Charter School Basics
A charter school is a public school that has been granted organizational and instructional flexibility in exchange for a promise to pursue specific academic goals. In most cases, applications for a school charter must first be submitted to the local school board. If rejected there, applicants can turn to the State Charter Commission. Charter schools approved by the commission get funding from the federal and state government but not from local property taxes. Those approved by a local school board get state, federal and local property tax funding. Less than 10 percent of public school students in Georgia attend charter schools, whose academic performance is roughly on par with that of traditional public schools.
Types of charter schools in Georgia.
“System charter schools” are those in a district that has been given the sort of organizational and instructional flexibility provided to individual charter schools.
“Startup charter schools” are those that were set up, from scratch, by community members with approval from a local school board or by the State Charter Schools Commission.
“Conversion charter schools” are those that were traditional public school but have been converted to charter status.
The rebirth of a state commission empowered to approve charter school applications was supposed to mean more charter schools. At least that’s what charter school supporters hoped.
Those hopes have clashed with reality.
The State Charter Schools Commission has approved only one of the 16 applications it has considered since it began operations in March.
Bonnie Holliday, the commission’s executive director, said four of the applications were not eligible for approval because of legal reasons. Three applicants withdrew. One application was approved by a local school board, so the state commission’s OK was not needed. The charter application of the Utopian Academy for the Arts in Clayton County, a middle school, was approved. Seven other applications were denied for a variety of reasons.
“Some groups have trouble creating a business plan with a balanced budget while others need additional time to align curriculum to state standards,” Holliday said. “Some groups aren’t able to demonstrate need or community support. There’s not necessarily a trend.”
The deliberate pace of approval has irked supporters of the constitutional amendment that led to the creation of the commission.
“I’m unhappy they didn’t approve more,” Tony Roberts, president and chief executive officer of the Georgia Charter Schools Association, said. “Without knowing their mindset or not being part of their discussions, my feeling is they erred on the side of extreme caution.”
Charter schools are public schools granted organizational and instructional flexibility in exchange for promising to pursue specific academic goals. The schools are at the heart of an ongoing and intense debate about how to improve the state’s public education system.
Supporters see charter schools as alternatives to struggling traditional public schools. Others say charter schools are improperly viewed as a panacea for a traditional public school system that would be helped with more financial and community support.
That debate reached a peak last year, when state lawmakers passed a proposed constitutional amendment that underscores the state’s power to authorize charter schools. That power had been in question since 2011, when the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that a state charter school commission did not have the authority to approve charter applications.
Local school boards and the state Board of Education continued considering charter school applications, but supporters wanted another avenue for the approval of charters. They also worried that the state’s overall power to authorize charter schools would come into question.
After an intense political campaign, voters approved the amendment. Lawmakers had passed legislation calling for the re-establishment of a state charter schools commission if the amendment was approved.
Roy Lewis, leader of a group that was unsuccessful in trying to open a charter high school in Peach County, said the commission needs to be more flexible. Instead of rejecting an application that’s flawed in some limited, specific way, Lewis said the commission should be open to giving applicants more time to address those concerns.
“I do believe we need a little more flexibility here,” Lewis said.
Both Lewis and Roberts emphasized that they are glad the commission is operating and praised its professionalism and thoroughness. But they agreed that the commission should take a less rigid approach.
State Sen. Vincent Fort, an Atlanta Democrat who argued strongly against passage of the charter schools amendment, said the high rate of charter rejections shows that too many applicants are ill-prepared to oversee a school.
“It is showing, I think, that many of the charter school applications are not well done, well thought out in their planning,” he said. “We ought to be spending our time, energy and resources on non-charter schools.”
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