Dunleavy now claims all charter school applications must be approved
Any group that submits a charter school application and fills it out correctly cannot be denied approval by a locally elected school board, according to the Dunleavy administration.
I expect that every school district in the state will see this claim as an unconstitutional attack on their ability to operate public schools and serve the interests of all students.
It’s a preposterous position by Dunleavy and his underlings and it deserves a serious court challenge. It is state overreach.
If a school board has decided that approving a charter school will damage the finances of the district, the charter school must be approved anyway, according to Education Commissioner Deena Bishop, who is carrying out Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s plan to expand charter schools by twisting state law.
A charter school application must also be approved even if a school board has decided that the charter school is unlikely to succeed, according to their novel interpretation of state law.
It is an attempt by the governor to force his will on local elected officials, even if doing so would harm a district’s finances and reduce its ability to serve all children.
On Wednesday, the appointed members of the state Board of Education, following the state instruction that a charter application was filled out correctly and had to be approved, overturned a unanimous decision by the elected members of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School Board and ordered that the proposed Pearl Creek STEAM Charter School be approved.
The state school board does not appear to have conducted a public vote, but issued this document signed only by Sally Stockhausen the president of the board. All the board members have been appointed by Dunleavy.
The document is a strange beast. It repeats the sentence, “The board finds that this section of Pearl Creek’s application is compliant,” or some version, 25 times. The state board makes those repeated claims even when it also says the charter application needs more detail.
It appears that the board, rather than conduct a real examination, limited its work to looking at each part of the application to see if it had been filled out. It determined that each part had been filled out and the charter school was allowed to go ahead.
There is no sign that the state board examined the claims by the Fairbanks school board that opening the charter would harm the district finances and that the charter is unlikely to succeed.
There is no sign that the state board examined the claims in the charter application or tested the assumptions that have been challenged by the local board.
The state board failed to dig into the budget at all, providing this third-rate account of finances.
The state board finding echoes the faulty logic provided by the state education department January 28, when the state claimed it was illegal for the Fairbanks school board to have rejected the Pearl Creek charter application because the board members said it would harm district finances and the operation of neighborhood schools.
“Alaska law does not require charter school applicants to demonstrate either that a proposed charter school would not negatively impact a school district’s finances or that the school has a likelihood of success,” the Dunleavy education department claimed.
And “nothing requires a charter school applicant to predict or estimate a charter school’s impact on a school district’s financial viability.”
That is entirely backwards. It reflects Dunleavy’s desire to kneecap local school boards because he can’t control them.
The school district, as part of its review, must estimate a charter school’s impact on its finances. If local elected officials find that a charter school would negatively impact a district’s finances, Alaska law allows then to make an independent decision.
But the Fairbanks school board was banned by the Dunleavy administration from looking at the financial impact of the charter on the district. That’s ridiculous.
This 28-page ruling in January, which was appealed to the Fairbanks board, was prepared at Bishop’s request by education administrator Courtney Preziosi. It is a poorly written document. That may have been intentional, with the use of sloppy language concealing the bizarre legal theory about mandatory charters for all who apply.
Hidden within the clumsy text is the Dunleavy claim that any and all charter school applications must by approved by local school boards if the applications are filled out properly.
The decision on whether to approve or reject charter schools should be made by locally elected school boards, not by Dunleavy, not by Bishop, not by the appointed members of the state board and not by state employees who are distorting the meaning of state law for their own political purposes.
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