Stop Sneak Provision To Derail Charter Openness
The day before the General Assembly's session adjourned, lawmakers voted in overwhelming numbers to make it clear that charter schools and their management companies are subject to the state's Freedom of Information Act — just like traditional public schools.
Alarmingly, the bill, not yet signed by the governor, appears to be under threat by countervailing language said to be ensconced in a budget implementer bill that will be voted on in the coming special session.
The language should be stricken from the budget implementer. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy should sign the charter school-FOI bill.
Those nearly unanimous votes last week spoke forcefully. They said clearly that public agencies and those that act as the functional equivalent of public agencies — as do charter schools and the companies that manage them — should have to disclose vital information.
Information that, for example, shows how they spend their money.
Charter school management companies are not presumed in law to be public agencies, but should be. The scandal-plagued Family Urban Schools of Excellence that manages Jumoke Academy in Hartford is an embarrassing local example of the need for public oversight.
After all, charter schools, while different in some respects from traditional public schools, serve a public purpose and depend upon public funds.
Good charter schools and their management companies ought to be pleased to share their information.
The bill passed 142-3 in the House and 35-1 in the Senate. Yet it was put in jeopardy behind closed doors without notice or a hearing or debate, as happens far too often near the end of legislative sessions when the pace is too hectic for many lawmakers to keep up.
This was just a discussion, apparently, between legislative leaders or their designees and representatives of the Malloy administration about how to neuter the charter school-FOI legislation.
That shouldn't happen.Somebody wants to stop charter schools from having to open their records. - Hartford Courant:
