I have some great news, and some bad news.

First, the bad news. Charter school legislation is dead for this legislative session. Thousands of children will go another year without being able to escape the schools that are failing to meet their needs.

But I quickly want to let you know the great news. The legislature did pass one of our top priorities, a bill we drafted that will affect every school and every school district this year. I think it is one of the most significant changes in education policy in years.

This Fall, parents and communities will finally be able to have a clear understanding of how their school and district have been rated by the state Department of Education. No longer will there be the confusion of meaningless labels that hinder meaningful debate about the quality of schools.

From now on, schools and districts will be given letter grades, A through F.

Now, that might not seem like a big deal, but one of the major reasons the charter school bills died this year was because legislators were defending districts that are labeled “Successful.” Beginning this Fall, those districts will be labeled more accurately – as a “C” district. Yes, “Successful” simply means “average” – at best.

No one had paid much attention to the fallacy of our school rating system until we published our research showing how meaningless the “Successful” label is. We found that two districts rated “Successful” have zero schools rated that highly. And twelve districts rated “Successful” have at least half their schools rated below “Successful.”

We also found that 44 percent of “Successful” schools scored in the bottom half of achievement scores in the state.

These facts became a frequent component in legislative debates on a wide variety of education issues. We truly were able to change the course of debate by revealing the truth about school ratings.

Next year, legislators – and school superintendents – will be trying to explain why children in “C” schools and districts should be deprived of the opportunity to choose a school that better meets their needs, whether that is a charter school or some other option. And more importantly, the public will rise up and demand that their local schools make the changes needed to become an “A” school. That’s what has happened in other states that have adopted the A-through-F grading scale.

Having said all that, there is reason to believe the grading system itself creates artificially high ratings, regardless of the labels. We’ll be looking into that this summer, and we’ll be taking other actions to shine light on the reality of our public school system’s quality.

Our goal is to change the focus of our education system to its primary purpose: educating children. Not maintaining a system or employing adults, but educating children. We believe choice and competition create the best incentives to accomplish that goal.

The education establishment has built a Berlin Wall around the current system, keeping their own people from escaping to better opportunities. We will continue to encourage our legislature to tear down that wall. It didn’t happen in this session, but I am more confident than ever that choice and competition will come to Mississippi.

Be encouraged!

Forest Thigpen

Major Elements of HB 1152, the Mississippi Public Charter Schools Act of 2012

A charter school is a nonprofit educational organization that is a public school. As such, they:

• cannot charge tuition.

• administer the same state tests and are rated under the same system as regular public schools.

• must accept all students who apply, unless there’s not enough room, in which case they draw names, giving all students an equal chance.

• are subject to the same restrictions on teaching religious doctrine as regular public schools.

• may not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, sex, disability and other categories.

• are subject to civil rights, health, and safety laws.

• are subject to an independent audit of their finances, just as school districts are.

–More–

CHARTER SCHOOL BILL FAILS IN HOUSE COMMITTEE

The House Education Committee voted today to kill a charter school bill that would have brought public school choice to thousands of children across the state. After passing the Senate in February, the House Education Committee today defeated Senate Bill 2401 by a vote of 15 to 16.

Forest Thigpen, president of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, expressed disappointment over the bill’s defeat:

“The education establishment has built a Berlin Wall around the current system to keep their own people from escaping to freedom and opportunity. This battle is far from over. We will continue to call on our legislators to tear down this wall.”

“Today, a handful of legislators voted to sentence countless parents and children to more futility and hopelessness. Even worse, this sentence was handed down by legislators whose districts would not even be affected by this bill. This issue really boils down to one fundamental question: ‘Do you believe parents know what’s best for their children, or do you believe government knows what’s best?’”

“I am encouraged that the governor has announced his willingness to call a special session to give the full legislature the opportunity to give parents more options for meeting their children’s needs.”

“I applaud the members who took a courageous stand and voted for the bill in the face of enormous pressure from the education establishment.” Members voting for the bill: Tracy Arnold (Booneville), Toby Barker (Hattiesburg), Randy Boyd (Mantachie), Gary Chism (Columbus), Carolyn Crawford (Pass Christian), Becky Currie (Brookhaven), Dennis Debar (Leakesville), Chuck Espy (Clarksdale), Herb Frierson (Poplarville), Jeffrey Guice (Ocean Springs), Rita Martinson (Madison), Brad Mayo (Oxford), Kevin McGee (Rankin County), John Moore (Rankin County), and Joe Warren (Mount Olive).

Legislators voting against allowing Mississippi children to attend a charter school include:
Alyce Clarke (Jackson), Nick Bain (Corinth), Clara Burnett (Tunica), Credell Calhoun (Jackson), Reecy Dickson (Macon), James Evans (Jackson), Joe Gardner (Batesville), Forrest Hamilton (DeSoto County), Gregory Holloway (Hazlehurst), Wanda Jennings (DeSoto County), Steve Massengill (Hickory Flat), Pat Nelson (DeSoto County), Rufus Straughter (Belzoni), Sara R. Thomas (Indianola), Tom Weathersby (Rankin County), Linda Whittington (Schlater).

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Q. Why do parents and children in “Successful” districts need public charter schools?

Q. How will charters impact existing public school funding?

Q: Why can public charter schools hire teachers who might not have a state teaching certificate or license?

Q. Who should exercise oversight over public charter schools?

Q. How do we know public charter schools are effective?

Q. Why not wait?

Read the answers here

As charter schools continue to grow in size and number, so does their influence on traditional public school systems. Critics charge that charters rob traditional public schools of their most promising and motivated students and the resources they need to provide a quality education, since the size of school budgets corresponds to the number of students enrolled. Charter schools’ proponents, relying on market theory, argue that traditional public schools can be expected to respond to competition for students—who are proxies for customers—by improving the quality of education they offer.

Using student-level data, a report by Marcus Winters of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, examines the impact of charter schools on the academic performance of students who remain in the local public schools of New York City, instead of joining its rapidly expanding charter sector. In particular, it tests whether there is a relationship between how much math and reading skill a regular public school student has acquired during a school year and the percentage of his or her classmates who left for a charter school at the end of the previous school year, controlling for both observed and unobserved factors pertaining to the student and his or her school.

The analysis reveals that students benefit academically when their public school is exposed to competition from a charter.

Findings include:

• For every 1 percent of a public school’s students who leave for a charter, reading proficiency among those who remain increases by about 0.02 standard deviations, a small but not insignificant number, in view of the widely held suspicion that the impact on local public schools of students’ departures for charter schools would be negative.

 

• Competition from charter schools has no effect on overall student achievement in math.

 

• In both math and reading, the lowest-performing students in public school benefit from competition from charter schools.

 

Read the full study here

The Mississippi House of Representatives is expected to be voting ANY DAY on House Bill 888, the Public Charter School bill.

The opponents of charter schools are working diligently to stop the push for school choice. They are pressuring legislators to vote against this bill, or to amend it in ways that severely weaken it. Your Representatives need to hear from folks who support more public school options for Mississippi families!

Please contact your Representative today and urge him or her to VOTE YES on House Bill 888, the Public Charter Schools bill!

More…

Cynthia Jackson is imprisoned by her zip code.

She lives in Canton, works as an anesthesia technician, and is a single mother to Will, a 5th grader in Canton public schools.

And there’s the problem. Will is earning good grades and wants to excel. But Cynthia knows that her son is not being challenged. She looks at the thriving schools in the Madison County School District, just a few miles away, and knows her son’s school is just not meeting his needs.

But what options does she have?

More…

Beyond City Limits: Expanding Public Charter Schools in Rural America, is the latest publication from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Written by David Stuit, PhD, and Sy Doan of Basis Policy Research, this issue brief explores how public charter schools can meet the educational needs of rural communities.

Read the study here

Tomorrow (Tuesday 2/21) at 9:00 am, the Senate Education Committee will be taking up and voting on SB 2401, which would greatly strengthen Mississippi’s charter school law. It is likely that the full senate will take up this charter school bill later this week.

There is a concerted effort by some to weaken the bill so that only those districts with chronically underperforming schools would be allowed to establish a charter school. We believe all Mississippi parents should have the option of a charter school, not just parents in the worst of the worst school districts.

Please contact your state senator IMMEDIATELY!

TALKING POINTS:

• Vote “Yes” on SB 2401.
• Charter schools should be allowed everywhere and not limited to the worst performing districts.

To find out who your state senator is, enter your home address on this website www.votesmart.org and then click “State Legislative.”

Look up your senator’s contact information here

Thank you!

By Ben Velderman
EAG Communications

PITTSBURGH – Conventional wisdom says that allowing charter schools to compete with traditional schools for students and resources will result in the destruction of public education.

Those assumptions are being proven wrong by the renaissance underway in Pittsburgh Public Schools, caused – in part – by the district’s 31 area charter school competitors. Instead of being the bane of PPS’s existence, the charter schools are spurring the district into becoming leaner, more efficient and, ultimately, more effective for students.

Pittsburgh school officals understand that the “landscape has changed and that we need to be more competitive in the new world,” Lisa Fischetti, chief of staff and external affairs for Pittsburgh Public Schools, wrote in an email to EAG.

“ … [T]he increasing array of other educational options (e.g. charter schools, cyber charter schools, and potentially vouchers) did help to move the needle in terms of our culture shift,” wrote Fischetti.

Read the full story