Alabama Lawmakers Approve For-profit Teacher Prep Programs  (March 2)

To tackle teacher shortages, Alabama lawmakers approved two bills that would “reduce the amount of time it takes to earn a teaching certificate” and “allow for-profit providers to operate teacher preparation programs,” reported AL.com. The bills allow for those who hold an alternative certification and have completed the related coursework to earn a professional certification after one year of teaching rather than three years. Also, alternate certification can be used to teach all grades rather than just 6th through 12th grade as currently set by the state. 

According to AL.com, alternative and non-college-based programs usually cost less than traditional teacher preparation programs, take less time to complete, offer online preparation, and move teachers into the classroom with little if any teaching experience. A Center for American Progress study found that “while traditional, college-based teacher preparation programs have struggled with declining enrollment, the number of teacher candidates pursuing a non-college-based teacher prep program more than doubled between 2014 and 2019,” reported AL.com.

Deans of higher education have expressed concerns over for-profit teacher preparation programs, according to AL.com. Katie Kinney, dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of North Alabama and president of the Alabama Colleges of Teacher Education, said that “quality is a concern,” AL.com reported. In response to the rise of for-profit providers and alternative programs, Kinney highlighted the importance of maintaining quality and ensuring that these providers follow the same rules as Alabama’s traditional teacher preparation programs. 

Eric Mackey, Alabama’s superintendent of education, told AL.com that some of the for-profit teacher preparation programs do not meet the minimum requirements. According to AL.com, Mackey wants to make clear that “they can operate in this state but only if they go through a process with the state school board. They can’t just come in and set up shop.”

- G. García de la Noceda

Idaho House Panel Strikes Down Voucher Bill (March 3)

By a 8-7 vote, the Idaho House Education Committee rejected legislation establishing the Hope and Opportunity Scholarship Program, which would provide vouchers worth $6,000 for eligible students to help pay for private school tuition or tutoring, KTVB reported.

Backers framed the bill as a parental choice measure, while those in opposition said it would hurt public education through diversion of funding and at the same time violate the state constitution’s proscription of public funding of religious schooling.

One of the sponsors of the bill, Republican Rep. Dorothy Moon, disagreed: “This is taxpayer funded. This is their money. Everybody keeps saying the school district’s money. No, it’s our money.”

The bill sparked debate over Idaho’s Blaine Amendment, a provision appearing in 37 state constitutions across the country that bars state funding of religious edu. Republican Rep. Judy Boyle, who supported the bill, called the amendment “a terrible thing,” “biased,” and “unfair,” adding that it should be removed from the constitution, according to KTVB.

Republican Rep. Julie Yamamoto, a retired teacher who voted to kill the bill, emphasized that the way to change the state’s constitution was not to pass an unconstitutional bill, but to pass a measure with a two-thirds majority in the state House and Senate, followed up with the approval of a simple majority of Idaho voters in a general election—in accordance with the state constitution.

Rural lawmakers opposed the bill because they said it shortchanged rural areas with no private schools, according to KTVB.

Lawmakers also argued over the proposed cost of the program. The bill’s sponsors approximated the first-year cost to be about $13 million, but Democratic Rep. Steve Berch cited the program’s lenient eligibility requirements, claiming that 68 percent of students would qualify and the first-year cost could accordingly be as high as $1.2 billion, according to KTVB.

Berch called this bill a “gateway for those who hope to create the opportunity of privatizing education,” KTVB reported. 

- A. Thomas

Kentucky House Bill Introduces Funding Mechanism for Charter Schools (March 4)

Kentucky Republicans took advantage of the last day to file bills in the state House to present House Bill 9, which would make a slew of changes to the state’s public charter school law and embattled voucher program,The Courier-Journal reported.

Sponsored by Majority Whip Rep. Chad McCoy (R-Bardstown), HB 9 would create a permanent funding mechanism for charter schools, apportioning state and local tax dollars to public charters based on student attendance. Though charter schools have been legal in Kentucky since 2017, none have been successfully created because no permanent funding stream has existed, according to the Courier-Journal.

The bill would also change the way that charters are authorized in the state, creating a seven-member Kentucky Public Charter School Commission with statewide “jurisdiction to authorize high-quality public charter schools that provide more options for students to attain a thorough and efficient education,” the Courier-Journal reported. The power to authorize charters is currently vested in local school boards and the mayors of Louisville and Lexington. Under HB 9, public and private universities, the Kentucky Board of Education, select non-profits, and the new commission would all qualify as authorizers. Those interested in opening a charter school could then apply to any authorizer, according to the Courier-Journal, and, if denied, appeal to the Kentucky Board of Education or the new commission.

HB 9 also addresses the state’s embattled voucher bill, which became law in March of 2021 after narrowly overcoming a veto from Governor Andy Beshear. The program was subsequently struck down by a Franklin Circuit Court judge for only offering vouchers to the largest counties in the state. That ruling is being appealed in front of the Kentucky Supreme Court. HB 9 includes an emergency provision—which will go into effect immediately if the bill becomes law—saying that if a judge rules against the contested provision, it will automatically expand to cover all counties in the state, according to the Courier-Journal, and thus nullify the Circuit Court judge’s objection. 

- A. Thomas

Battle Over School Choice in Oklahoma Splits Republicans (March 8)

Conflict over a voucher bill in Oklahoma, described a month ago in an NCSPE commentary, has led to a bitter feud among Republicans over school choice, reportedU.S. News & World Report.

At issue is opposition by Charles McCall, the House Republican speaker, to the proposed Oklahoma Empowerment Accounts, vigorously supported by the two other Republican leaders of the state, Governor Kevin Stitt and Senate President Greg Treat. The proposed program would allow students throughout the state to use public dollars to attend private schools or be home-schooled.

To McCall the legislation does not serve his constituents in the rural southeastern county of Atoka and many similar counties across the state where private school options do not exist.

In objecting to the legislation, McCall has exposed a fundamental reality of school choice: it's too difficult to achieve economies of scale in sparsely populated areas. This explains why charter schools as well as vouchers are largely urban phenomena.

In addition, McCall’s opposition underscores the importance of public schools to rural communities across the country. As hubs for football, basketball, and baseball games as well as dramas and musicals, rural public schools serve a vital civic function. Competing schools, whether in the form of charter or private schools, pose an existential threat to not only public schools but also rural communities defined by them.

McCall’s Republican credentials are beyond question. “Over his five-year tenure, the fourth-generation family banker and fiscal conservative,” reported U.S. News & World Report, “has secured cuts to personal and corporate income taxes, authored legislation restricting federal overreach into Oklahoma’s state affairs and oversaw an expansion of Republicans in the statehouse, from 72 members in his first term as speaker in 2016 to a record 82 members today.”

McCall has nevertheless become a target of the Club for Growth, Washington’s deep-pocketed conservative political action committee, which, according to U.S. News & World Report, “is running a five-figure ad buy against McCall, accusing the leader of ‘silencing parents.’”

“Previously there were few repercussions to opposing school choice, but that has changed,” said David McIntosh, the president of Club for Growth, reported U.S. News & World Report. “During the pandemic, more and more parents began paying attention to our public schools and they didn’t like what they saw.”

McIntosh made clear in visceral terms that in his opinion there is no room in the Republican Party for McCall and other opponents of vouchers, education savings accounts, tuition tax credit scholarships, or charter schools: “School choice is the new litmus test for Republicans. Self-proclaimed conservatives who oppose school choice are nothing short of political whores, and we will find and support challengers to these RINOs,” the defamatory acronym for “Republican in name only.”

U.S. News & World Report noted that Florida’s Senator Rick Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, made school choice the top objective of his 11-point agenda. That primary goal of his manifesto reads: “Parents, not government, will choose the best schools for their kids. We will enact equal opportunity in education(school choice) so no child will be sent to a failing school simply because of their zip code.”

- S.E. Abrams

Georgia House Votes to Raise Cap on Contributions to Tuition Tax Credit Vouchers (March 9)

The Georgia House of Representatives approved House Bill 517, which would double the cap on tax credits for contributions to the Georgia Student Scholarship Program, raising it to $200 million over five years, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The bill passed both the House and Senate last year—raising individual contribution caps but not the cap for the whole program—but last-minute changes in the Senate prevented final passage last March, according to the Journal-Constitution. In what the Journal-Constitution called “a surprise move,” the House called the bill up for a vote and passed it with an amendment increasing the current $100 million cap on the program by $20 million for the next five years. The $200 million cap would then remain at that level through 2032 before falling back down to $100 million. The Georgia General Assembly convenes for 40 legislative days a year for a two-year legislative session, allowing the bill to be reintroduced this year.

State Rep. John Carson (R-Marietta), the primary author of HB 517, told the Journal-Constitution that the Senate asked that the program drop back to $100 million after 2032, noting that “Senators wanted to monitor the program’s performance before making an expansion permanent.” He also added that the House approved the increase only after ensuring that they fully funded the state’s Quality Basic Education formula for public schools and teacher raises.

Carson noted that donors had given the maximum amount allowed every year to the scholarship program since its inception, with the exception of 2020, the Journal-Constitution wrote.

The bill was sent to the Senate for final approval, but returned to the House for amendment or substitution.

- A. Thomas

New Guidelines for New York Private Schools Criticized by Orthodox Yeshivas (March 16)

The New York State Department of Education released new rules that aim to more strictly enforce the requirement that private schools provide an education that is “substantially equivalent” to that in public schools, leaving Orthodox yeshiva leaders “up in arms” over perceived secular infringements on religious education, Patchwork reported.

The new rules aim to settle a debate over the number of hours that religious schools, especially yeshivas, should devote to religious instruction instead of secular subjects, The Long Island Herald reported.

Many critics—including those within Orthodox Jewish communities—criticize yeshivas for doing a disservice to their students for not teaching the basics of many subjects. At a recent press conference, Naftali Moster, the founder and executive director of YAFFED, a group that advocates for ultra-Orthodox children’s educational rights, cited his personal educational experience when he said that “Hasidic teenagers of high school age typically have never read a novel, do not understand the rudiments of science, have no sense of history or proficiency in English,” according to Patchwork. His group helped marshal a complaint that brought about the potential changes for yeshivas.

Agudath Israel of America, a group that advocates for yeshivas, said in a statement that “for a yeshiva to be judged on the quality of its educational program without taking into account” their quite rigorous religious studies “would be a cruel mockery of the review process,” Patchwork reported. The organization maintained that “the proposed new regulations may result in yeshivas having to make major changes to their school day schedules,” a course of action deemed “entirely unacceptable.”

In a report published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Rabbi Teitelbaum—grand rabbi of Kiryas Joel, a town in Orange County whose residents are majority Yiddish-speaking Hasidic Jews—said that “should we attempt to adapt to the proposed guidelines, our parent body will revolt and create their own education system providing them what they’re looking for,” according to Patchwork.

Moster told The New York Daily News, however, that the new rules are not enough, referencing multiple loopholes that still need to be addressed.

- A. Thomas

Michigan Public School Advocates Launch Effort to Stop DeVos-Backed Voucher Initiative (March 17)

A new ballot committee made up of education groups and public school advocates declared in its launch that “all options are on the table” to stop a ballot initiative backed by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that could create the Michigan’s first voucher system, Michigan Live reported.

DeVos and her family have contributed $400,000 to the Let MI Kids Learn ballot committee, which has paid circulators to collect signatures on two petitions that are identical to Republican legislation that was vetoed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer in October, according to Michigan Live. If the petitions collect just over 340,000 signatures, 8 percent of the total voter turnout in the last gubernatorial election, the policies could be adopted by the legislature without the governor’s approval.

The Opportunity Scholarship program would provide vouchers of up to $7,830 a year for eligible students to pay for private school tuition, whose family income must not exceed twice the threshold for free and reduced-price lunch programs, according to Chalkbeat. Public school students could receive up to $500, while public school students with disabilities could receive up to $1,100, according to Michigan Live. The vouchers are funded by taxpayer donations, and the legislation allows up to $500 million in tax credits in the program’s first year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The For MI Kids For Our Schools ballot committee is composed of various public school organizations throughout the state, including the K-12 alliance of Michigan, Michigan Association of School Boards, Michigan Association of Superintendent and Administrators, and the Michigan Education Association.

Casandra Ulbrich, the president of the State Board of Education, said at a virtual press conference that she “would be surprised if entities such as ours that thought this was unconstitutional didn’t challenge it based on those constitutional questions,” hinting at possible legal action should the petitions garner enough signatures.

- A. Thomas

Students at Newark Charter Protest Mistreatment of Black Students and Faculty (March 19)

Hundreds of students walked out of the Lincoln Park High School campus of North Star Academy, New Jersey’s largest charter school operator with more than 6,000 students in Newark and Camden, Chalkbeat Newark reported. Student organizers and former teachers then gathered outside of City Hall and gave speeches about a culture of anti-Blackness at the school.

Several students said that multiple Black teachers have left the school over the years because they felt overworked and undervalued, according to Chalkbeat. “It’s very upsetting for us to build bonds with our teachers … and see them chased out by the school,” a senior at Lincoln Park High School told Chalkbeat.

North Star Academy is the flagship school of the Uncommon Schools charter network and one of the oldest and highest-achieving charter schools in New Jersey. In 2019-20, 83 percent of North Star students were Black, 15 percent Hispanic, and more than 86 percent were economically disadvantaged, according to Chalkbeat.

On standardized tests, students at North Star Academy routinely outperform peers in wealthier districts, reported Chalkbeat, but such gains take a toll, according to students. “They do provide us with a good education, and we are getting into these great schools,” said Aubria King, a junior at Lincoln Park, in the Chalkbeat story. “But it comes at a cost and that cost is our mental health and the way that we’re being treated.”

The protest at Lincoln Park recalls a walkout at Amistad Academy in New Haven, Connecticut, the flagship school of Achievement First, another "no-excuses" network of charter schools. That walkout in 2016, The New Haven Independent reported, was precipitated by similar student feelings of marginalization. According to theIndependent, "a racially insensitive climate had led most of the black teachers [at Amistad] to leave and to indiscriminate discipline."

In 2019, the Independent reported that the principal at Amistad, Morgan Barth, was caught on a school security camera shoving a student into a corridor wall. The Independent posted the video, and Barth was forced to resign.

Given that Achievement First's co-CEOs, Doug McCurry and Dacia Toll, were aware of that video before the Independent published it, they, too, in time were forced to step down. McCurry resigned several months later, reported Chalkbeat. Toll moved on a year later, according to an internal memo circulated to the Achievement First staff.

The “no-excuses” philosophy has come under particular scrutiny since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 brought institutionalized racism to the forefront of education policy debate. Several well-known "no-excuses" charter networks, including Noble Charter Network in Chicago and KIPP, have renounced their philosophies. Noble, in particular, termed the philosophy in an email to alumni  “assimilationist, patriarchal, white supremacist and anti-Black.”

In 2019-20, according to Chalkbeat, “nearly 19 percent of North Star students received suspensions—a rate about six times higher than the average across New Jersey or in the Newark school district.” Current and former students and staff members at Uncommon Schools have shared their experiences through an Instagram account called Black at Uncommon, reported Chalkbeat, describing “a school culture that felt overly controlling” and “unwelcoming to Black people.”

“We believe in and tell our students that their voice matters, and we respect their peaceful protest,” a North Star spokesperson said in a statement after the demonstration, adding that school officials “look forward to listening and working/discussing in the coming days to address student concerns and collaborate with students and families on the challenges raised.”

In July of 2020, the president of Uncommon Schools published a letter to the school community acknowledging the accounts of negative experiences at some schools and promised to take immediate action. According to Chalkbeat, the steps included hiring a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant, reviewing curriculum to ensure that it is culturally relevant, and training employees to create a school culture “where all students and staff feel respected, valued, and cared for.” 

- A. Thomas and S.E. Abrams

Pennsylvania Regulatory Commission Approves New Charter Regulations (March 22)

New rules proposed by Democrat Governor Tom Wolf and passed by Pennsylvania’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission would require charters to follow certain accounting and audit standards, comply with state ethics requirements, and post enrollment policies on their Web site, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The regulations are part of a broader initiative announced by Governor Tom Wolf in September to reform Pennsylvania’s Charter School Law. Charter schools in Pennsylvania educate 170,000 students, including one-third of all Philadelphia public school students, and receive funding from school districts based on enrollment, according to the Inquirer. 

These regulations echo the Governor’s proposal:

• Introduce a standardized application requirement for charter schools that would allow school districts and the Pennsylvania Department of Education to hold both brick-and-mortar and cyber charter schools to high academic, fiscal, and administrative standards, and to ensure that the schools will equitably serve all students.
• Introduce non-discriminatory enrollment policies that also require charter schools to inform families on admissions preferences in the application.
• Subject charter schools’ trustees to the state’s Public Official and Employee Ethics Act, which addresses conflicts of interest and sets penalties for violations.
• Require charter schools to use the same auditing standards as public school districts, ensuring that annual reports and financial records are accessible to school districts and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
• Introduce a process for reconciling disputes over school district payments to charter schools for student tuition.
• Require that charter schools offer the same health care benefits as the school district that authorizes them, and clarifies that when a charter school serves more than one district, the school district in which the charter school’s administrative office is located is the standard that the charter school must use.

George Bedwick, the president of the Independent Regulatory Review Commission, told the Inquirer that the regulations are “the first of hopefully many things that will be done to change the [charter school] law,” adding that “there has been inertia, clearly,” to update the 25-year-old legislation.

Charter school advocates said that the new regulations will hurt smaller schools that lack the resources to deal with administrative burdens and stifle future charters from opening, according to the Inquirer.

State officials, to the contrary, said that charters are currently less regulated than traditional schools, despite drawing $3 billion in public funding every year.

- A. Thomas

Kentucky House Passes Contested Funding Bill for Charter Schools (March 23)

After a contentious vote in committee and more than two hours of debate on the floor, the Kentucky House of Representatives passed House Bill 9 by a slim margin of 51-46, WKYT reported. The bill would create a permanent funding mechanism for charter schools, apportioning state and local tax dollars to public charters based on student attendance, according to The Louisville Courier-Journal.

HB 9 is the first bill that would provide permanent funding for charters in Kentucky, where charter schools have been legal since 2017 but none have been successfully created because no permanent funding stream has existed, according to the Courier-Journal.

The bill would also change the way that charters are authorized in Kentucky: creating a seven-member Kentucky Public Charter School Commission with statewide jurisdiction to authorize public charters as well as making public and private universities, the Kentucky Board of Education, and select non-profits authorizers. Currently, authorizing power is vested in local school boards and the mayors of Lexington and Kentucky.

According to WKYT, HB 9 does not include educational opportunity accounts that were a part of the original charter school bill, which narrowly overrode a veto from Governor Andy Beshear to become law in March 2021before it was struck down in October for only offering vouchers to students in the largest counties in the state.

House Bill 9 now goes to the Kentucky Senate.

- A. Thomas

Education Department Says Owners of Collapsed For-Profit Colleges Liable for Taxpayers’ Losses (March 24)

The Education Department announced that it will hold companies that own for-profit colleges financially responsible for taxpayers’ losses if their schools defraud students or abruptly shut down, The New York Times reported. Education Department Under Secretary James Kvaal said in an announcement that “if a company owns, controls or profits from a college, it should also be on the hook if the institution fails students,” according to the Times.

Taxpayers are typically stuck paying the tab for relief programs that forgive or eliminate the federal student loan debt of students who were significantly misled by their school’s false claims or whose schools suddenly close. Taxpayers’ losses have amounted to billions of dollars in recent years, stemming from relief granted to students at for-profit schools whose educational practices and marketing techniques have come under increased scrutiny, the Times reported.

Last month, the Education Department cancelled $415 million in student loan debt held by borrowers who say they were defrauded by for-profit colleges that misrepresented their graduates’ employment prospects, The Wall Street Journal reported. The list of schools includes DeVry University, which is still in operation. This step by the government represents the first time it has granted claims at a still-operating school, reported the Times. The Department of Education said that it would try to recoup some of the money from DeVry’s current owner.  The department estimates that DeVry owes taxpayers at least $72 million.

The department will add new guarantees to the agreements that allow schools to receive federal student loan funds on a rolling basis, the Times reported, and also require companies with “substantial control” over schools to sign the agreements—making investment companies that are active in the for-profit education market financially responsible for the debt if their schools fail.

Richard Cordray, the head of the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid Division, told the Times that “too often the department has seen those who reap the rewards of colleges’ actions when things go well leave [taxpayers] holding the bag when things go badly,” adding that the department “will be vigilant in [their] oversight and enforcement of this new policy.”

- A. Thomas