Delaware’s law governing charter schools ranks in the middle of the pack in a report recently published by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
The state’s ranking fell from 18th place in the group’s 2011 report to 22nd this year, even though the General Assembly approved legislation last year after financial and management problems surfaced at two charter schools. Delaware “was surpassed by states that made more substantial changes to their charter laws,” the report stated.
According to the report, Delaware’s charter school law “needs significant improvement in several areas, including expanding authorizing options, beefing up its provisions for performance-based contracts, and ensuring equitable operational funding and equitable access to capital funding and facilities.”
For several years Delaware charter school officials have been seeking changes in state law to provide more equity in funding. Under current law, school districts send money to charter schools to cover a portion of the cost of educating students who live in those districts. The amount is based on the district’s per-pupil spending level in the previous year, which is almost always less than current year spending. Also, because charter schools do not levy property taxes, they do not have a source of local funds to finance construction projects, nor can their projects be included in [are they eligible to participate in] state bond issues, which typically cover 60 percent or more of construction costs. For many charter schools, this means they rent, buy or construct their facilities with funds that would otherwise be spent on instruction.
“We have some tremendous charter schools in the state that do a great job,” said Brian Selander, Gov. Markell’s chief strategy officer, in an email. “It's not surprising that a report issued by an organization committed to expanding charter schools would come to the conclusion that states should be spending significantly more on charter schools.”
But Greg Meece, acting president of the Delaware Charter Schools Network and director of the Newark Charter School, took issue with Selander’s statement, saying “that kind of thinking is why Delaware is not rising in the rankings nationally.”
The Markell administration, Meece said, “is framing the argument in terms of giving [charter schools] more money. The argument is an equity issue – treating us the same as you do other public schools in Delaware.”
Meece also said that to “not provide at least a level playing field financially is a major reason why Delaware and other states are not moving up in the rankings, and are moving down. It’s just wrong.”
Meece said he has raised this issue with Markell on several occasions. “I talked to him last week about it,” he said Friday.
Another report issued last year, by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), sharply criticized the state Department of Education’s process [policies and procedures] for approving charter school applications and monitoring their operations.
The department subsequently received a $75,000 grant from NACSA, supplemented by $20,000 from the Rodel Foundation, to hire a consultant that will help create a new application form for charter schools, set new standards for measuring the schools and define how assessments will be conducted.
“The new application and performance framework are “under development” and the work will be completed by July, said John H. Carwell Jr., charter school officer in the Department of Education.
