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Opinion editorials Handling of Pit Appeal Calls for a Time-Out |
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opinion editorialsThis editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by editorial page staff and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers
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Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Charters' Higher Cost Warrants Monitoring
A report on charter schools in New Mexico pulls no punches about shortcomings and makes it clear there is a serious lack of oversight on their operations.
The report to the Legislative Finance Committee makes a number of critical assessments:
• Charters cost more to operate than traditional schools, yet their students do not outperform their traditional counterparts. Charters on average spend about $9,200 per student each fiscal year; districts spend about $7,300, not including capital spending.
• Charters often are small and spend less on instruction and more on administration than districts.
• Charter founders often lack financial experience, and financial records show questionable spending and late payments to vendors and for tax obligations.
• Salaries of administrators at some charters are competitive with the salaries of superintendents of large school districts. For instance, the Southwest Learning Center's superintendent pays himself $204,000, second only to the Albuquerque Public Schools superintendent, who earns $256,000.
The report makes two recommendations: Eliminate the small-school funding adjustment, which for some charters makes up to 45 percent of their funding; and stop approving new charters until the application process has more rigor and there is assurance only quality schools will open and poor performing charters are closed.
More oversight, especially on finances, is needed. And given the state's new $200 million revenue shortfall, a hard look at small-schools funding is warranted.
And applications and renewals do need more stringent evaluations, but a moratorium on charters isn't the way to go. Instead, evaluators should make sure the proposals are sound and data driven and that there's a real way of gauging performance.
Charters offer choices. They can meet the needs of students who don't fit in traditional schools, whether they are at-risk of dropping out, are ready for advanced coursework or function better in a smaller setting. Most importantly, they inject an element of competition that has forced public education overall to look at how it educates kids.
Charters are here to stay, and that's a good thing. The key is: Are charters doing better than traditional public schools? If taxpayers are spending more money on them, they have reason to expect better outcomes.
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