SEDL - Variations on Autonomy [an error occurred while processing this directive] <div id="sidebar1"> <p class="tocheader">Product Categories</p> <div id="nav"> <ul class="level1"> <li class="submenu"><a href="/pubs/free_afterschool.html">Afterschool</a></li> <li class="submenu"><a href="/pubs/free_disability.html">Disability Research</a></li> <li class="submenu"><a href="/pubs/free_community.html">Family and Community and Involvement</a></li> <li class="submenu"><a href="/pubs/free_mathscience.html">Improving Teaching and Learning in Mathematics and Science</a></li> <li class="submenu"><a href="/pubs/free_reading.html">Improving Teaching and Learning in Reading</a></li> <li class="submenu"><a href="/pubs/free_improvement.html">School Change and Improvement</a></li> <li class="submenu"><a href="/pubs/free_technology.html">Technology in the Classroom</a></li> </ul> </div> <p class="tocheader2">Options</p> <div id="nav2"> <ul class="level1"> <li class="submenu"><a href="/pubs/free_publications.html">A-Z List of SEDL Free Resources</a></li> <li class="submenu"><a href="/pubs/search.html">Search</a></li> </ul> </div> </div>  <div class="siteSection">Free Resources</div> <div id="mainContent"> <h1>Variations on Autonomy: Charter School Laws in the Southwestern Region</h1> <h2>Executive Summary</h2> <b>by Kathleen M. McGree and Sue E. Mutchler</b> <h3>The Value of Autonomy for Charter Schools</h3> <p>The entry of charter schools into the education reform arena is of increasing importance in the region of the nation served by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL). Four of the region’s five states— Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas—have enacted charter school laws, and the Oklahoma legislature has considered a series of charter school bills since 1995. <br> Charter school advocates assert that a high degree of autonomy over critical school decisions—those related to school organization, curriculum, instruction, assessment, personnel, and budget—will enable charter schools to promote real and meaningful educational innovation. This study assumes that school-site autonomy is an important, if not initiating, condition for successful charter school reform and examines if and how charter schools are provided autonomy by law. </p> <p>This study seeks evidence of autonomy in the four state charter school laws in the Southwestern Region: Arkansas’ Act 1126 (1995), Louisiana’s Act 192 (1995) amended in 1997, New Mexico’s House Bill 888 (1993), and Texas’ Senate Bill 1 (1995) amended in 1997. The legislation was examined using an analytical framework for school-site autonomy developed by Priscilla Wohlstetter, Richard Wenning, and Kerri L. Briggs(1995). The researchers worked from the proposition that charter schools have the greatest possibility for meaningful reform when state policies permit a high degree of local school autonomy. They developed their analytical framework to measure the degree to which state policies enable or constrain charter schools’ ability to act within each of three dimensions of autonomy, discussed below.</p> <p>This comparative analysis examines how regional laws translate the concept of charter school autonomy into an education reform opportunity. Policymakers and the public may find this information invaluable as they interpret charter school implementation, assess existing law in light of changing legislative intent, or propose new or amended charter school legislation. Researchers may also benefit from this inquiry about the charter school movement. A discussion of charter school autonomy in law may lay groundwork critical to understanding the strategy’s ultimate success or failure to deliver on its promises.</p> <h3>The Legislative Context in the Southwestern Region</h3> <p>Charter school legislation often represents a profound departure from the charter school “concept” as it was originally intended. Charter school laws in the Southwestern Region exemplify this variation. </p> <table border="0"> <tr> <td><strong>Arkansas</strong>. <p>In 1995 the Arkansas legislature established a procedure whereby any existing public school can petition the State Board of Education (SBoE) for charter status. The bill provides for an unlimited number of charters to be created during a three-year period. Extensive approval requirements—ranging from approval by local school boards to support from practitioners, the public, and the teachers’ organization representing the majority of teachers affected by the conversion—appear to have hamstrung the provision. To date, few charter school proposals have been submitted, and none have been approved by the SBoE. </p> <p><strong>Louisiana</strong>. In 1995 Louisiana authorized charter school demonstration programs in eight city or parish school systems and, in 1997, extended chartering authority to every city and parish school system in the state. Forty-two charter schools can be created statewide by the year 2001. Lawmakers also redefined and classified charter schools into four different categories: “type 1" and “type 2” charter schools are new schools; “type 3” and “type 4” are existing schools converted into charters. Type 1, type 2 and type 3 schools all operate as the result of a charter between the nonprofit corporation and a public entity (a local school board for types 1 and 3 and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) for type 2) while type 4 schools operate under a charter between a local school board and the BESE. Rules and regulations governing the creation and operation of these schools vary by the type of school. </p> <p><strong>New Mexico</strong>. In 1993, New Mexico became the third state in the nation to enact charter school legislation. The law authorizes the SBoE to establish no more than five charter schools, granting each charter for a period not to exceed five years. By 1996, five existing schools won approval to convert to charter status.</p> <p><strong>Texas</strong>. In 1995, Senate Bill 1 authorized in unlimited numbers “a charter for a campus or a program on a campus” —i.e., “campus and program” charter schools—and up to 20 “open-enrollment” charter schools. These two categories of charter schools represent significantly different opportunities. Local boards of education grant charters to existing public school campuses or programs on individual campuses. The SBoE grants charters for open-enrollment charter schools, which are considered new schools open to students from across the state. By fall 1997, 19 of the 20 open-enrollment schools had opened. In 1997, the Texas legislature expanded open-enrollment charter school options in the state. An additional 100 charters to new schools that admit student eligible for a public education grant can be created. The revision also allows creation of an unspecified number of new open-enrollment charter schools in which at least 75 percent of the students have dropped out or are at risk of dropping out of school. Forty-one applications for second generation open-enrollment charter schools were approved for opening in the 1998–1999 school year. The SBoE considered 42 other applications for open-enrollment schools serving students at risk.</p> </td> <td><table border="0" cellpadding="7" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td style="background:#E1E1CB"> <p><strong>Conclusions of the Study</strong></p> <p>Today few states have provided the degree of autonomy envisioned by proponents in the early days of the charter school movement. Instead, political debate and compromise have given rise to state laws that define charter school autonomy in vastly different ways. This variety is particularly evident in the states of the Southwestern Region, where charter school autonomy varies not only among states but also among schools within a single state.</p> <p>Texas and Louisiana legislators have recently sought to expand charter school options within their states. As a result, these states are experimenting with differing degrees of autonomy, granting some charter schools relatively high autonomy and keeping others more closely tied to their local school districts. Arkansas and New Mexico, on the other hand, have consistently taken a cautious approach, providing each charter school in the state with slightly more autonomy than traditional public schools. Within the region, open-enrollment schools in Texas and type 2 schools in Louisiana best exemplify a high degree of charter school autonomy. At the other end of the spectrum, schools in Arkansas and New Mexico meet the profile of charter schools with low autonomy.</p> <p>Clearly, the single and most pressing area of concern for legislators in the Southwestern Region is school accountability. Across all three dimensions of school autonomy, the states’ legislated accountability requirements are uniformly conservative and designed to ensure that current state measures remain intact. All charter schools in the region must adhere to state reporting requirements and participate in state testing programs. All four states require that charter schools keep the local community informed of their progress on an annual basis. Ironically, reporting requirements designed to ensure charter school accountability may discourage innovation, which ultimately could hamper charter school success. </p> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> <h3>Applying the Framework for Autonomy to State Laws</h3> <p>Any examination of charter school autonomy must begin with a definition of autonomy. In their analytical framework, Wohlstetter et al. conclude that school autonomy is multifaceted and includes three critical dimensions:</p> <p>• Autonomy from higher levels of government</p> <p>• Local or organizational autonomy (autonomy inside the school)</p> <p>• Consumer sovereignty (autonomy for parents and students).</p> <p>The following analysis breaks down the three dimensions into 15 conditions of autonomy and applies each condition to the charter school legislation and practice in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas.</p> <h3>Autonomy from Higher Levels of Government</h3> <p>School autonomy is considered highest when laws limit the influence of the district and state, shifting power to the school site. Within the Southwestern Region, legislators appear to be struggling with how to balance the needs of charter schools to be self-determining against district needs for dependable resources and stable procedures. Louisiana and Texas are walking a middle line, permitting charters some autonomy from higher levels of government. Arkansas and New Mexico have maintained strong ties between local districts and charter schools.</p> <p><strong>The Application and Approval Process.</strong> All four states in the region recognize the need of a state public education system for some degree of consistent education standards and comparability across schools. Autonomy is highest in Texas and Louisiana, where state-level approval is available for at least a portion of the states’ charter schools, and lowest in Arkansas, where charter approval is dependent on the support of the local board of education. Arkansas and New Mexico require charter school organizers to obtain varying degrees of stakeholder support.<br> Legal Status. Laws in Louisiana and Texas provide for legally autonomous charter schools. In Louisiana, type 1, type 2, and type 3 charter schools operate as nonprofit corporations that are legally separate from the local school system. Likewise, all open-enrollment charter schools in Texas operate as independent legal entities. In both states, schools must accept full legal responsibility for their operations. All other charter schools in the region remain legally part of their local school district and lack the authority to engage in legal action independent from the district.</p> <p><strong>Rule Exemptions. </strong>Regardless of type (state- or district-approved), Louisiana and Texas charter schools receive broad exemptions from most regulations, whereas charter school applicants in Arkansas and New Mexico must negotiate for individual rule waivers to implement any new or alternative educational policies or practices.</p> <p><strong>Funding.</strong> Only open-enrollment charter schools in Texas and type 2 charter schools in Louisiana enjoy full fiscal independence, in which all state and local monies flow directly to charter schools. For campus and program charters in Texas, all other types of charter schools in Louisiana, and all New Mexico charter schools, monies pass through the local district to the charter school. New Mexico specifically authorizes local districts to withhold from the charter school budgets administrative costs directly associated with the review of that budget. Arkansas legislation does not address charter school funding. </p> <p><strong>Reporting Requirements.</strong> Although some states in the region allow charter schools the flexibility to design student performance objectives and the means for assessing these objectives, none completely release charter schools from state accountability requirements. Charter schools in all four states must participate in state testing programs and are subject to state reporting requirements. Moreover, in all cases the state and/or local board retains a monitoring role.</p> <h3>Autonomy Inside the School</h3> <p>In the Southwestern Region, many of the issues associated with autonomy inside the school have generated significant debate and compromise. Legislators throughout the region have contended with an array of special interests—most notably, teachers’ and school boards’ organizations and advocates for academically and economically disadvantaged students. As a result, the region’s state laws grant charter school implementers limited control over the internal dynamics of their schools.</p> <p><strong>School Governance.</strong> All states in the Southwestern Region, with the exception of Arkansas (which remains silent on the issue), grant charter schools full decision making authority over school governance.</p> <p><strong>School Personnel.</strong> Legislative provisions regarding charter school control over employment decisions have encountered tough opposition from teachers’ organizations seeking to uphold collective bargaining agreements and ensure job security and benefits for charter school employees. Thus, laws specific to charter school personnel vary dramatically in the four states. Texas, a nonunion state, affords charter schools the greatest degree of control over personnel decisions. In Arkansas, New Mexico, and, to a lesser degree, Louisiana, teacher and school board organizations have successfully lobbied against a high degree of charter school autonomy over school personnel, insisting that it would compromise teacher professionalism.</p> <p><strong>Budget. </strong>Charter school control over budgetary decisions is controversial because it can shift power away from local districts to individual schools. Charter schools have significant freedom to design, fund, and implement educational programs in Louisiana and Texas, where funding formulas are set and nonnegotiable. Charter schools in New Mexico are less likely to have control over their budgets because they must submit budgets to the local board for approval; recently, local boards have used their authority to withhold funding and prevent charter schools from implementing new or alternative programming. Arkansas legislation does not specifically address school budget.<br> Curriculum. Charter schools in all states are required to participate in state-mandated testing programs, which can influence both instructional content and practices. Moreover, the states’ emphasis on traditional measures of accountability may operate as a deterrent to schools that initially hope to experiment with new and innovative indicators of student performance. Texas and Louisiana specify that some charter schools must make achievement of at-risk students a priority mission. </p> <p><strong>Student Admission Standards.</strong> All Louisiana charter schools can set admissions standards pertinent to the school’s mission, and law requires that charter schools enroll a certain percentage of students identified as “at risk.” In Texas, campus and program charter school admissions are driven by geographic and residency considerations, but a student’s age, grade, or academic credentials can be also be weighed. In contrast, all open-enrollment charter schools in Texas can attract students from around the state but cannot discriminate on the basis of gender or ability. New Mexico’s legislation is silent on charter school admissions criteria but requires charters to give preference to students who live within the school’s precharter attendance zone. Arkansas charter schools can enroll only students who live within a school’s precharter attendance zone. </p> <h3>Autonomy of Parents and Students</h3> <p>In the Southwestern Region, initial charter school laws exhibited a general reluctance to take bold steps in allowing parents and students to select the school of their choice. </p> <p>There is tremendous variation in the number and types of charter school available in the states and equal variation in the roles parents and students can take in charter schools. There is, however, unusual consensus about charter school community accountability practices across the four states.</p> <p><strong>Starting a Charter School.</strong> While most states in the region require that charter school proposals have the support of parents, no state permits parents alone to start a charter school. In Texas, however, campus and program charters can be awarded to a group of parents and teachers. Likewise, in Louisiana, numerous groups—including 10 or more citizens—can offer a charter proposal for consideration, and parents can be directly involved in starting a charter school if the organizing group also includes at least three certified teachers. Laws in each state require that all existing schools seeking charter status provide evidence of parental support. Arkansas and New Mexico laws further require charter school organizers to show proof of parent involvement in their application.</p> <p><strong>Kind of School Eligible for Charter Status.</strong> Three of the four states explicitly prohibit private schools from applying for charter status; only Texas permits the conversion of existing private schools. Texas and Louisiana permit new and existing public schools to apply for charter status. In contrast, New Mexico and Arkansas allow only existing public schools to convert.</p> <p><strong>Parental Choice. </strong>Type 2 charter schools in Louisiana and open-enrollment charter schools in Texas are the only charter schools in the region permitted to attract and enroll students statewide. Parents and students in Louisiana’s remaining charter schools can choose any charter school located within their district-defined attendance zone, while decisions regarding enrollment limitations for campus or program charters in Texas are left to individual local school boards. Choices are most limited for parents and students in Arkansas and New Mexico, where charter schools are available only to students who live within a school’s precharter attendance zone.</p> <p><strong>Number of Schools Eligible for Charter Status. </strong>The number of schools eligible for charter status in the Southwestern Region varies significantly by state. In New Mexico, the state board of education is authorized to establish only five charter schools. In Arkansas, there is no specified limit on the number of charter schools that can be established; however, not one charter school has been created. In contrast, parents and students in Louisiana and Texas are in a better position to exercise choice. Forty-two charters can be granted in Louisiana by May 2001. In Texas, as many as 120 charter schools that meet certain conditions of student enrollment can be established; an unspecified number can be granted to charter schools serving a high proportion of students at risk.</p> <p><strong>Community Accountability. </strong>Laws in all four states hold charter schools directly accountable to the district or state and ensure that they inform the community of their progress. Charters in Arkansas must release a progress report yearly—and, in Louisiana, at the end of each semester—to parents, community members, local school boards, and the state board of education. New Mexico too requires an annual accountability report be filed with parents of children enrolled in the school, the community, the local school board, and the state department of education. Texas charter schools must inform the community of their progress through an annual report card and performance rating from the state. This information is made public and each district must air it at least one public hearing annually.</p> <P> <a href="pol19.html">View this item in the SEDL Catalog</a></p> <hr> <b>Publications in this Series</b> <ul> <li><i><a href="pol14.html">Redefining Education Governance: The Charter School Concept</a></i></li> <li><i><a href="pol19.html">Variations on Autonomy: Charter School Laws in the Southwestern Region</a></i></li> <li><i><a href="pol18.html">Designs for School-Site Reform: Charter Schools in New Mexico and Texas</a></i></li> </ul> <p>This publication is based on work sponsored wholly, or in part, by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under Contract #RJ96006801. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of OERI, the Department, or any other agency of the U.S. Government. SEDL is an Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action employer. </p> [an error occurred while processing this directive]