CHARTER SCHOOLS NEED STRONGER SUPPORT

Charter schools have received some nodding attention in the current session of the Missouri Legislature. The state Senate included authorization for the schools, which operate with public funds by have a mission different than public schools, in St. Louis, St. Louis County and Kansas City as part of a bill to put an end to federal desegregation orders in those urban areas. A House committee then removed the charter-school language.

The concept of charter schools is blurred in Missouri's experience. The 1993 Outstanding Schools Act allowed three experiments, called New Schools, in Joplin, Belton and Columbia. These New Schools are operating as a five-year trial, and the programs are being reviewed by outside consultants for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The New Schools also operate under the thumb of school boards and administrators in those three districts. Basically, they are not charter schools at all. They are little more than special programs with special funding within the public school framework. Any district could provide these programs, provided they saw a need and had the funding.

Charter schools, in the strictest sense, operate independently of public schools, although they are funded with tax dollars that otherwise would go to school districts. Not only are charter schools, under the best of circumstances, independent, they also compete for students in both the public- and private-school sectors.

Because of the competitiveness and the use of public funds, charter schools are strongly opposed by most public school officials and organizations. As a result, legislative action to create charter schools in the Show Me State has been watered down and unclear in its purpose, to say the least.

Gov. Mel Carnahan has said he would sign desegregation-related legislation that includes charter schools, but every indication is that this is because he wants to deal with the urban desegregation issues, not because he is a particular fan of charter schools.

In the best of scenarios, charter schools would be authorized by some accrediting authority, either state or private, and would operate totally independently of public school boards and administrators. The blended options that are being tried or being proposed do not go that far.

Independent charter schools would provide a competitive edge to public schools, forcing taxpayer-supported schools to find ways to improve student performance and satisfaction in the face of alternatives that are also taxpayer-supported. Public schools that meet this challenge would have little to worry about in the way of lost enrollment or state funding.

But first the state must recognize the importance of the charter-school concept and act accordingly. That isn't likely to happen this year.