After Months-Long Battle, California Finally Enacts Modest Oversight of Charter School Sector
There’s an old cliche that almost perfectly describes the struggle to regulate an out-of-control charter school sector from state to state: You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.
In late August, in a presentation at the Columbus Metropolitan Club, former Ohio Governor Bob Taft named lack of effective regulations in the Ohio laws that enabled charter schools as one of the things he regrets about his tenure as Ohio governor. Taft, a Republican, served for two terms as governor, from 1999-2007. In his remarks last week Taft explained that during his term, “We were not as observant as we should have been with regard to the early development of charter schools. We didn’t have the quality control we should have had, and as a result, we have a lot of low-quality charter schools. We should have done a better job—making sure operators were good; quality was high.” (You can listen to Taft’s comments here—at minute 53 in the broadcast.)
This year, the enormous difficulty of regulating charter schools in the public interest has centered in California. California’s original charter school enabling legislation, like the Ohio charter school legislation which Bob Taft now regrets, emphasized innovation and launched a new experiment. But it neglected strict oversight. Los Angeles Times reporter Taryn Luna explains: “Charter schools in California are publicly funded and independently operated. Originally authorized in 1992 legislation to promote educational innovation, charter schools have evolved from an experiment to a system that enrolls more than 600,000 students across the state. California ties education funding to enrollment, and charters have often been pitted against traditional neighborhood schools in a competition for students.”
Capital & Main‘s Bill Raden is more blunt. He sees this year’s battle to regulate California’s CONTINUE READING: After Months-Long Battle, California Finally Enacts Modest Oversight of Charter School Sector | janresseger
