Only 5 of the 32 will get OK to start a school
By JENNIFER RADCLIFFE | Houston Chronicle
March 20, 2011
An arts school in downtown Houston, a dual-language academy in southwest Houston and a Center for Teaching and Learning in Montgomery County are among the 32 charter applications the State Board of Education will consider this fall.
Unless pending legislation lifts the state cap, only five of the charter applications submitted by last month's deadline will be approved.
"That gives you a lot of heartburn," said David Bradley, a State Board of Education member from Beaumont. "It makes it really difficult for the board in their decision-making."
Charter school advocates are hoping the cap of 215 will be lifted in time to allow more of these applicants to open schools in fall 2012. Several bills propose raising the cap by at least 10 schools a year. Currently, 120,000 Texas students, or about 2.5 percent of the state's public school population, attend a charter.
"We think the climate has shifted pro-charter and for that we're quite pleased," said David Dunn, the executive director of the Texas Charter Schools Association.
Some of the legislation is scheduled to be heard this week in the House Public Education Committee.
Grass-roots applicants
While a substantial percentage of charter students attend well-known chains like KIPP, YES Prep or Harmony Science, this group of applicants includes mostly grass-roots operations.
Even former charter school-skeptic Linda Ellis, a longtime educator, is among the applicants. She hopes to open a 120-student campus near The Woodlands that will feature small, multi-aged classes for pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.
"If we're going to have charter schools, we need to stop fighting it and have some really, really good ones," she said. "We educators have to get in there."
Hitting the cap
Texas first allowed charters — tax-supported campuses that aren't subject to the same regulations as traditional schools — in 1995. Red flags were raised a few years later when state officials approved nearly 120 applications at once. Many of those schools had serious academic and financial troubles, prompting the Legislature to limit the number.
Texas has been bumping up against the cap for several years, freeing up space only by enticing some charter chains to operate multiple schools under one charter. This year, Harmony Science returned four charters and Richard Milburn-Beaumont returned one.
Any new legislation would take affect Sept. 1. The state board is expected to approve charter applications later that month. If the cap isn't lifted, Bradley said, "Parents will be disappointed."
Filling a niche
Patrick Brooks, who hopes to open a performing and visual arts secondary school for downtown's theater district, shares the sentiment. He thinks his campus would fill a much-needed niche and reduce the dropout rate by giving students a reason to stay in school.
"This would be a school that every parent would want their child at," said Brooks, who would serve as superintendent of BlazinBrook Preparatory School of the Artz.
The campus would be a spinoff of a 10-year-old nonprofit that contracts to provide arts education to several Texas districts.
Showing posts with label charter schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charter schools. Show all posts
Monday, March 21, 2011
Are "charter universities" the future of state-funded higher ed?
By David Harrison, Stateline Staff Writer
Pew Center of the States
Friday, March 18, 2011
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect the fact that the proposal to split the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from the state system came from the governor's budget, not from the university.
On the face of it, the budget proposal that Ohio Governor John Kasich released this week looks like terrible news for state universities. Not only would Kasich’s plan slash higher education spending by 10.5 percent but it also would cap tuition increases at 3.5 percent a year.
So it might come as a surprise that some university presidents received the plan warmly. Within hours, Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee released a statement praising the governor for “understanding that higher education and our state’s long-term strength are inextricably linked.”
Gee’s optimism rests on another aspect of the governor’s budget. In exchange for the budget cuts, Kasich would give state universities more autonomy in running their day-to-day affairs. Long-term, that could save schools money. “We at Ohio State continue to move aggressively in both advocating for regulatory freedom and reconfiguring and reinventing our institution,” Gee said.
With states mired in their fourth straight year of budget shortfalls, many university presidents around the county seem willing to make deals like the one in Ohio. In states such as Oregon, Louisiana and Wisconsin, flagship universities are inching away from their traditional patrons in the statehouse, accepting lower levels of state funding in exchange for freedom from state regulations.
The result may be a new relationship between states and their public universities. For state leaders, that relationship may wind up being less of a budget drain — but politicians will have less leverage to tell universities what to do and how to do it. For universities, less state funding and oversight is likely to come with higher tuition and more reliance on private-sector funding. At the same time, it will raise questions about the core mission of state universities whose original purpose was to offer an affordable education.
“The holy grail for a lot of flagship institutions is full tuition autonomy,” says Rich Novak, of the Association of Governing Boards, which represents university boards. “When you strip everything away from it, that is basically what these institutions want. And full admission autonomy which means that they can admit more out of state students and get out-of-state tuition.”
More autonomy
This is not the first time Ohio has sought to change how it pays for higher education institutions. In 2009, the state overhauled its funding formula to reward schools for keeping students through to completion. Instead of receiving money for every matriculating student, funding is now weighted towards universities that keep students through to graduation.
Now, Kasich, a Republican in his first year in office, is calling for turning the state’s public universities into “charter universities.” That designation would allow them to operate under fewer state regulations. It’s still unclear what that freedom would look like, but education officials have given the example of exempting state universities from rules requiring multiple contractors on building projects. That’s a regulation that tends to drive up the price of construction on campus.
The plan has a familiar ring to it. In Wisconsin, Republican Governor Scott Walker has proposed splitting off the state’s flagship public university in Madison from the rest of the University of Wisconsin system. The move to set up the school as a separate authority would give the University of Wisconsin-Madison more leeway in spending and setting tuition. The governor also proposed studying a similar split for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The UW system faces a $250 million cut in Walker’s proposed budget for the next two years, about half of that coming from the Madison campus.
In Louisiana, lawmakers approved legislation last year allowing higher ed institutions to raise tuition if they met certain requirements, such as higher graduation rates. Now, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal wants to combine some administrative functions and give schools more leeway in hiring, setting tuition and purchasing.
And in Oregon, state university officials are pitching a broad plan to finance the University of Oregon through state bonds and private donations. Supporters of the plan say it would protect the school from swings in state budgets and provide a more predictable funding stream. Critics say the plan could lead to more tuition increases. During a state Senate hearing on the idea last month, students showed up to protest wearing red tags on their shirts that said “Keep UO Public,” according to The Oregonian.
The tuition trade-off
While the share of state funding in university budgets has been declining for decades, the drop has become more pronounced during the recession, forcing price increases and intensifying talk of university flexibility. Many university officials, like Gee, have indicated a willingness to exchange reduced state aid for the ability to raise more revenue on their own.
But as long as the state appropriations keep flowing to schools, lawmakers are going to want to have some say in tuition rates, says David Breneman, a professor at the University of Virginia.
“Governors and legislators will put up with a certain amount of tuition increase,” he says. “But at some point they balk.”
Proposals to grant more autonomy to state universities are not new. In 2005, Virginia lawmakers granted the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and the College of William and Mary more autonomy from the state. Routine administrative business such as purchasing or payroll no longer has to go through officials in Richmond. In return, the state required the universities to meet objectives on student access and affordability.
There is a concern, however, that granting state universities too much authority could jeopardize their original mission, to serve the state’s students. “There’s a sense of a broken contract here,” says Breneman. “There’s an emotional tide to this sort of thing. It’s almost like a divorce.”
In Ohio, Sara Kaminski, executive director of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors wrote an editorial in The Columbus Dispatch saying Kasich’s proposal would renege on the state’s commitment to providing an affordable education.
“In Ohio, this would make it even more difficult than it has already become for the average Ohio family to send children to college,” Kaminski wrote. “Students will either choose not to attend college or will graduate with an inordinate amount of debt — both of which will equate to less spending potential in our economy.”
— Contact David Harrison at dharrison@pewtrusts.org
Pew Center of the States
Friday, March 18, 2011
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect the fact that the proposal to split the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from the state system came from the governor's budget, not from the university.
On the face of it, the budget proposal that Ohio Governor John Kasich released this week looks like terrible news for state universities. Not only would Kasich’s plan slash higher education spending by 10.5 percent but it also would cap tuition increases at 3.5 percent a year.
So it might come as a surprise that some university presidents received the plan warmly. Within hours, Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee released a statement praising the governor for “understanding that higher education and our state’s long-term strength are inextricably linked.”
Gee’s optimism rests on another aspect of the governor’s budget. In exchange for the budget cuts, Kasich would give state universities more autonomy in running their day-to-day affairs. Long-term, that could save schools money. “We at Ohio State continue to move aggressively in both advocating for regulatory freedom and reconfiguring and reinventing our institution,” Gee said.
With states mired in their fourth straight year of budget shortfalls, many university presidents around the county seem willing to make deals like the one in Ohio. In states such as Oregon, Louisiana and Wisconsin, flagship universities are inching away from their traditional patrons in the statehouse, accepting lower levels of state funding in exchange for freedom from state regulations.
The result may be a new relationship between states and their public universities. For state leaders, that relationship may wind up being less of a budget drain — but politicians will have less leverage to tell universities what to do and how to do it. For universities, less state funding and oversight is likely to come with higher tuition and more reliance on private-sector funding. At the same time, it will raise questions about the core mission of state universities whose original purpose was to offer an affordable education.
“The holy grail for a lot of flagship institutions is full tuition autonomy,” says Rich Novak, of the Association of Governing Boards, which represents university boards. “When you strip everything away from it, that is basically what these institutions want. And full admission autonomy which means that they can admit more out of state students and get out-of-state tuition.”
More autonomy
This is not the first time Ohio has sought to change how it pays for higher education institutions. In 2009, the state overhauled its funding formula to reward schools for keeping students through to completion. Instead of receiving money for every matriculating student, funding is now weighted towards universities that keep students through to graduation.
Now, Kasich, a Republican in his first year in office, is calling for turning the state’s public universities into “charter universities.” That designation would allow them to operate under fewer state regulations. It’s still unclear what that freedom would look like, but education officials have given the example of exempting state universities from rules requiring multiple contractors on building projects. That’s a regulation that tends to drive up the price of construction on campus.
The plan has a familiar ring to it. In Wisconsin, Republican Governor Scott Walker has proposed splitting off the state’s flagship public university in Madison from the rest of the University of Wisconsin system. The move to set up the school as a separate authority would give the University of Wisconsin-Madison more leeway in spending and setting tuition. The governor also proposed studying a similar split for the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The UW system faces a $250 million cut in Walker’s proposed budget for the next two years, about half of that coming from the Madison campus.
In Louisiana, lawmakers approved legislation last year allowing higher ed institutions to raise tuition if they met certain requirements, such as higher graduation rates. Now, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal wants to combine some administrative functions and give schools more leeway in hiring, setting tuition and purchasing.
And in Oregon, state university officials are pitching a broad plan to finance the University of Oregon through state bonds and private donations. Supporters of the plan say it would protect the school from swings in state budgets and provide a more predictable funding stream. Critics say the plan could lead to more tuition increases. During a state Senate hearing on the idea last month, students showed up to protest wearing red tags on their shirts that said “Keep UO Public,” according to The Oregonian.
The tuition trade-off
While the share of state funding in university budgets has been declining for decades, the drop has become more pronounced during the recession, forcing price increases and intensifying talk of university flexibility. Many university officials, like Gee, have indicated a willingness to exchange reduced state aid for the ability to raise more revenue on their own.
But as long as the state appropriations keep flowing to schools, lawmakers are going to want to have some say in tuition rates, says David Breneman, a professor at the University of Virginia.
“Governors and legislators will put up with a certain amount of tuition increase,” he says. “But at some point they balk.”
Proposals to grant more autonomy to state universities are not new. In 2005, Virginia lawmakers granted the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and the College of William and Mary more autonomy from the state. Routine administrative business such as purchasing or payroll no longer has to go through officials in Richmond. In return, the state required the universities to meet objectives on student access and affordability.
There is a concern, however, that granting state universities too much authority could jeopardize their original mission, to serve the state’s students. “There’s a sense of a broken contract here,” says Breneman. “There’s an emotional tide to this sort of thing. It’s almost like a divorce.”
In Ohio, Sara Kaminski, executive director of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors wrote an editorial in The Columbus Dispatch saying Kasich’s proposal would renege on the state’s commitment to providing an affordable education.
“In Ohio, this would make it even more difficult than it has already become for the average Ohio family to send children to college,” Kaminski wrote. “Students will either choose not to attend college or will graduate with an inordinate amount of debt — both of which will equate to less spending potential in our economy.”
— Contact David Harrison at dharrison@pewtrusts.org
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Board of Education reverses course on charter school funding
By Kate Alexander | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, July 23, 2010
tate Board of Education members muscled through a proposal Friday to invest public school endowment dollars in charter school facilities.
But there could be a push back next year from legislators who say political aims are overtaking the board's responsibility to manage prudently the $22 billion Permanent School Fund. The endowment was created in 1876 for the benefit of Texas public schools.
On Friday, the board reversed a preliminary vote from the previous day and dedicated $100 million of the fund to developing and leasing buildings for charter schools, which are privately managed public schools.
Charter schools deserve assistance similar to what the state provides traditional public school districts, said board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont. The fund helps school districts by guarantying debt used to build classrooms and other facilities, which reduces the districts' borrowing costs.
"We're trying to be fair," Bradley said.
State Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, said the board appears to be overstepping its role.
"Their job is to prudently invest the fund so that the constitutional objectives of the fund can be maximized, and providing facilities for charter schools is not one of those functions," said Duncan, chairman of the State Affairs Committee. "This appears to be a political decision and not a decision that is based upon the board exercising its fiduciary responsibility under the constitution."
Duncan and state Rep. Donna Howard , D-Austin, carried legislation last year that would have placed investment oversight of the endowment with an appointed board of financial professionals.
That measure cleared the House of Representatives with the 100 votes needed to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot, but it never got a hearing in the Senate.
Howard said she intends to file the legislation again in 2011 and believes that lawmakers from across the political spectrum will agree that Friday's decision "is not conservative management of this fund."
Chairwoman Gail Lowe , R-Lampasas, has her own reservations about whether the charter school investment would pass constitutional muster. But she said having an elected board overseeing the fund does serve the public well.
The constitutional issue in question is whether a charter school facility investment would meet the "prudent person" standard that generally says an investment's return must be commensurate with its risk.
The board's investment adviser described the charter school investment as low-return and high-risk and declined to make a recommendation for or against the investment approach.
Board member Cynthia Dunbar , R-Richmond, said the board members are meeting their legal obligations to vet investments thoroughly.
There is also a benefit to the overall fund as well as to education as a whole, Dunbar said.
No investment will be made until the attorney general weighs in on the "prudent person" question or the Legislature gives clear authority for the board to proceed, the board stated in its approval of the asset allocation.
Education Commissioner Robert Scott said he will instruct staff members who oversee the Permanent School Fund and charter school policy to tackle many lingering questions about the plan.
On Thursday, the board split 7 to 7 on a vote to include the charter school proposal in the overall investment mix of the endowment. The tie sank the proposal.
But when the final vote was taken Friday, one opponent from Thursday, Rick Agosto, was gone. The San Antonio Democrat had left the meeting shortly after roll call earlier in the morning.
Agosto's absence gave supporters of the charter school proposal the one-vote margin needed to include it in the overall investment mix of the endowment.
Agosto said any suggestion that he left the meeting to flip the vote's outcome is "preposterous."
Friday, July 23, 2010
tate Board of Education members muscled through a proposal Friday to invest public school endowment dollars in charter school facilities.
But there could be a push back next year from legislators who say political aims are overtaking the board's responsibility to manage prudently the $22 billion Permanent School Fund. The endowment was created in 1876 for the benefit of Texas public schools.
On Friday, the board reversed a preliminary vote from the previous day and dedicated $100 million of the fund to developing and leasing buildings for charter schools, which are privately managed public schools.
Charter schools deserve assistance similar to what the state provides traditional public school districts, said board member David Bradley, R-Beaumont. The fund helps school districts by guarantying debt used to build classrooms and other facilities, which reduces the districts' borrowing costs.
"We're trying to be fair," Bradley said.
State Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, said the board appears to be overstepping its role.
"Their job is to prudently invest the fund so that the constitutional objectives of the fund can be maximized, and providing facilities for charter schools is not one of those functions," said Duncan, chairman of the State Affairs Committee. "This appears to be a political decision and not a decision that is based upon the board exercising its fiduciary responsibility under the constitution."
Duncan and state Rep. Donna Howard , D-Austin, carried legislation last year that would have placed investment oversight of the endowment with an appointed board of financial professionals.
That measure cleared the House of Representatives with the 100 votes needed to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot, but it never got a hearing in the Senate.
Howard said she intends to file the legislation again in 2011 and believes that lawmakers from across the political spectrum will agree that Friday's decision "is not conservative management of this fund."
Chairwoman Gail Lowe , R-Lampasas, has her own reservations about whether the charter school investment would pass constitutional muster. But she said having an elected board overseeing the fund does serve the public well.
The constitutional issue in question is whether a charter school facility investment would meet the "prudent person" standard that generally says an investment's return must be commensurate with its risk.
The board's investment adviser described the charter school investment as low-return and high-risk and declined to make a recommendation for or against the investment approach.
Board member Cynthia Dunbar , R-Richmond, said the board members are meeting their legal obligations to vet investments thoroughly.
There is also a benefit to the overall fund as well as to education as a whole, Dunbar said.
No investment will be made until the attorney general weighs in on the "prudent person" question or the Legislature gives clear authority for the board to proceed, the board stated in its approval of the asset allocation.
Education Commissioner Robert Scott said he will instruct staff members who oversee the Permanent School Fund and charter school policy to tackle many lingering questions about the plan.
On Thursday, the board split 7 to 7 on a vote to include the charter school proposal in the overall investment mix of the endowment. The tie sank the proposal.
But when the final vote was taken Friday, one opponent from Thursday, Rick Agosto, was gone. The San Antonio Democrat had left the meeting shortly after roll call earlier in the morning.
Agosto's absence gave supporters of the charter school proposal the one-vote margin needed to include it in the overall investment mix of the endowment.
Agosto said any suggestion that he left the meeting to flip the vote's outcome is "preposterous."
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Review of “How New York City’s Charter Schools Affect Achievement.”
Check out Stanford University's Sean Reardon's analysis of Harvard's Caroline Hoxby's report titled, "How New York City’s Charter Schools Affect Achievement.”
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