National education and business groups are wading into a South Florida lawsuit to defend the state’s charter school appeals system.
The Palm Beach County School Board took the state to court last fall, arguing the state Board of Education did not have a constitutional right to approve a charter school on appeal after the local board rejected its application.
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed this week, pro-charter groups — including the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the Florida Charter School Alliance, the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options, the Foundation for Excellence in Education and the business group Associated Industries of Florida — say they are pushing back against a district’s attempt to stifle competition from charters. They call the case “the poster child for State Board of Education oversight,” and conclude that “no school district is above the law.”
The case began after the Palm Beach school board rejected a charter school’s application for not being sufficiently “innovative,” and the state board sided with the would-be charter on appeal.
The school board concluded the new school would not be innovative because it lacked plans, in the words of one board member, for “providing any program that we can’t provide or are not providing that is innovative and different than what we are currently doing in some of our schools.” The board has since rejected almost all the new charter applications it has received, sometimes citing a similar rationale.
While fighting the state board’s decision to overturn its rejection of the charter, the district also took aim at the state appeals process, under which, as school board Vice Chairman Frank Barbieri put it, “the state can effectively force local boards to grant charter school applications unilaterally” — in violation, he argued, of a state constitutional provision giving districts control of all public schools in their geographic area.
The Palm Beach school district is the eleventh-largest in the country, and home to a rapidly growing charter sector. Charter school advocates argue the district’s definition of innovation is self-serving. In their court filing, the pro-charter groups note the district projected enrollment in its schools would decline by more than 3,000 students in 2016, while charters would grow by more than 5,700 students.
“Parents apparently had a different understanding of what the District schools offer, and what innovation meant, and were voting with their feet,” the groups argue.
The groups also contend charters that mimic the offerings of existing schools can still meet the state’s statutory requirements for innovation. For one thing, Florida law encourages successful charters to replicate their programs. For another, popular choice programs in districts like Palm Beach often face far more demand than they can accommodate.
Under Florida’s constitution, only school districts have the authority to sponsor charters (though there are efforts in the works to change that). Charter supporters argue that makes the state appeals process necessary, as the court filing states:
There are no alternative authorizers in Florida; the temptation is present for a district to deny a charter, not because of a bad application, but because the charter is likely to do a good job and compete with a district for students. This process is similar to putting Winn Dixie in charge of permitting Publix stores. It is much easier to deny a permit than to compete for customers. This dynamic highlights the need for State Board oversight.
The charter supporters also argue school board members, as public officials, don’t have a legal right to challenge laws affecting their job duties, and that the state board’s role deciding charter school appeals is in line with its duties spelled out in the state constitution.
The nonprofit that applied for the charter at the center of the case, which oversees schools run by Charter Schools USA, hasn’t responded to the school board’s legal arguments yet. The case is being heard by the Fourth District Court of Appeal.
