A new bill by District of Columbia Councilmember Charles Allen, D-Ward 6, would seriously undermine charter schools’ autonomy. Where the D.C. School Reform Act frees charter schools of government intrusion, the Public School Transparency Amendment Act of 2019 would try to reimpose it.
Public school students in the District enroll in two types of public school. About half of them are enrolled in the city-run school system, D.C. Public Schools. The other half are educated at tuition-free, taxpayer-funded public charter schools. These are open to all District-resident students regardless of neighborhood or academic ability. Charters operate independently of DCPS and are held to strong academic, school governance and legal standards by D.C.’s independent charter board, which is in turn appointed by D.C.’s mayor and Council.
Councilmember Allen’s legislation would intervene in the space between the District’s charter schools and their regulator, the charter board. Allen’s anti-charter supporters say greater accountability for public charter schools would be achieved by compelling autonomous charters to provide public records requests and comply with open meeting laws, which under D.C. law apply to the charter board but not to individual charter schools.
The controversial legislation also would require charters to disclose non-public fundraising; publish all employees’ names and salaries; accept teacher and student-appointed representatives on boards; and list all school contracts, regardless of amount. Charters would not be compensated for the costs of implementing these requirements, or for the consequences of disclosing the currently-confidential information of staff and contractors. Compliance would therefore require schools to divert scarce schooling resources for information that does nothing to increase or improve student access.
The District’s public charter school law is nationally-recognized as a guarantee of high-quality public-school choice, with extensive regulatory oversight by the charter board which must approve all school charters. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools ranks D.C.’s law ninth out of 44 states, noting that it includes “an independent charter board as the authorizer, and provides a fair amount of autonomy and accountability.”
Charters’ ability to improve student performance is currently at a record high. The share of charter students meeting state college and career readiness benchmarks has increased every year since the more academically-rigorous citywide PARCC standardized tests were introduced. Student proficiency is higher among at-risk and African-American charter students than their peers enrolled in similarly nonselective, traditional D.C. public schools. D.C. charters have boosted high-school graduation rates, which are higher in charter schools than the city average.
And D.C. public charter schools are held accountable as schools of choice, families must actively choose them rather than simply being automatically enrolled as in DCPS.
D.C.’s charter board rigorously assesses D.C.’s charters and can remove their right to operate. Charters are also subject to higher audit standards. For example, the board independently verifies charter graduation and attendance rates, providing data families can depend upon, in contrast to the self-serving inflation of graduation numbers recently revealed in DCPS.
To impose a burdensome bureaucracy on charters would be to strike at the foundation of their success. It is charters’ flexibility relative to state-run schools, after all, that makes them capable of providing stronger public school options.
D.C.’s charters have dramatically increased the number of high-quality school seats, yet this old-fashioned top-down approach, which governed D.C. public education before charters arrived, does nothing to further raise access of students to them.
As nonprofits, charters delivered on the emergency call put out by the government to rescue public education in D.C. But other D.C. nonprofits that also deliver vital public services would not be subject to these same restrictions.
The timing of this push is also suspicious, considering a new transparency initiative voluntarily announced by the charter board. This requires charter schools to publish notice of meetings that are open to the public, board meeting minutes, the salaries of the five highest-compensated individuals, employee handbooks, and funding plans for at-risk students, among other new requirements.
Shockingly, the District allocates fewer dollars per student to public charter schools, despite their enrolling a higher share of economically-disadvantaged students. For every $10 a DCPS student receives in city funds, a charter student receives only $7. The city also discriminates against charter students, a higher proportion of whom are minorities, with school facilities funds and city services for schools. Councilmember Allen doesn’t address these inequalities, yet here he is proposing new unfunded mandates.
This bill would cost charters scarce time and money, threatening improved student performance, especially for disadvantaged students. Is it accountability that concerns its sponsors, or is this about kneecapping the healthy, vigorous competition that charters have been providing DCPS?
Dr. Ramona Edelin is Executive Director of the DC Association of Chartered Public Schools.
