DID YOU KNOW?
HB 21 by
state Rep. John
Bel Edwards would prevent high-ranked districts in accountability to have
charter schools if local districts refuse them, preventing the Board of
Elementary and Secondary Education from overriding such a decision unless it
was a failing school and/or committed to serving students with
exceptionalities. After minor amendments were adopted, Edwards said to the House Education
Committee that there was no correlation between quality and performance of
schools and that local governance was best in determining whether successful
districts should have charter schools.
Proponents
argued that by allowing the chartering of these schools in successful districts,
it allowed unintentional subversion of the mission of charter schools primary
as vehicles to assist at-risk students, As part of that, this could cause
segregation by race. They claimed that these charter schools can use things
like discipline policy to take the cream from the top. They also appealed to
the concept of local control without state interference.
Opponents
said the bill would discriminate against C-rated, D-rated, and F-rated
districts, which would not “protect” most minority-majority, high-poverty
districts; would deny opening schools that do serve primarily at-risk students because
of political agendas of school board majorities and provided an appeals process
for all that usually ruled in favor of school boards anyway; and poor schools
in better districts should have the tool of charter schools maximally available
for consideration of their improvement. Also, they said it was appropriate to
have state involvement in the matter since the majority of funding of local
districts came from the state and state law determined local powers. They
pointed out that almost half of all dropouts statewide come from
better-performing districts, and that many students headed to charter schools
are probable dropouts. They also questioned that if Edwards saw no relationship
between performance scores and quality, then why would a bill be built
discriminating along those lines? Additionally, they noted that lottery rules
for selection into a charter school favored at-risk students. Finally, they
claimed the bill was unconstitutional.
