Earlier this week, Jenn Hatfield, Elizabeth English, and I released a paper on charter school authorizing. In it, we made two pretty straightforward arguments. First, there are things that are appropriate for charter school authorizers (and the legislators that write charter school policy) to ask schools to demonstrate before they are allowed to accept students and public dollars and there are things that are inappropriate for them to request. Second, many authorizers (and legislators) have gone far beyond what is reasonable and appropriate. We coded the applications of 40 authorizers around the country to demonstrate this fact.
Two responses, from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, took issue with some of the requests we deemed onerous, inappropriate, or both.
I don’t really have the desire to go point by point through what they highlighted. Suffice it to say, they’re wrong. In some cases simply on the facts (“describe the school’s discipline plan” is in the “appropriate and onerous” category not the “inappropriate and onerous” category). In other cases they’re living in la-la land about the ability of charter authorizers to know things like the potential market for a particular school. Much better resourced organizations can’t get market analysis right. Don’t believe me? Well head to your local 7-11 and try to pick up a Crystal Pepsi, a Pepsi Blue, a Sprite Remix, a Dr. Pepper Red Fusion, a Citra, a Vault, a Surge, a 7-Up Gold, or a Coca-Cola Blak. And that is just the market for carbonated soda. If you think a charter board can do better with something as complicated as demand for schooling options, I’ve got some oceanfront land in Missouri to sell you.
But that’s beside the point. The bigger problem is that it’s easy to pick and choose this or that requirement that you don’t like from the list of 50-plus that we highlight. With any list, from the 10 best barbeque joints to the 50 most beautiful people, you can quibble on the details.
If you think that we’re wrong on principle, the burden is now on you. We spend hundreds of words clearly articulating why some things are appropriate and others aren’t. What is your limiting principle? What should charter authorizers be allowed to ask, and what shouldn’t they? Why? You can’t say that someone “goes too far” or “makes a wrong turn” if you haven’t established how far is far enough or what the correct path is.
Both of our critics agree with our fundamental point that mission creep is (a) happening and (b) bad. It strikes me that it would particularly behoove them to articulate clear boundaries for authorizer behavior. Criticizing a limiting principle for being too limited and letting the argument rest there swings the door wide open to authorizers feeling justified in using “just a little bit more” as their principle. Ultimately, that is what is frustrating about the rhetorical tack our critics chose to take. If we want to rein in charter authorizing, we’ll have to do better.
from AEI » Latest Content http://ift.tt/1F5NMI8
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