The Los Angeles School Board last month narrowly passed a provision making it increasingly difficult for charter schools to lease unused space in traditional public schools. This is the latest effort in a nationwide battle to keep charter schools out of communities.
While 17 states expanded school choice last year, school boards and other local governing bodies are creating bureaucratic barriers effectively to bar charter schools from acquiring empty school buildings.
There are thousands of empty public schools across the United States. In the last decade, more than 11,000 traditional public schools have shut down. During that same period, traditional public school enrollment has decreased by 4%, while charter school enrollment has doubled. Yet, many school boards refuse to allow charter schools to use empty district facilities.
Through the Barney Charter School initiative, Hillsdale College has supported the founding of dozens of charter schools and is currently providing support to more than 17 founding teams that intend to open schools in the next two years. In nearly every instance, finding a facility is a herculean undertaking, and sadly in some cases, it has prevented high-quality charter schools from opening or expanding, despite interest from thousands of prospective students.
Even in states such as Indiana and California that have enacted laws requiring school districts to allow charter schools to use empty buildings, local school districts such as Los Angeles Unified School District have found ways to keep charters out, hurting students and families in the process.
Roughly 1,000 students are on the waitlist at Orange County Classical Academy, a Hillsdale-affiliated charter school that has been recognized as one of the top-performing public schools in California. The school has been trying to expand for two years, and it submitted a proposal to the school district to lease six classrooms from a nearby public school where enrollment had declined from 420 to under 300 students.
Though the agreement would have brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue to the declining public school, the district refused the offer. Last month, however, the charter school did reach a preliminary agreement with the school district to use a different school building that has been vacant for years.
Indiana law requires school districts to sell unused buildings to charter schools for $1, but districts often claim buildings are in use, even if one employee is “squatting” in an otherwise vacant structure. In at least one case, this prevented a charter school in Indianapolis from opening. While the founders had identified an empty school, the district would not budge from its claim that the building was “in use.”
Because of all-too-frequent resistance from school districts, many charter groups try to find alternative spaces, such as office buildings or churches, but leasing or purchasing these buildings is costly. The price of buying a property can range from about $5 to $10 million, money that most charters don’t have. Even if they are among the fortunate few to receive a grant from a charter organization, the financial assistance rarely covers the cost.
New charter groups also struggle to secure the proper financing because they have no track record. What’s more, in addition to the cost of buying or leasing a building, a charter school must spend anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 to retrofit the space to be suitable for a school.
In Rutherford, Tennessee, for example, Phillip Schwenk, a black teacher and administrator who has devoted 30 years to educating primarily minority students, has been trying to open a charter school for two years. After a year and a half of tireless work, he finally received a charter — only to face the even more daunting task of finding a building his operation can afford. He likely will retrofit an old office building, which isn’t the ideal option, but it is better than not opening the school.
As Schwenk puts it, “Ultimately, a school is about its students, its teachers, and its curriculum. You can have an ugly facility and still have a wonderful school.”
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While school choice advocates have rightly focused on expanding access to quality education, now we must ensure that these laws are implemented in the most effective way. State lawmakers, parents, educators, and charter networks must collaborate more closely to craft policies that will open the door to starting more charter schools rather than effectively shutting down the schools before they ever begin.
Only then will America deliver better schools to students who need and deserve an exceptional education.
Kathleen O’Toole is the assistant provost for K-12 education at Hillsdale College, which produces free resources to help parents and teachers bring excellent curriculum and instruction back into America’s schools.
