The Echo

My message, Earl, is that as these reforms are brought forth in Dover, as attempts are made to even the playing field between charters and traditional public schools, safeguards must remain in place.  I implore you to reconsider some of the legislation as proposed and provide amendments to protect education funding:

1. Any new streams of funding or methods of obtaining capital funding should be restricted to charters that own their own facilities or lease facilities that are state or school district owned.   This will compel charters that are establishing themselves or growing to consider the state's excess property list for their facility plans.  It will ultimately help address a growing problem:  a future glut of under-populated district school buildings by encouraging districts and charters to work together to serve the same student populations.  You see, as more students leave traditional schools, we are creating capacity in these buildings, yet our operation costs will not decrease.  It will cost the same to operate a building with 500 students as it will to operate that same school with 300 students. The facility operational needs will not change - water, electricity, sewer, those will remain the same.  But, the funds won't be there b/c they will follow the 200 who have left for charter.

In reality, if CSD were to close a traditional high school today, we would have capacity to serve the affected students in our other two high schools.  Reality. The flip side - CSD will never be permitted to close a neighborhood school - our neighborhood schools are the result of a failed attempt to close schools in the City of Wilmington under Lillian Lowery's leadership years ago.  Lowery went to court and lost. This legal precedent will hurt any traditional school district that attempts to close a school regardless of the population serve.

It is these future considerations that need to be addressed along with parity for charter funding in today's legislation.  And I am sad that I don't see this happening. We simply cannot afford to paralyze districts in order to create parity w/o safeguards. 

2. Somewhere in the glut of bills and amendments, there must be a transparency bill.  It is paramount that all schools adopt transparency and accountability best practices - this means recording their school board/board of directors meetings and making that content available on their websites.  If a slush fund is to be established, let it be required that a charter must first utilize funds from this new pot to establish these absolute best practices before it can tap these funds for other expenses/projects. 

In the absence of this best practice - are you willing to attend every charter board meeting of every charter board that wishes to utilize these funds and provide a report back to your constituents on a consistent basis regarding the fund usage?  I'll hazard to guess that you haven't the time.  Nor do the majority of your constituents - myself included.  There is a bridge to overcoming this capacity gap - mandatory recordings and publication.  And this new fund now provides charters with access to new funding to achieve this safeguard.

In closing, I sincerely hope that you will consider my email, my thoughts as a parent in two different worlds, both designed to prepare my children for a successful future. You sir are charged with a very precarious task - balancing the needs of students with the demands of the tax payers. Find the balance, re-establish the safeguards.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Scheinberg
tax payer

 -----Original Message-----
From: Jaques, Jr, Earl (LegHall), Earl (LegHall) <Earl.Jaques@state.de.us>
To: montagnebeau <montagnebeau@aol.com>
Sent: Thu, Jun 6, 2013 10:18 am
Subject: RE: Charter Thoughts

Elizabeth,

First the fund you are referring to is not a "slush" fund.  If you attended yesterday's public meeting you would know that it is not used for capital projects.  It is connected to the Charter Performance framework, which will ensure that is used for education issues for either high-performing or high-need students. The money allocated came from the last budget numbers - NOT from the Department of Education.  So this isn't a case of taking money away from our public schools.  In fact, the number one priority, according to the testimony from the School Superintendents to the Joint Finance Committee was money for technology.  That money is in the budget!  The Charter's number one priority was money for this Strategic Performance Fund, which again the Joint Finance Committee granted and is in the budget based on whether the legislation passes.  Since it doesn't apply, I shouldn't comment.  However, the points you make in the first few paragraphs are done each and every year for our Colleges and Universities.  We give them capital money and we don't own the buildings.  If you took the time to read House Bill 165 you would see loads of transparency and accountability throughout.  I hope you are not listen to the nay Sayers who just like to yell at the top of their voice, but most of the time don't know what they are talking about!   HB 165 has been properly vetted and has loads of support throughout the education community.

                                                            Earl

Earl,

I'm surprised by your tone.  I spoke generally of charter reform and the longitudinal impact that necessitates thoughtful approach.  I did not cite any bill by number, but did reference the slush fund.  I'm pleased that you noted my absence from yesterday's hearing.  As a legislator whose district encompasses parts of CSD, I am certain that you are reticent that you have missed all three comprehensive CSD graduations.  While the hearing was being conducted in Dover, I was caring for my severely disabled daughter while preparing for my third graduation ceremony of the week - Christiana High School.  Let me use this opportunity to invite you to the remaining graduations: 

Delaware Autism Program today at 4 pm, Kirk Middle School
Delaware School for the Deaf today at 7 pm, DSD on Rt 4
Groves Adult High School Graduation, Friday at 7:30 pm at Glasgow High School

I will share that is relief to hear that this is new-found funding. I do wonder of course, how do we sustain one-time new-found funding in subsequent years? However, I am relieved to hear that you will be advocating across the board for the restoration of funds previously hi-jacked by our Gov and re-allocated to our General Fund by our legislators.

Specifically to HB 165, the well-vetted bill, the following clause concerns me greatly:

(m) The Department of Education shall administer a performance fund for charter schools, to be known as the “Charter School Performance Fund”.  The Department of Education shall establish threshold eligibility requirements for applicants desiring to apply for funding, which shall include but not be limited to a proven track record of success, as measured by a Performance Framework established by the charter school’s authorizer or comparable measures as defined by the Department. The Department of Education shall also establish criteria to evaluate applications for funding, which shall include but not be limited to the availability of supplemental funding from non-State sources at a ratio to be determined by the Department.  The Department of Education shall prioritize those applications from applicants that have (a) developed high-quality plans for start-up or expansion or (b) serve high-need students, as defined by the Department.  The fund shall be subject to appropriation and shall not exceed $5 million annually.

The statement is a generality at best. It does not provide clarity around what can or cannot be funded, nor offer any precision of the eligibility of schools.  If applicants must have a proven track record of success, then the bill precludes any new or young schools from eligibility.  "Measures as defined by the Department" is very obscure, as is the "availability of supplemental funding from non-State sources."  Nor does this bill define a "high quality plan for start-up or expansion." 

I don't see the accountability or transparency pertaining to these funds.  The fact is that plans are wonderful things, they provide direction.  But, if the leadership is incompetent, and we often don't know that until the plans begin to fall apart, then the plan is just a piece a paper. 

For me, this portion of the bill is simply too weak, too easy to take advantage of, and too susceptible to political persuasion.

And I no, I don't tend to listen to the nay-sayers.  If anything, I'm in the political middle where charters are concerned.  However, that does not mean that I will abdicate my responsibilities as an education advocate.

I'm just saddened that you don't seem to value my contributions.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth