Lawmaker: Time to roll back special break for Utah charter schools

[alp227]

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Draper • State Rep. Rich Cunningham is trying to roll back special treatment the state has given to charter schools for nearly a decade that he says has resulted in schools popping up in ill-advised areas and causing clashes with neighbors and endangering students.

But charter school officials say there’s nothing wrong with the law and Cunningham is doing the bidding of a wealthy developer, upset with a school that was built next to one of his industrial parks.

At issue is a 2005 law passed by the Legislature that gives charter schools free rein to locate on land zoned for any purpose — residential, commercial or industrial — and severely limits a city’s ability to regulate the schools.

Cunningham said the 2005 law helped a trio of lawmakers with financial interests in building charter schools who used their position in the Legislature to grease the process for their financial gain. The legislators were former Reps. Mike Morley and James Ferrin and Sen. Sheldon Killpack.

Read more: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57548088-90/schools-charter-cunningham-price.html.csp

[valerief]

1. Time to outlaw charter schools. nt

[Nanjing to Seoul]

2. +10,000

[Coyotl]

4. No, time to outlaw public funding of charter schools AND enforce education standards.

Let them sink or swim on their own dime, but only if they can pass an accreditation process and maintain proper standing.

[valerief]

5. I thought they didn't exist without public funding. Otherwise, they'd just be regular private

schools. Isn't what makes them "charter" schools the public funding?

[Coyotl]

6. By definition "an autonomous public school"

usually funded by the public and usually exempt from some rules and regulations governing public schools.

[valerief]

7. All the money without all the regulations. Makes sense. NOT. nt

[Coyotl]

8. Plus the profit and executive salary for the owner of the private education franchise.

Some of these "academies" are regular capitalist enterprises focused on making money, not producing citizens.

[AnneD]

3. How many parents and students....

have been left scrambling for a school when the charters and their owners have absconded with or misappropriated with state funds. Or when they kick out students when the students don't meet their standards.

At public schools, we have to take what comes through the door and educate them the best we can. Charters can and do cherry pick students.