The idea of charter schools is receiving some attention during the current session of the Nebraska Legislature. It has been a topic during floor debate on bills dealing separately with state aid for public-school districts and public-school performance and accountability. The idea also is the main subject of LB 972, Omaha Senator Scott Lautenbaugh’s priority bill. It had a lengthy and provocative public hearing in front of the Legislature’s Education Committee.
While it appears doubtful that LB 972 will make it through the process during the 20 days that remain in the session—the proposal has opposition and considerable skepticism—the fact that it is a point of attention and discussion in the expressed desire for elementary-and-secondary education reform is significant.
LB 972 would create a pilot program. It would authorize the State Board of Education to issue charters for up to five “independent public schools” in Omaha.
These schools would operate independently of the public-school district in which they are located. Each would be managed by a board of trustees, rather than any school-district board of education. Rules and regulations would apply, but would be considerably less in scope. Each would have a performance review after five years.
Persons or entities eligible to establish an “independent-public school” would include parents, community residents, non-profit organizations, public organizations, teachers and school administrators. The only entities explicitly excluded from applying for charters would be, guess what, “denominational and parochial schools” and unregulated, parentally managed schools.
Financing is a key element of chartering such-schools. Section 18 of LB 972 presents the policy: “The school district of residence of each student attending an independent public school shall annually pay to the independent public school an amount equal to the school district’s actual per pupil cost for the preceding fiscal year times the number of students residing in such district who attend such independent public school.” In other words, the funding follows the student. It’s the voucher concept.
Interesting, wouldn’t it be, if the qualifier word “public” was removed from “independent public school” each time it appears? That would make it more broadly the voucher concept; even more justly a parental-choice-in-education policy.
When this thought was pointed out to the Education Committee, one member, Senator Ken Haar from Malcolm, said the reference to vouchers was scary. Why so? Why would even better facilitation of parental choice in education be scary?
If vouchers are too complex or radical, there are other policy options that warrant open-minded, thoughtful deliberation, such as scholarship-support tax credits, educational-expense tax credits and policy-supported education savings accounts. The debate over charter schools should trigger broader discussion of parental-choice ideas.
On another, much less significant level involving schools, there is LB 1081. Its sponsor, Senator Russ Karpisek from Wilber, is worried about competitive balance in high-school sports. He wants more parity. So, for the second year in a row he has sought to spark discussion by introducing silly legislation that would intrude upon the independent, member-based governance of high-school extracurricular activities by the Nebraska School Activities Association.
Senator Karpisek’s crackerjack research staff apparently is responsible for uncovering and formulating this nugget of breath-taking information: from school year 1997-98 through school year 2003-04, about 26 percent of NSAA’s state sports championships were won by non-government, religiously affiliated high schools. But such schools only constituted about 12 percent of the total number of high schools in the state.
“There’s some smoke there” Senator Karpisek was quoted as saying at the public hearing on his LB 1081; “What’s going on?” Senator Bill Avery from Lincoln, a member of the Education Committee, expressed similar suspicion. From their points of view, success has to be about illegitimate recruiting, even though they don’t, or can’t, identify any specific situation. For them, even if Catholic kids go to Catholic schools and Lutheran kids go to Lutheran schools, or parents make school choices for whatever reasons, such motivations are presumed secondary; kids who are athletically competitive are being recruited.
Fortunately, the public hearing on LB 1081 also brought some balance to the discussion. It wasn’t a total waste of time; the premise and specifics of the legislative bill notwithstanding.
There was an acknowledgment that to whatever extent recruiting occurs, by no means is it a parochial-school phenomenon; public schools do it too. And, the executive director of the school activities association spoke of efforts the organization will be making to address issues of “undue influence,” the extent of penalties and the impact of summer camps and club teams.
And finally…. Here’s some wording that can be found in several bills dealing with early childhood education—a rapidly expanding emphasis: “…the goal [exists] of assuring that every family in Nebraska has access to such programs for, at the minimum, the school year prior to the school year for which the child will be eligible to attend kindergarten.”
That’s not mandatory early childhood education; yet. It also exudes a sense of a lower compulsory-education age.
