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State weighs charter school role

Officials consider a statewide charter district, which would remove most local oversight.

By REBECCA CATALANELLO
Published February 6, 2005

Don Lewis oversees 15 charter schools for the Alachua County School District.

Or he does when he's not coordinating staff development for 4,000 Alachua County employees, overseeing curriculum for 50 regular public schools, hearing all of the district's employee grievances and directing after-school programs for 17 elementary schools.

"The plate has been overflowing for a while," Lewis said. "It's too much."

Two months after a state report showed more than one-quarter of Florida's charter schools ended 2003 with a budget deficit, charter school advocacy groups are asking for changes. They are asking lawmakers to create a statewide district responsible solely for charter schools.

That scenario would relieve overburdened school districts of the task of approving and auditing their local charter schools. Backers like Lewis say it also could strengthen charter school accountability.

"There's a growing antagonistic attitude between school districts and charter schools," said Neil Drake, president of the Florida Association of Charter Schools. "The districts feel like we're stealing money from them."

There are about 300 charter schools operating in Florida. Though publicly funded, they function as privately run alternatives to local public schools. Charters are approved by local school boards, which then must grant the schools autonomy while still ensuring they comply with the law.

"It puts us sometimes in an awkward position," said Max Ramos, charter school liaison for the Pasco County school district. In 2003, Pasco saw one of its six charter schools close amid financial turmoil. And it remains closely involved with The Language Academy, a school that last year teetered on the edge of closing because of budget problems.

Rep. John Legg, R-New Port Richey, is an administrator at Dayspring Academy Charter School in Pasco County. He said he wants to present the idea of removing charters from local district control during a meeting this week of the House Committee on Education Choice & Innovation and the House Committee on Pre-K-12 in Tallahassee.

"From what I'm hearing, there's a real appetite for that," Legg said. The state's 67 school districts take different approaches to their charter schools - some are favorable and easy to work with, he said, and some aren't. A statewide district, he said, would offer consistency and fairness in oversight and accountability.

But Sen. Ron Klein, D-Delray Beach, said one of the tenets of charter philosophy is local control. A statewide district would undermine local oversight, and more than likely position itself as just another lobbying force, he said.

"I would have to believe that's probably one of the principle reasons for doing this," Klein said. "I don't think that will really give us the kind of information we need to make sure that the charters are doing what they need to be doing."

Nine states oversee their charter schools exclusively at the state level, according to a survey by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. Most other states allow charters to choose either district or state-level sponsorship.

"State-level authorizing bodies are pretty uniformly high quality operations all around the country," said NACSA president Gary Richmond, who works with charter schools through his job as a Chicago Public Schools administrator. "They really understand the philosophy of charter schools."

Legg said it's too early to say what a statewide charter district might look like in Florida. But Drake and Lewis said they envision a regional set-up with centers at places like the University of South Florida, where the Florida Charter School Resource Center is located.

Pinellas County charter school liaison John Lash said one possible downside to removing local control is the inconvenience it would pose to parents. Parents experiencing difficulty with a charter school in Pinellas now need only call Lash or visit him at the district office in Largo. Tom Greer, president of the Florida Association of School Boards, agreed: "If you have a board that sits in Orange County, how are you going to oversee a school in Okaloosa County?"

The relationship between charter schools and their district sponsors has been a growing source of tension in recent years.

While Greer was president of the Osceola County School Board last year, the board filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Education for overturning its denials of charter school proposals. The Florida Consortium of Charter Schools, meanwhile, is spearheading an investigation into what it says are funding discrepancies between charter schools and their public school counterparts.

Drake said he hopes that by going to lawmakers with the problem, the state may be able to find a solution outside of the courts.

"We want to do it through legislation," he said. "There are others who want to do it through shaking sticks."

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

[Last modified February 6, 2005, 00:36:19]