By John King, Michigan Advance
MICHIGAN—The State Board of Education has approved a resolution urging lawmakers to pass legislation to increase transparency around Michigan's charter school finances. Charter schools are described as a “threat to democratically governed, community-based schools.”
The resolution, introduced Tuesday by board member Dr. Mitchell Robinson, calls for implementing a number of reforms, including the eventual phase-out of for-profit charter management organizations.
“The original concept of charter schools as laboratories for innovation came from teachers' unions, but that purpose has now been largely lost to predatory for-profit charter management organizations,” said Robinson, an associate professor of music education at Michigan State University. ” “I have spent over the past decade studying the effects of free proliferation of charter schools in Michigan. I see no evidence of innovation in the charter sector. We believe the time has come for strict oversight and accountability measures.”
Charter schools, also known as public school academies, are publicly funded and operated under a charter contract issued by a publicly chartered entity such as a university, community college, or local public school district. One difference from traditional public schools is that charter school board members are appointed by charterers rather than elected by local voters.
The resolution addresses the State Board of Education's efforts to privatize public education and give private and appointed school boards, religious organizations and for-profit corporations a voice in public education, according to a news release. This is a result of growing concerns.
The resolution also notes that there are 285 charter school districts in Michigan, responsible for 363 charter schools.
“We are currently struggling to adequately fund and support one system of public schools, while also funding additional publicly funded school systems. are significantly different from traditional public schools in that they pay teachers 30% less and administrators 30% more, and follow many of the same rules and regulations as traditional public schools. Exempted. This is a fiscally irresponsible and educationally unsound approach,” Robinson said.
This resolution calls for the enactment of legislation that includes provisions requiring:
- Reviews by the Michigan Department of Education approve or deny applications for new, duplication, or expansion charter schools after consulting with the local school district in which the charter school operates.
- Converting for-profit charter management organizations in the state to nonprofit charter management organizations.
- Full and complete transparency of all financial matters related to the Charter Management Company's income and expenditures.
- Compliance with open meetings laws and freedom of information laws.
- The charter school's website will publish detailed management agreements and detailed expenditures of the educational management organization by function.
- Compliance with all bidding laws and regulations.
- Prohibits students from attending, being prevented from enrolling in, or being encouraged to leave a charter school because of their behavior, academic ability, disability, English proficiency, family status, or living situation.
- Prohibits charter schools from rejecting transfer students during the school year if the charter school has space available.
- Increasingly all charter school faculty and administrative staff obtain certification in lieu of short-term permits, and employees working while holding temporary or emergency permits obtain full certification. is strongly encouraged.
The resolution passed 6-1, with Robinson joined by fellow Democrats Marshall Bullock II, Ellen Lipton, Judith Pritchett, Tiffany Tilley, and Board Chair Dr. Pamela Pugh. Ta.
Republican Tom McMillan was the only vote against the resolution. Nikki Snyder, the board's only Republican, left and was absent at the beginning of the meeting after the board refused to add some of her school safety proposals to the agenda.
“I'm disgusted by the vileness of this board,” Snyder said as he picked up his bag and left the board room.
But McMillan said he doesn't think the charter school resolution is focused on what's best for students.
“I know there are a lot of people who want to protect the adults in the system. That's their number one priority, not the kids,” he said. “They don't want to give parents a choice. And these charter schools give parents a choice. They reach capacity because parents want their kids to get a decent education. There is a reason.”
But the quality of education in Michigan's charter schools is by no means a settled issue.
A 2023 study by Stanford University's Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) ranked Michigan among the top 10 states for charter school performance from 2014 to 2019, with students receiving an additional 36 days of English learning and 24 I took a two-day English course. They outperform their traditional public school counterparts in mathematics.
However, as Chalkbeat reported, CREDO specifically criticized the methodology used, saying the metric used in the study, “learning days,” is “controversial among researchers and difficult to interpret.” It cited a 2019 commentary by the Rand Corporation.
State Schools Superintendent Michael Rice addressed that very issue in his remarks Tuesday.
“Do charter schools provide better academic opportunities?” he asked. “Studies on charter schools don't reflect that. Some studies say they've improved slightly. Others say otherwise. Some argue that some of these studies have methodological flaws. There are people, and I'm one of them.
Meanwhile, report cards published last year ranked students' performance in reading and math based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) from 2009 to 2019. This was the first time charter school performance across the state was evaluated based on a single national performance. We conducted standardized tests.
Michigan charter schools performed poorly overall, ranking 31.1% below the national average and third worst in the nation.
Still, Dan Quisenberry, president of the Michigan Public School Academy Association (MAPSA), which advocates for charter schools in the state, questioned the board's priorities.
“If the State Board of Education declines to take up three school safety resolutions and instead chooses to target charter schools and their students, some school boards’ priorities will be “I wonder what it is,” he said. “As board members are well aware, charter schools are fully public schools with public school boards. They are open to any in-state student without eligibility, and far more minority students Charter schools are among the highest performing schools in the state, especially in Detroit. We serve vulnerable students, and are they the ones the state board has decided to target?”
Dr. Molly Macek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative free-market think tank, said the resolution is not about transparency, but about taking educational choice away from parents.
“Giving local public schools a say in whether or not to allow charter schools to open is like giving Kroger the power to decide whether Meijer can open nearby,” she says. “Of course they'll always object. That's not good for students or families.”
Meanwhile, Pugh said it is imperative to have all the facts, including financial data, to offer parents educational options.
“Our public schools are an important part of our communities,” she said. “Government should be ruled by the people, not by outside groups that don't support open government. Michigan spends more than $1 billion a year on charter schools. Equally important, we must ensure that community members are fully involved in important discussions and decisions that affect public schools, including charter schools. is.”
This is not the first resolution the State Board of Education has called for greater transparency for charter schools. In December 2022, the Board of Governors will improve charter school financial transparency based on the results of a Freedom of Information Act request made in June 2021 for a cross-sectional survey of charter schools and education management organizations. approved a resolution calling for the required legislative action.
The stated purpose of the request was to determine “the extent to which charter schools and their educational management organizations uphold the same standards of transparency as traditional public school districts.”
Of these requests, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) found that 12 of the 166 charter schools did not comply, while all 112 traditional public school districts did not comply. Additionally, MDE requires audited financial data because most charter school financial data primarily consists of purchased services and charter management companies are not subject to the same financial reporting and auditing requirements as traditional public school districts. He stated that it could not be verified from the statements.
Read more: Michigan charter schools face intense scrutiny after billions of dollars in public funding
This coverage is republished from Michigan Advance under a Creative Commons license.