Charter School advocates: increase monitoring, oversight

by David Safier

Lots and lots of federal money is already flowing into charter school coffers. Experts are saying, we need to watch what charters are doing better than we do now:

[I]n the first Congressional hearing on rewriting the No Child Left Behind law, lawmakers on Wednesday heard experts, all of them charter school advocates, testify that Washington should also make sure charter schools are properly monitored for their admissions procedures, academic standards and financial stewardship.

This is coming from people like Greg Richmond, president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.

Who should do the monitoring, the state or the feds?

How about this for a suggestion: Take a certain amount from the fed money earmarked for charter schools and use it for financial auditing and visitations of the schools getting the funds. Maybe use the money to expand oversight of schools not getting the funds as well.

Almost $5 million was just awarded to 21 AZ charter schools by the feds recently. If 5-10% were taken out for oversight of the schools, that would be enough to keep an eye on how those schools are spending their money and have plenty left over to be more rigorous about monitoring the state's other charters.