agency to direct some of the funds that are to go to the school to an entity responsible for the management and maintenance of the school as per § 2854 1. (b) (vi) so long as there is an agreement by the school. The legislation needs to clarify the responsibility of the state commission on charter schools to parents for any wrongdoing by the chartering agency or charter school staff. At a minimum, the bill should require that charter school staff undergo a criminal records check. Parents of religious schools students can sue the affiliation body for lack of oversight. More costly private schools are able to afford substantial insurance coverage and can be selective in their hiring of staff. No article in Program Bill #52 requires a threshold private funding level before the charter school begins receiving public funds. Our assumption is that the objective of allowing charter schools to hire uncertified teachers is to give them the same latitude as private schools in choice of teaching staff and lower salary levels. We do not understand, however, why fingerprinting is not required of charter school staff even though it is required of applicants seeking to establish a charter school and why there isn’t a requirement for the charter school to review and retain documents pertaining to teacher’s qualifications. These minimal standards do not seem invasive to us or overly bureaucratic. EPP has a more general comment that is related to the issue of the creation of the state commission on charter schools and its broad powers. It is clear to us that much of this legislation, including creating a commission dominated by your appointees, was drafted with an eye to protecting charter schools against excessive regulation, a lack of cooperation, and even potentially hostile acts by school districts and the State Education Department. This caution may be warranted. In preparation for reviewing this legislation, EPP members prepared a set of questions as a guide to evaluating your initiative once it was drafted into bill form (see attached). Absent from the list of preliminary questions, however, was the implication of setting up a publicly funded school system in the Executive Office of the Governor without oversight from the Regents or the legislature. The constitution of this state gives the Regents jurisdiction over educational programs and issues, not the Governor. We do not believe that the voters in the general election of 1994 had any indication that they were choosing a candidate that would create a publicly funded school system without oversight by the Regents and the State Education Commissioner, so neither you or Governor Cuomo were reviewed for your qualifications in this area. After commenting on your budget proposals over the last three years on the basis of EPP policies in support of school funding equity and special education reform, we have some knowledge of your budget priorities for public schools. But we have little knowledge of your positions on education that is not related to the budget. This leads EPP to the recommendation that the legislation be redrafted to limit the power of the state commission on charter schools to oversight to ensure that charter schools are being funded by school districts in accordance to the law, but that the Regents and the State Education Commission have oversight on all other education practices, including the qualifications of applicants seeking charters, similar to their oversight over public and nonpublic schools. Input to this letter and its review came from representatives of organizations with a variety of positions on the charter school issue. The representatives from organizations that are opposed to the creation of charter schools have asked that I make it clear to you that even should the legislation be changed to reflect any or all of our recommendations, EPP as a coalition will not support this legislation. Sincerely, CC
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