Yesterday was an important day in the legislative process – the Senate E-12 Education Committee sitting as the Policy Committee heard S.F. 867 , the Charter School Reform and Accountability Bill. Senator Saltzman, the chief author of the bill, presented a “delete all” amendment (a “delete all” amendment is done when there are a significant number of changes to a bill – it is easier just to redo the whole bill than have dozens of separate amendments), which addressed numerous technical, language and policy changes to the bill that the Subcommittee on Charter Schools adopted two weeks ago.
The extensive conversations and meetings that have been held over the last two weeks and especially those in the last few days, as well as your efforts to contact senators on the issues, produced significant progress on a number of issues.
Overall the bill includes all of the provisions that are part of the Minnesota Association of Charter School’s legislative agenda and the recommendations of the Office of Legislative Auditor. There are some language and policy issues that we want to see changed --- and our team will continue working on those with legislators. Most of these probably will not be resolved until this goes to conference committee between the House and Senate.
First, there was no CAP on charter schools included in the delete all amendment, as there was in the original bill. A lot of folks worked extremely hard to ensure that the CAP was in the bill and we were successful in thwarting that effort.
Second, the provision that would have established a charter school licensure and required anyone in an administrative, supervisory or instructional leadership role was not included in the bill. Over the weekend we drafted language, with the assistance of the Center for School Change, that instead requires each charter school to develop qualifications for folks in these positions, develop a professional plan and then report on this plan in the annual report. This approach addresses the concerns of senators and maintains the autonomy of individual schools; it also establishes a process of accountability.
The 36 month one mile limit on charters opening within a closed traditional school or within a consolidated district is still in the legislation. An attempt to remove this from the bill failed on 5-11 vote - this means we have a lot to do yet on this issue in the Senate.
First, during the hearing yesterday, it became clear that there will be significantly more discussion on the issue of affiliated nonprofit building companies, which about 22 schools have created – since Minnesota’s Charter School Law does not allow the use of public funds to buy or purchase buildings.
I will write more about this issue in the next couple of days.
Second, S.F. 867 will move on to the Local and State Government Committee likely tomorrow because of the provision regarding the establishment of a new Charter School Advisory Council. The bill will then be sent back to the Senate E-12 Education Committee, which will hear it again – this time sitting as the Finance Committee. This is when we can expect the discussion about building companies to take place.
FINALLY
Again, I want to thank everyone for their efforts over the last week to ten days in contacting Senators – a number of Senators have commented on the contacts they received from folks. Now is the time for everyone to take a short breather … action on the charter bill will probably be quiet for a few days as tomorrow is the policy committee deadlines and the charter legislation has passed policy committees in both houses.
Eugene Piccolo