Common Sense in Tentative Victory Over Charter School Training

A legacy of the Matt Bevin/Wayne Lewis era of Kentucky education policy, the mandatory training of local school boards in the administration and evaluation of “public” charter schools—even when no such charter schools yet exist in the school district—may soon be done away with.

House Bill 220, sponsored by Republican Regina Huff of Williamsburg, amends the language of KRS 160.1596 to allow charter school “authorizers,” who are generally the members of local school boards, to delay training in the oversight of charter schools until a charter school application was actually submitted and approved in their district. In other words, the bill makes it unnecessary for school boards to train for the supervision and evaluation of schools that aren’t actually there.

If that seems like common sense, it is. The mandatory training would have expended a considerable amount of time and money, and school districts across Kentucky have a surplus of neither.

Late last year, former Commissioner of Education Wayne Lewis denied a request by eight districts to be allowed to skip the training on the grounds that in the absence of any charter schools, the exercise was pointless. Lewis disagreed, essentially reasoning that a charter school might appear at any time, perhaps by supernatural means, and best to be prepared.

H.B. 220, sensibly, makes the training unnecessary until a charter school application has been approved. Thus far, none have, and any future approvals seem less likely under Andy Beshear’s administration than they did under Bevin/Lewis. This is a good thing for Kentucky. As Jack Schneider wrote last year in the Washington Post, a growing body of research demonstrates that charter schools have so far fulfilled very few of their warrants: they aren’t especially innovative in their methods of instruction; they don’t, on average, produce better educational outcomes for their students; and, as H.B. 220 tries to rectify, they create extra expenses and inefficiencies in administration, which drains money from traditional public schools.

With this in mind, Kentucky legislators should look seriously at repealing the whole of KRS 160 and instead focusing on improving the schools we already have, rather than outsourcing the task of educating our children. The Commonwealth was late to the charter school game, but it needn’t be late in pulling out of it, and rededicating itself to quality public schools.

Today, H.B. 220 made it out of committee, and will thus be presented to the full House of Representatives for debate and a possible vote. If you’d like to weigh in, contact your representative in Frankfort. If you’re unsure who that is, use the handy “Find Your Legislator” tool on the legislature’s web site.