It probably shouldn't surprise us by now, but it seems no good deed goes unpunished when it comes to improving public education.
The latest is a bill sponsored by state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, that would -- among other things -- limit the percentage of out-of-county students a charter school could have. Under current law, there is no cap, though several school districts don't allow charter schools to recruit students outside the county.
Obviously, then, there is a discrepency between state charter school law and the rights of districts to determine what their charter schools can and cannot do. And that's what the state senator's bill -- suggested by a public school superintendent -- purports to do.
"This legislation seeks to clarify several charter school provisions as well as address operational challenges that charter schools in Tennessee have identified," Gardenhire told Senate Education Committee members earlier this month.
His bill would mandate that charter schools enroll all interested students from inside the county in which the charter school lies first before considering students from outside the county, and that students from outside of the county could make up no more than 25% of a charter school's students.
Instead of seeing the bill for what it is, public school advocates have again attempted to make the false argument that charter schools take money from traditional public schools. No one is taking it. The reality is, by law, money follows the student. It's no different than if the student moved out of town or chose to go to a private school. The traditional public school would lose the money for that student either way.
Yet, David Connor, executive director with the Tennessee County Services Association, made the argument to this newspaper "that there are some fixed costs that don't follow the student." He mentioned the maintenance and cleaning of school buildings to running buses.
We're not sure that argument holds water since the maintenance and cleaning of school buildings, and the running of buses, would be virtually the same for 441 students as they would be for 443 students. A cleaning service is unlikely to increase or decrease its rates for a few students, and a district might even save a few dollars on running a bus if it did not have to make an additional stop.
It should be remembered that charter schools were created to serve students who would benefit from a specific curriculum or who might thrive in a differently structured school.
Instead of berating charter schools, traditional public school advocates should view charter schools as a plus and determine how traditional public schools could benefit those same students were they to have the opportunity.
Even if Gardenhire's bill passes the Senate -- it was scheduled for a vote there Monday -- and the House and is signed by the governor, we can't imagine a scenario where there would be a mass exodus of students from one county to another county with a charter school.
After all, charter schools are only located in the environs of the state's four biggest cities, Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga (five districts in all). And charter schools do not have to provide transportation, so for any charter that does not provide transportation, it would be up to the parent or guardian to provide transportation from one county to a charter school in another.
Elizabeth Fiveash, chief policy officer for the Tennessee Charter School Center, in a phone interview with this newspaper's Andy Sher, explained how the bill initially came from a public school district superintendent who thought the laws about charters needed clarification.
"The way the law was written, there was no limitation on how a charter school could enroll out of district students," she said. "We looked at it, and we talked to a couple of lawyers, and they're like, 'Yeah, the law right now is really confusing. And it's not clear, and you could make an argument that they can do that (enroll an unlimited amount of out-of-county students).' And we're like, 'OK, well then, we need to clean that up.' So that was the impetus of trying to address this."
While the bill was voted on in the full Senate yesterday, the House bill remains in the committee process. As such, if there are details to be smoothed out or additional questions to be answered, we hope discussions in House committees will resolve those. Charter school policy, if nothing else, needs to be aligned so that state and district regulations are not at loggerheads.