Gov. Jeff Landry signed the last of a package of bills favored by charter schools Tuesday, capping off a legislative session in which they got most – but not all – of what they wanted.
The new laws will ease certain enrollment requirements, allow state and federal agencies to become charter school partners, give schools extra time to renew their charters and make clear that charter schools have autonomy over their own curriculum and budgets.
Just one bill sought by charter school advocates, which would create a state fund to help the schools pay for facilities and equipment, failed to pass the Senate.
“As we look at how our charter schools are progressing, I think we’re on a good pattern,” said Sen. Rick Edmonds, R-Baton Rouge, who sponsored two bills. “Many of our charter schools are excelling.”
Charter schools are publicly funded, independently operated schools open to all students. Louisiana allowed the first charter schools to open 30 years ago, and since then, the sector has grown steadily to include more than 145 schools that educate nearly 90,000 students statewide, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
House Bill 708, which was signed into law Tuesday, eases rules requiring charter schools to enroll a certain percentage of low-income students and students with disabilities, a requirement that charter advocates consider overly burdensome. Critics have long accused charter schools of serving fewer high-needs students than traditional public schools do.
The bill’s author, Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, called it “a step in the right direction.” She noted that Louisiana is the only state in the nation to impose such quotas on charter schools.
Under the previous law, certain charters were required to enroll a percentage of students equal to 85% of the number of disabled or economically disadvantaged students in the local school district. An original version of Freiberg’s bill sought to do away with those requirements entirely, but a round of amendments reduced the number to 70%.
Caroline Roemer, executive director for the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, said the requirements force parents to offer up personal information about their children that they would not be required to give any other type of school.
To “say that the charter has to meet a demographic when you can’t even collect that information on the front end,” she said, “that, to us, just did not make sense.”
Former Senator Dan Claitor, who created the enrollment requirements in 2015, told the House Education Committee in March that he did so after learning that some charter schools educated a disproportionately small number of students with disabilities compared to their surrounding districts.
“We were bleeding off the resources from the public schools into the charter schools, and charter schools weren’t taking their share,” he said. Claitor, who opposed the new bill, said the Legislature has a responsibility to hold charter schools accountable.
However, Freiberg and Roemer say the bill strengthens transparency and accountability requirements for charter schools, with Roemer pointing out that the law now requires the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to policies to ensure that charter schools comply with the law.
“It’ll be the first time that BESE has promulgated any policies around how they’re going to conduct their oversight,” she said.
Labeled “Charter Schools 3.0” by charter advocates in recognition of the sector’s 30th anniversary in Louisiana, the bill package aimed to modernize the state’s existing laws, which Roemer said have become a hindrance to charter schools’ success.
When charter schools were first introduced, state law referred to them as an “experiment,” she said. Senate Bill 350, authored by Edmonds, does away with that language and provides an official definition of what it means to be a charter school in Louisiana – a move Roemer said gives charters more operational freedom.
“We think that goes a long way in setting expectations,” she said.
Another bill signed by Landry, HB 78, allows initial proposals for charter schools with corporate partners to bypass their local school board and be made directly to BESE, making the process quicker and easier.
Roemer explained that corporate partnerships allow businesses to invest money into the infrastructure of a charter school, which can translate to land and better facilities.
The bill’s author, Rep. Kim Carver, R-Mandeville, called it “a win win win” all around.
It “allows charter schools with corporate partners to better serve their workforce, to better serve kids and to bring innovation and technology into the process,” he said.