Hawaii Charter School Commission Is Under The Microscope
School leaders’ complaints have the Board of Education considering a special performance review of the state’s charter school authorizer.
Members of a聽聽committee tasked with investigating the 聽are recommending a more formal review of the agency’s performance after finding a “pattern of well-founded complaints” from charter school leaders.
The committee is “primarily concerned with why there are consistently similar complaints from a large number of charter school leaders and why there is a seeming disconnect between the perceptions of these leaders and those of the Commission,” it stated in a report.
comes more than seven months after the BOE formed an investigative committee to decide if a review of the Commission was warranted. The full board is expected to vote on the committee’s recommendation at a meeting in September.
Lawmakers created the Charter School Commission in 2012 as part of a broad聽overhaul of regulations aimed at strengthening academic and financial oversight of the schools.聽The BOE oversees the commission, but has not previously undertaken聽a formal evaluation.
BOE members conducted three listening tour events with charter schools in November and December.
Charter school leaders said then that the commission聽had聽been overburdening schools with reporting requirements, not doing enough to support聽the schools and聽failing to clearly communicate. Many expressed frustration with the聽new school聽contracts, which they felt were too uniform when they should be negotiated more individually with schools.
Charter School Commission members were not asked聽to attend the listening tour and did not get a chance to respond to complaints before the BOE published a report on the tour.
The BOE committee has since met with members of the Charter School Commission聽and its staff, but has not altered its position on the complaints of school leaders.
Despite months of聽discussions, the committee said that it “cannot report with confidence that the Commission will adequately and fully address the concerns, whether real or perceived, of charter school leaders.”
A BOE review of the commission would聽take聽four months, according to a special review process approved by the board聽in May.
The Charter School Commission聽used the criteria laid out in the BOE’s special review process to this summer.
According to its own evaluation, the commission聽is meeting 17 out of 23 performance measures and partially meeting another four. The evaluation found the commission lacking in terms of having an adequate budget and having “strategic vision and organizational goals.”
“While the Commission鈥檚 mission is clearly established, there does not seem to be full alignment of vision between the Board of Education,聽Legislature, Commission, and charter schools regarding the vision for Hawaii鈥檚 charter schools and the role of the Commission,” the evaluation stated. “With an aligned vision, the Commission can better create a comprehensive strategic plan with goals and timeframes.”
