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Alabama Charter School Legislation is Here... Now What?

The voting is over regarding charter schools in Alabama. Now, the big question is how to implement these non-traditional schools and what happens next.

Governor Robert Bentley put Alabama in line with 42 other states by signing SB45 into law last month, allowing charter schools to operate. Perhaps the most asked question about these non-traditional schools is what exactly the difference is between them and a regular public school.

“Charter schools are public schools as well, but they are given more flexibility to innovate. And in exchange for that additional flexibility, they are held to a higher level of accountability for student results.”

That’s Todd Ziebarth, Senior Vice President of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

That higher level of accountability is important to keep in mind. Charter schools don’t just keep their charters forever. Alabama will issue their charters on a five-year basis. Louis Erste is the director of Georgia’s charter school program. He says they’re constantly fighting to maintain that charter.

“The charter contract is a performance contract, so it says ‘In exchange for improving student performance, you’re going to receive from the state freedom from laws, and rules and regulations. So you’re free to go ahead and do all these innovative things that you believe are going to raise test scores.’ If the results aren’t there, they don’t get to keep their charters.”

But some opponents aren’t convinced that charter schools really do impact performance all that much, and there were a lot of other concerns raised as the bill made its way through the legislature. 

The Tuscaloosa County Democratic Party held a press conference last month critiquing the bill just before it hit the House. The event took place in the shadow of Tuscaloosa’s Central High School, a once-exceptional school now on Alabama’s failing list.

Party chairman Nick Rose laid out their three main points of opposition to the bill.

“The first being the teachers are not required to have a teaching certificate to work in these buildings, the second being the lack of local control school boards have, and the third piece being the fact that this will take money from every single public school in the state of Alabama.”

Murray Silverstone, a concerned parent, voiced his concerns on teacher requirements.

“I would insist on having a medical doctor diagnose my illness or a trained car mechanic to fix my car. Why would we ever allow our most precious resource, our children, to be taught by underqualified employees?”

But Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says it’s not really a case of underqualification.

“Charter schools largely hire teachers with certification for most of their positions, but sometimes they want to have flexibility to bring in professionals from various fields. Sometimes those qualifications come from decades of experience. They want to be able to bring those people in and have them teach without having to go through the hoops around certification.”

Tonya Anderson Young is the president of Tuscaloosa’s City Teachers Association. She says it’s not just a lack of teacher certificates that has people concerned.

“Charter schools can prevent employees from being a member of the Teachers Retirement System and the public education employee’s health insurance program, P-Health. This is one thing that remotely makes up for the low salaries teachers live in our benefits that serve as part of our compensation plan.”

Anita Gibson is President of the Alabama Education Association. She says her organization managed to change some of that while the bill was on the House floor.

“We actually were able to get an amendment that will state that the salary matrix for teachers in those schools will be in place, as well as health insurance and retirement benefits.”

However, that amendment only applies to conversion charter schools, where local school boards convert an existing public school into a charter institution. Louis Erste, director of Georgia’s charter school system, says the vast majority of schools in his system are start-ups – brand new schools built for charters.

“We have 117 charter schools now. Only around 30 of them are conversion charter schools, and the rest are start-up charter schools.”

As for the money these new schools would take from public schools in the state, Todd Ziebarth acknowledges that’s a probable consequence. But he says that’s really nothing new for school districts.

“School districts have been dealing with enrollment fluctuations for decades. They have to adjust when they have more students, they have to adjust when they have less students, and so this doesn’t add anything above and beyond what school districts already have to make adjustments for.”

Another point of opposition is a provision in Alabama’s law that allows schools to contract certain operations out to for-profit companies. Even Governor Bentley spoke up, saying he was concerned about the possible implications.

But Louis Erste with Georgia’s charter system says traditional schools have been doing that for decades.

“For example, they contract out textbooks. They buy textbooks from the for-profit sector and the for-profit sector makes oodles of money on textbooks. That’s kind of an important example, because school districts spend a good portion of their non-personnel budget on private companies.”

Whether opponents like it or not, charter schools are coming to Alabama. The question now becomes how the law will be implemented, and when the first schools will be established.

Louis Erste says it took two years after the charter school law in Georgia went into effect for the first schools to open.

Mississippi passed a charter school law in 2012 and just saw the first charter schools open in the fall of last year.

Todd Ziebarth says Alabama’s implementation should look similar, but that the first wave of conversion charters may come even sooner.

“I would expect a similar kind of timeline in Alabama, the law passed this year in 2015 and our expectation is that you’ll see the first schools probably open up in the fall of 2017. Now, there might be a school or two that opens up in fall 2016 and they might be existing public schools that convert to charter schools.” ?

When charter schools do open in Alabama, Louis Erste wants to make sure that everyone involved has the right people’s interests at heart.

“What matters most is what’s best for kids, not what’s best for adults. And the extent to which a state Department of Education or a local school district focuses on what’s best for students, it’s good for kids. Charter school law just frees you to do something, but clearly it’s the execution, it’s doing charter schools properly and in the appropriate places that matters the most.”

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