Ever since the state’s charter school system took its first tenuous steps, the state has struggled to strike the right balance.
On the one hand is the goal of allotting some administrative freedom to these schools. On the other is the demand for oversight to see that public money spent on their students is producing good educational results.
Proposed rules allowing multiple organizations to authorize new school charters are meant to further the first goal; advocates for public education must weigh in during the coming months to make sure the best interests of the students are the pre-eminent concern.
Fortunately, the proposed rules are still open for comment: A public hearing is tentatively set for Sept. 27 before the state Board of Education, and a long review process will follow. Any newly designated charter authorizers wouldn’t even begin to accept their first applications for new schools until the 2018-19 academic year.
That’s good, because a cautious approach is what is required here.
Hawaii public education is governed by the policies of a single statewide school district, and its charter schools are authorized in a similarly centralized manner by a single agency, the Public Charter School Commission.
Complaints from some charter schools and others in the community have charged the commission with being too slow to approve new charters, effectively stifling the movement.
The commission was started in 2012 as a replacement for the predecessor agency, the Charter School Review Panel, as part of a legislative effort to bring the system of schools under more careful and thorough review. The fledgling era of Hawaii charter schools included controversies over the state oversight of specific schools, where there were charges of corruption and lax fiscal management.
Since taking over in 2012, the commission has approved only three new charters, bringing the statewide total to 34. By itself, the slow pace may not be a problem.
The state does need to be careful about not turning charter schools into a free-for-all; nor should it authorize charters for more schools than it can responsibly fund. Guarding against the system growing chaotically should be a focus of discussion as the rulemaking proceeds.
But the benefits of expanding the roster of authorizers may make sense, if it can bring in fresh approaches, informed by professional expertise.
Expanding the list of authorizers was part of the 2012 charter-school reform package, which allowed charters to be issued by the commission as well as by:
>> Governing boards of accredited public and private postsecondary institutions, including community colleges, technical colleges and four-year universities.
>> A county or state agency.
>> Governing boards of nonprofit or charitable organizations, except for nonpublic sectarian or religious organizations.
Of those categories, the first one — established educational institutions — ought to have the priority standing as a charter authorizer. It falls within their mission to educate; that experience means there’s less of a learning curve and less risk of failure that ultimately wastes money and does a disservice to the students.
The school board also is developing rules governing the “transfer” of a school charter to a new authorizer. Final rules must constrain schools that lose their charter from simply shopping for another, less-demanding supervisor.
Hawaii is in the minority among states that allow only a single entity to authorize charter schools, and admitting additional, experienced authorizers could be a benefit. But in a state with a history of lax charter-school supervision, more is not necessarily better. If it leads to continued failure in accountability from the schools, it would be much worse.
