[Editor’s note: The following is an opinion column by Rep. Matt Ramsey received April 3 via email.]

Charter schools exist to provide local control and flexibility

In the 1990s, during Gov. Zell Miller’s administration, charter school legislation was adopted in an effort to provide more flexibility and local decision-making authority to parents, teachers and faculty in failing schools.

Charter schools are public schools that operate according to the terms of a charter, or contract, with the state Board of Education.

The charter school’s petition typically seeks waivers for exemptions from state education mandates, regulations, policies and procedures which are built into their contract with the state.

In exchange for this flexibility, the charter school is bound by contract to be held accountable for meeting the performance-based objectives specified in the charter.

At no time is a public charter school not under the administrative watch of the state board. This allows parents in a local community that may have substandard schools an opportunity to try something different than the status quo in an effort to improve their children’s education.

Petitioners for charter school approval cannot include home study programs, sectarian schools, religious schools, private for profit schools or existing private schools.

Charter schools are often established when the parents, teachers and faculty at an existing traditional public school file a charter petition to convert their school to a charter school.

Prior to filing such a “charter conversion” petition, the petition must be agreed to by a majority of the faculty and instructional staff members of the petitioning local school and agreed to by a majority of parents or guardians of students enrolled in the petitioning local school before it can even be presented for approval.

How can you get more local control than actually giving parents of children in failing schools an opportunity to band together and try something new, when the current structure is clearly not working? It should also be noted that no student is forced to go to a charter school in a given district and is free to attend a traditional public school.

Public charter schools are funded exactly the way traditional public schools are funded. When a charter school petition is granted, the federal, state and local money that a traditional public school would receive for that student follows the student to the public charter school.

Yes, the traditional public school would no longer receive that student’s funding allocation, but they also would no longer have the expense of educating the student.

Public charter schools cannot have admissions criteria and must have open enrollment for that district’s students, just like traditional public schools.

Charter schools also are required to serve students with special needs, just like their traditional public school counterparts.

It is also important to note that charter schools CANNOT operate for profit and CANNOT charge tuition. These are public schools that are funded on per-pupil formulas, just like traditional public schools are funded.

House Bill 881 simply provides another means by which to seek approval of a public charter school.

Under current law, if a group of parents, teachers and faculty at a failing public school in Clayton County decided that the status quo was not working and they wanted to try something new and innovative, free of certain bureaucratic mandates, they could file a charter school conversion petition.

However, if the criminally incompetent Clayton County School Board capriciously denied this application and chose to keep these children trapped in their broken traditional public school, the local group would have no other avenue to seek approval for their petition.

House Bill 881 only establishes an alternative state board through which this local group could seek approval and does not change the rigorous, exacting standards that must be met before a charter is granted and the contract is signed by the state. The Georgia Board of Education could also veto any charter petition granted by this new commission.

There have been no applications for charter schools in Fayette County in recent years because they are not necessary. We have wonderful public schools in Fayette County because of excellent leadership by our school board, abundant resources, great teachers and active parents.

For a charter school petition to be granted, the petitioners must demonstrate that there is a need for alternative public schools in that community.

I cannot envision a scenario where such a test would be met here.

However, school districts such as Clayton give us a prime example of where a group of parents may want to work together and attempt to try something new for the sake of their children.

Unlike SB 458, charter schools provide an option for parents to seek a local solution to a local problem that would not burden other taxpayers.

In areas that have substandard traditional public schools, charter schools can often be an option that provides parents a key to help their children escape a school in a cycle of failure.

HB 881, which passed the House with significant bi-partisan support, simply ensures that school boards like Clayton County cannot arbitrarily deny these parents access to that key.

Since charter schools were first authorized in Georgia there have been only 71 established.

Clearly, charter schools are not right for every community. However, for a parent in an impoverished area with a child in a failing public school, who simply cannot afford private school, public charter schools may be the best chance to provide their child a chance for a quality education and a bright future.

HB 881 ensures that parent, and other similarly situated parents, that band together to seek this option have a right to be heard if THEIR local control is usurped by a Clayton County type school board that has arbitrarily denied a public charter school application that meets all applicable state requirements for approval.

[Rep. Matt Ramsey (R-Peachtree City) may be reached at matt.ramsey@house.ga.gov.]