Charters have lots of freedom, including right to outsource

Monday, Oct. 1, 2007 | 7 a.m.

By Emily Richmond - Charter schools, organized by parents and approved by school boards or the State Board of Education, are allowed to operate outside the immediate supervision of the local school board, but must abide state education laws and meet the same accountability standards.

They have freedom in staffing, instructional methods, daily schedules and curriculum. They are not operated for profit; the schools receive the same per-pupil funding as traditional schools, so there is no tuition.

But rather than hiring teachers and buying textbooks, as a public school normally would, a charter can hire for-profit companies to provide teachers and curriculum.

For-profit education companies are happy to see charter schools flourish, and seem on the prowl for any opportunities to help.

In May 2006 Jamie Castle of Carson City was featured in a local newspaper story about young mothers who had chosen to stay at home with their children. The story mentioned that she was a teacher.

A few days later, Castle's phone rang.

The caller was from Idaho and wondered whether Castle was interested in helping to start an online charter school in Nevada.

Nevada's charter school laws are among the most rigid in the nation. To start a school, the organizing committee must include at least three Nevada teachers whose licenses are in good standing. So Castle's support was crucial. The call to her came from Carrie Ross, who works for Connections Academy LLC, which was interested in offering its services for a virtual charter school.

She said the company had received calls from more than 700 Nevada families interested in backing a charter school.

"It was a question of reaching out to people who were already there," Ross said. "These are parents who are looking for options and don't know how to get started, and we don't mind helping them out."

After taking a closer look at the program, Castle agreed to serve on the organizing committee.

Nevada law requires charter school applicants to complete a lengthy application process, explaining how the proposed program would differ from offerings already available to students.

"Connections helped me put together the application and keep revising it," said Castle, who was not paid for her time on the school's organizing committee. "We had to go back five times."

That level of involvement by a for-profit company in forming a charter school troubles Cindy Reid, a member of the State Board of Education.

"Typically when charter schools come to us for sponsorship, they're just scraping by to get through the process, find a building and serve a population in need," Reid said. "That's not the case here."

When Nevada's charter school law was drafted, "We envisioned the people who wanted to start a school, parents or educators from the community, would get their committee together first," said Bill Arensdorf, director of fiscal accountability for the Nevada Education Department. "Then, if they needed to, they would search out providers for the services they didn't have capacity to handle themselves."

The fact that the chicken might come before the egg in some of these cases isn't necessarily a bad thing, Arensdorff said.

There may be families and teachers who don't know there are opportunities to start a charter school until an outside vendor raises the possibility, Arensdorff said.

"I'm not ready to say that these educational management organizations don't provide a valuable service."