In some cases, California Charter Schools might be entirely new schools, but the legislature tends to assume that they will be converted from current public schools, based on an approved plan of significant change.
Minnesota now allows persons other than teachers to form and operate an outcome-based Charter School. But teachers still must make up the majority of the school's board of directors. Teachers can form a cooperative that negotiates a contract with the Charter School to provide instruction. California law allows other responsible groups such as parents and business and community leaders to organize a school, but at least 50 percent of teachers in a school must sign a petition to charter before a school can be considered for charter conversion.
Renewable California charters are granted for five-year periods, and the charter can be revoked by the local board if a school does not live up to its agreement. The Charter Schools do not become legally independent school districts as in Minnesota. They are, however, relieved of local rules and regulations, and entire school districts in California can petition to become charter districts.
The California State Board of Education, unlike the state board in Minnesota, cannot veto a charter proposal that gains local approval. The state simply publicizes the charter initiative and keeps track of charter applications, giving each a number and cutting off applications after 100 have received local approval (10 within a single district). The responsibility for quality control rests at the local level. California law also allows the sponsor of a proposal that is denied at the local level to appeal to the county board of education.
"This is the most important education reform measure to be enacted in recent years," says California State Senator Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), the law's chief sponsor. "It will give our educators a real opportunity for innovation by allowing them to create new public schools which focus on student outcomes without compromising the integrity of the public education system."
However, only a few of the first California charter applications to the state demonstrated much innovation, perhaps because some were "placeholder" applications. Potential charter teachers and local school districts put in quick applications so that they could be among the first 100, and are spending a year working out their plans. It is expected that at least four California Charter Schools will open in 1993.
Here is a glance at some early charter plans submitted to the state:
California's charter legislation already has bipartisan support, but Pete Wilson, the state's Republican governor who signed the law, doesn't want to stop at 100 Charter Schools. He would like to see all of the state's public schools converted to outcome-based Charter Schools.
According to Governor Wilson (January 1993, "California Reports" speech), "There are a lot of rules we need to change, because to fix our schools, we must free our schools . . . . We want to free imaginative and dedicated educators to provide a charter for an individual school unfettered by the more than 7,000 pages of code requirements.
"Last year, I signed legislation creating up to 100 such Charter Schools," the governor explained. "This year, I propose we expand that program to move from Charter Schools to charter districts. And if charter districts succeed, let California become a charter state and again lead the nation in reform and innovation."
Given the turmoil in California schools resulting from a decade of budget problems, more legislators could find themselves voting for the Governor's plan. But for now, most California legislators simply want to know how well the first group of Charter Schools work and what new models and suggestions they offer for school restructuring.
"For California, the essence of Charter Schools is the notion of trading flexibility for accountability," observes Merrill Vargo, director of regional programs and special projects at the California Department of Education. "We are not cutting schools free and saying, 'Anything goes, here's a check from the state and good luck.' The idea is to free schools from some of the regulations, especially those that focus on process and procedure, and instead hold schools accountable for outcomes.
"Charter Schools will have to meet ambitious goals of student learning," she continues. "We hope that schools will find a way to do that. We also want to find a way to hold schools accountable for outcomes. If we can't, then we really need to live with the rules and tune them up. The California experiment is about shifting from a rule- based to an outcome-based accountability system."
Posted on March 6, 1995
URL: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/go/93-2new.htm