I’ve read through these proposed regulations, discussed them with colleagues and fellow homeschoolers and have a few beginning thoughts. We’ll be entering some of this in the comment session at tomorrow’s State DEED Board meeting in Juneau.
My perspective is as a co-founder of Frontier Charter School which enrolls Anchorage School District students. As such, we object to regulations being extended to in-district programs. These proposed regs dictate permissible curriculum and spending, how learning plans are developed, implemented and tracked. In other words, they detail the administrative, instructional and financial structure of a correspondence school.
Here’s a few points addressing this aspect:
- In the Background portion of the memo the Board presents no evidence showing this additional state regulation of specific schools within an LEA (local educational agency) is necessary. Where is the empirical data? It looks like a few complainers are all it takes to get the Board to extend regulations into territory it has not regulated before.
- The Board is extending their spending and curriculum regulations to charter schools. We have a charter, a contract, with the Anchorage School District and the State that details how we will operate Frontier Charter School. We went through a very lengthy, tedious public process to have our charter approved and our doors opened. The charter details how we will run Frontier, its accountability and compliance with District policies and State statute. Now, the Board would like to change how our school operates and how we spend our money. This is in direct opposition to our charter and also to state charter school statute. They are requiring de facto changes to our charter without going through the correct legal process of doing so. Changing a charter is a lengthy, tedious, public and cooperative effort with the ASD and Frontier. Again, I add that there is no evidence that this sweeping action is necessary.
- The Board would like to regulate how Frontier chooses curriculum and how much money is spent on what materials. The law and legislative intent is clear. Charter schools have curricular freedom. To dictate how Frontier or any other charter school spends its money on curriculum is at its essence dictating curriculum choices. We have already complied with all statutory requirements and restrictions regarding curriculum. Frontier will not accept additional regulation unsupported by statute without a fight.
It seems these proposed regulations are a politically motivated. The issues related to statewide correspondence schools will not go away until there is an open, transparent discussion of why they exist. Schools such as IDEA and Raven exist to generate revenue for their small, rural school districts. So, while in-district programs compete with one another based upon academic excellence, statewide schools compete for a revenue stream.
Wisconsin has had discussions this year on legislation for correspondence schools, mainly of the Virtual type. The bottom line was financial as much as curricular.
March 29, 2008
I completely agree to tansparent and open discussion.
How can kids be best served through these programs?
Where do you stand on faith-based materials?
PS: From what source comes your information concerning statewide correspondence schools?
Barb,
I’m not sure what programs you are asking about. If it’s statewide correspondence, that’s a good question. As long as there is a profit motive and districts ’skim’ 25% they cannot be served best.
The fact of the matter is the legislature made a way for parents to have a choice with charter school statute. Charter schools, like ours, are founded and run by parents who want the most bang for their buck. Every dollar goes toward maximizing academics.
In an ideal world there would be no schools who enroll kids outside their districts unrestricted. If parents need more choices they should go through the process of establishing a charter school. It is a lot of work but it’s very rewarding and allows for great freedom.
Regarding faith-based materials, we allow parents to use them. A student’s learning plan is tied to standards so it doesn’t matter what materials are used as long as learning standards are reached. Of course, parents must pay for sectarian mat’ls. We firmly believe this is what Alaska state statute upholds and are surprised none of the statewide schools has challenged that reg.
My sources for information? I’ve served in a governance capacity for 2 charters here in Anchorage over the last 10 years so I’ve had a lot of experience in this area especially because we have to compete with statewide schools. The data regarding statewide school revenue and spending come from the State DEED and were made public in their Sept. 2007 work session.
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