THE PERIMETER PRIMATE: Information about charter school authorizers

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Information about charter school authorizers

The charter school authorizer is the agency which receives a charter school application, reviews it, and then ultimately determines if the proposed charter school will open, or not. The authorizing agency is also tasked with providing some measure of oversight during the term of the charter school’s contract; it is sometimes referred to as the sponsor. One concern which has arisen in this era of rapid charter school expansion is inadequate staffing of those agencies’ charter school offices.

The top ten states with the most authorizers are:

CA	293
WI	84
OH	69
OR	67
PA	51
MN	49
CO	47
FL	45
GA	39
MI	32

“Shopping” for an authorizer occurs in states that have multiple authorizers with jurisdiction over the same physical area. For example in California, if an initial charter school application or renewal is rejected by the board of a local city school district, the applicant can then seek approval from board of that district's County Office of Education, and/or from the California State Board of Education. This regularly occurs. In at least one case in Oklahoma, the local school board refused to renew the charter for a school with a long history of problems (note: it is a Gulen charter school). The school then sought and received approval from a local higher education institution (Langston University) which enabled Langston U. to receive a 5% cut of the charter school’s funding.

Charter school promoters are actively monitoring the growth of the charter school market share. They help each other with strategies and techniques that advance the establishment of more charter schools. They put their heads together to steadily press on the loosening of restrictions on charter school law in each and every state.

Charter school promoters are extremely well-funded by a small set of America’s most powerful families. These families have established organizations into which they pour their immense wealth, which are then used to fund projects which advance those individuals' own notions about public education policy – many aspects of which have never been proven by research, or are even at the top of the list for changes that public school families desire. Unfortunately, the interests of these arrogant and powerful individuals have everything to do with the privatization of a valuable public asset as well as the diminishing of the public's genuine power.

The following data is provided by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and the U.S. Census. NACSA’s main funders are the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robertson Foundation, and The Walton Family Foundation.*

State	# authorizers	# charter schools	Authorizer types**	Public elementary and secondary school enrollment: 2008-2009
AK	8	24	LEA	132,000
AR	1	30	SEA	481,000
AZ	7	507	ICB, LEA, SEA	1,076,000
CA	293	900	LEA, SEA	6,177,000
CO	47	70	ICB, LEA	832,000
CT	1	18	SEA	564,000
DC	1	97	ICB	69,000
DE	2	19	SEA, LEA	125,000
FL	45	460	HEI, LEA	2,635,000
GA	39	91	ICB, LEA	1,668,000
HI	1	31	ICB	180,000
IA	8	8	LEA	482,000
ID	14	41	ICB, LEA	276,000
IL	9	116	LEA, SEA	2,097,000
IN	5	60	HEI, LEA, MUN, SEA	1,047,000
KS	23	32	LEA	469,000
LA	6	92	LEA, SEA	691,000
MA	1	63	SEA	957,000
MD	6	40	LEA	848,000
ME	TBD***	2	LEA, SEA	184,000
MI	32	249	HEI, LEI	1,618,000
MN	49	148	HEI, LEA, NFP, SEA	837,000
MO	12	36	HEI, LEA	917,000
NC	1	100	SEA	1,477,000
NH	1	10	SEA	197,000
NJ	1	73	SEA	1,387,000
NM	18	81	LEA, SEA	333,000
NV	5	28	LEA, SEA	429,000
NY	2****	176	HEI, LEA, SEA	2,766,000
OH	69	342	HEI, LEA, NFP	1,762,000
OK	4	18	HEI, LEA	655,000
OR	67	108	LEA, SEA	554,000
PA	51	146	LEA, SEA	1,762,000
RI	1	15	SEA	144,000
SC	16	44	ICB, LEA	723,000
TN	3	29	LEA	973,000
TX	15	572	LEA, SEA	4,850,000
UT	7	86	ICB, LEA	583,000
VA	3	4	LEA	1,245,000
WI	84	209	HEI, LEA, MUN	872,000
WY	3	3	LEA	88,000
AL	No legislation			749,000
KY	No legislation			676,000
MS	No legislation			492,000
MT	No legislation			142,000
ND	No legislation			93,000
NE	No legislation			295,000
SD	No legislation			124,000
VT	No legislation			86,000
WA	No legislation			1,035,000
WV	No legislation			283,000

* The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools actively monitors the charter school market share. Its funders include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Doris and Donald Fisher Fund, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Robertson Foundation, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, the William E. Simon Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation, as well as the National Charter School Resource Center in association with the currently very charter school-friendly U.S. Department of Education.

** Authorizer types

HEI = Higher Education Institutions
ICB = Independent Chartering Boards
LEA = Local Education Agencies (school districts)
MUN = Mayors/Municipalities
NFP = Not-For-Profit Organizations
SEA = State Education Agencies (commissioners, state boards of education, or offices within SEAs that report to commissioners or state boards of education)

*** Maine’s charter school law is relatively new (2011). It allows two types of entities to authorize charter schools: 1.) the Maine Charter School Commission (allowed to authorize a maximum of 10 charter schools throughout the state during the first 10 years) and 2.) Local school boards (authorizes charter schools within the boundaries of their school units)

**** NACSA's website reports 4 authorizers in NY. This was corrected by a reader. See the first comment.

####

2 comments:

Leonie Haimson said...: There are now only two charter authorizers in NYS: the Regents/State Ed Dept; and SUNY (State University of NY.) I'm not sure there were ever four authorizers as your chart says, but the NYC Chancellor used to be able to authorize charters until that power was taken away from him by the Legislature.; August 28, 2012 at 1:49 PM
The Perimeter Primate said...: Thank you, Leonie! It looks like the paid experts can't even keep track of things properly.; August 28, 2012 at 1:52 PM

Inform yourself about the Gulen movement!

1. WATCH the Gulen Movement 101: Session One webinar presentation (1/22/2014)
2. READ the "Expose the Gulen Movement" report.
3. LISTEN to my interview with At The Chalk Face , slide marker to 32:00 min. (5/19/2013)
4. WATCH the 60 Minutes segment "U.S. charter schools tied to powerful Turkish imam" broadcast. (5/13/2012)
5. READ my response to the 60 Minutes piece.
6. READ my guest article about Gulen charter schools published by The Washington Post. (3/27/2012)
7. WATCH my interview talking about Gulen charter schools, or my presentation at LaborFest (segment between 49:18 min. & 1:07:36 min.)
8. READ my postings labeled "Gulen movement" HERE.

As one observer tweeted, "U.S. media have focused too much on the Islamic nature of the Gulen movement. Real concern is its shady dealings and improprieties."

Please be aware that Gulenists have created a large number of anonymously-operated damage control websites. They started to appear a few months after publication of Greg Toppo's article in USA Today (August 2010).

WE CAN DO IT!

Jim Hightower on populism:

"... what populism is at its essence is just a determined focus on helping people be able to get out of the iron grip of the corporate power that is overwhelming our economy, our environment, energy, the media, government."

Jim Hightower on plutocracy:

"Plutocracy and democracy don't mix."

More Jim Hightower HERE.
Read his Lowdown newsletter HERE.

Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth. In a plutocracy, the degree of economic inequality is high while the level of social mobility is low.

On Bill Gates' ed reform

Joel Shatzky's comment on Huffington Post:

The inferior "test-prep" agenda which bases the pedagogically fraudulent "data" standardized test scores serves as a way of diverting the concerns of working parents who hope that better test scores will lead to better job opportunities for their children. If they realized that they were being given a con job, they might consider other, more "active" forms of political and social protest than simply lobbying for more money for charter and public schools.

New wealth gap report

Research and Policy Brief from the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, Brandeis University, May 2010:

"New evidence reveals that the wealth gap between white and African-American families has more than quadrupled over the course of a generation."

You absolutely must click on this link to view the graph.

Now compare that graph to the one you'll see here.

Now read this entry.

And if you are a person who blames the schools, or believes they are responsible for fixing these problems, you can stop that type of thinking right now.

A Keeper

Posted on the Oakland Public School Parents listserv by a member:*

As a public health nurse, I am working with a generation of young parents who were drug-exposed, who are now having children who are drug-exposed, and it's a whole new ballgame. Many who were premature and will carry some deficits for life.

There are also many other families who have several generations of all kinds of abuse, not enough to eat, violence in and out of their homes, as well as chronic exposure to pollution and nutritional deficits. And there are regular people in the same neighborhoods who are just trying to live, but are poor and can't get ahead.

And there is major grief, and continuous LOSS. So many folks have lost so many folks, people around them dying, of one thing or another, every month almost. Young people (cousins, brothers, friends) dying from violent means, the elders dying too young of chronic disease and disparities in health care, among other things.

What we know about learning and development is that stressed nervous systems CANNOT learn, and that's what we have. Children with many major stressors. Abandonment, attachment disorders, fear, post traumatic stress, sadness, inability to trust or sleep. Many children. Many.

Resulting in: Lack of impulse control, lack of executive function, difficulty in expressing and controlling emotions, difficulty in sleeping, holding still, and paying attention, not to mention following directions and prioritizing tasks.

Our teachers will (perhaps already do) need more training, support, and smaller class sizes. They need major support and help with mental health issues. We really need some kind of expanded vocational track for those who can't perform even at the community college level.

We can't expect teachers to undo years and years of living. The availability of universal preschool would help. Sometimes a classroom is the first kindly, safe, structured, stimulating environment a child encounters.

Wise insights such as these are never uttered by people like Eli Broad, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Joe Williams, or any others who are of this type of school reform ilk. And this is why I know for certain that they just don't "get it." Maybe they don’t want to, OR maybe they don’t care.

* Thank you, B.R.

What Children Need

From Playing to Learn by Susan Engel (New York Times, 2/1/2010):

"Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.

…Simply put, what children need to do in elementary school is not to cram for high school or college, but to develop ways of thinking and behaving that will lead to valuable knowledge and skills later on."

And to tag onto that, check out this video about the wood shop at one of Oakland's middle schools.

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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Information about charter school authorizers

2 comments: