FORT LAUDERDALE — Which comes first: Better charter school authorizing or multiple authorizers?
That was one of the questions raised this week during a gathering of school district and charter school administrators in South Florida.
Charter school experts often favor a system where multiple organizations — school districts, universities, statewide boards — are allowed to sponsor charter schools. That way, if a school district tries to put the kibosh on valid charter school applications, the schools have another avenue to open. At the same time, if one authorizer lets a bad schools flourish, the state can hold that entity accountable, or even strip it of its ability to sponsor schools, without stifling all charters in that area.
Vickie Marble of Student Leadership Academy in Venice told the group allowing multiple authorizers could create a richer charter school ecosystem.
“I think it’s always good to have a second place to choose from,” she said.
On the other hand, Tiffanie Pauline, the assistant superintendent who runs the charter school office for Miami-Dade Public Schools, pointed to problems in states like Ohio, which is trying to clean up the practice of “authorizer shopping,” where poor-performing schools leave one authorizer (perhaps a school district) and contract with another (like a nonprofit organization).
She and other school district representatives said districts need to do their part rooting out unqualified charter school applicants — something the Florida Association of Charter School Authorizers is trying help them improve. Right now, though, bad schools still get through, and some fail suddenly.
“We would have a situation where we would have those bad applicants shopping… which does not bode well for the movement, at all,” Pauline said.
Rod Sasse, the Florida director for the charter school operator Imagine Schools, agreed, saying other issues with the state’s charter school sector need to be addressed, “before we get to that step” of allowing groups other than districts to oversee charter schools.
In other words, the persistence of fly-by-night charters undermines the potential for other changes that could help the movement.
It’s also possible, though, that the presence of an organization whose sole mission is to oversee charter schools could help set a bar for better oversight, and in turn, help districts improve. Then the question becomes how the Florida can overcome potential roadblocks in the state constitution.
