Sunday, February 18, 2007

This is why the decision can't be made by local school districts

State backs new science charter school. Greenville school board had denied it.
The state Board of Education overturned the Greenville County school board's decision to deny a charter for a science charter school that hopes to attract 400 of the district's top students.

The Greenville board said its denial was based on its belief that the proposed Greenville Science Charter School didn't have a sound financial plan and didn't demonstrate that it had enough community support.

"I did not see evidence that that was the case," said state board member Kristin Maguire of Clemson. "In fact, I saw the opposite of that."
Imagine that.

1 comment:

Stephen Fleming said...

I'm involved in a charter school in Atlanta, and the risk you highlight is very real.

This is directly analogous to the "may issue" versus "shall issue" stance of different states regarding firearms permits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shall_issue

The solution for charter schools is for states to set a (reasonable) set of requirements, then the school district SHALL issue a charter with no discretion. If the charter school screws up, yank the charter. But don't strangle them in the crib.