OPPOSITION TO CHARTER SCHOOLS FILES SUIT

Oak Ridge school board member Jeff Hahs wants to close the doors on charter schools.

Hahs is president of the Missouri School Boards Association. His group has taken its case against charter schools to court.

The statewide organization has filed a brief in support of the St. Louis school board's lawsuit against Missouri's charter schools law. The brief was filed recently in Cole County Circuit Court where the lawsuit is pending.

The St. Louis school board wants charter schools to be declared unconstitutional. Fifteen schools have opened in Kansas City and efforts are under way to open charter schools in St. Louis next year.

Charter schools are public schools that are started by parents or community groups. Missouri's law only allows charter schools in the St. Louis and Kansas City school districts and specified universities or the school boards can charter the schools.

"Charters are their own entities," said Hahs. They operate free from local school board oversight and most state regulations.

The brief filed by the school boards association contends that the state law wrongly funnels state money to schools that aren't fully accountable to taxpayers and aren't truly public schools. The Missouri Constitution bars the state from giving tax money to private schools

Hahs argued that universities, including Southeast Missouri State University, shouldn't be allowed to charter schools. If lawmakers want charter schools, they should allow only school boards to charter schools.

"The local school board members are the best educated people when it comes to policy and budget other than the superintendents of local school districts," he said.

But Hahs acknowledged that school boards across the state are opposed to charter schools.

"We would just as soon they go away," he said. The Missouri School Boards Association strongly opposes charter schools. "We fought charter-school legislation tooth and nail for the past two years," said Hahs.

Opponents like Hahs worry that charter schools steal students and money from school districts.

Hahs said charter schools have a poor track record nationwide. "They just haven't worked," he said.

The Oak Ridge School District, for example, has 366 students in grades kindergarten through high school. If charter schools are allowed throughout the state, the school district could face the loss of students to a charter operation, Hahs said.

That would cost the Oak Ridge school system $4,280 for every child that leaves the school system and enrolls in a charter school, he said.

Hahs said school boards should be given the freedom to set policies to improve student achievement.

Even so, educators can't do it alone. "It still has to start at home," said Hahs, who believes parents need to be more involved in their children's education.

It takes both parental and community support for Missouri's public schools to improve student achievement, he said.