Indiana: Republican lawmakers scale back a proposal to eliminate a requirement that students attend public schools for one year before becoming eligible for a private school voucher (Associated Press). They pass it mostly along party lines in the House (Associated Press). They're advancing a proposal to switch administration of the voucher program away from newly elected Superintendent Glenda Ritz (Associated Press). They're also considering a Democratic proposal to give school districts with more than 50 percent of their students in charter schools the ability to approve new charters (Post Tribune).

New Hampshire: The state House votes to repeal the tax credit scholarship program passed into law last year over Gov. John Lynch's vote (New Hampshire Public Radio).

Iowa: The state's Catholic bishops push for vouchers (Iowa Radio).

Texas: Senate Education Committee Chairman Dan Patrick, R-Houston, files legislation to lift the cap on charter schools and create a new body to authorize them (Texas Tribune). More from the Austin American Statesman and the News-Journal. Patrick's proposal for tax credit scholarships isn't getting a warm reception from fellow lawmakers (San Antonio Express News). Thousands of people turn out for a Save Our Schools rally to restore education funding, reduce standardized testing and oppose vouchers and charter schools (KVUE.com)

Alaska: A debate over a proposed constitutional amendment that could open the door to private school vouchers is heating up (Anchorage Daily News). The chair of the Senate Education Committee says his committee will still hold hearings on vouchers even though it will no longer be considering a bill on the proposed amendment (Alaska Public Radio News).

California: The race for three seats on the L0s Angeles Unified School Board has drawn national interest - and financial support - due to three candidates who favor parental choice, charter growth and data-based teacher evaluations (Los Angeles Daily News).

Idaho: Lawmakers propose measures to allot charter schools $1.4 million in facilities funding and allow colleges, universities and nonprofit groups to authorize charter schools (Idaho State Journal). More from Idaho Education News.

Georgia: Amid the debate on parent trigger laws and charter schools, one education advocate ponders: Whose responsibility is it to educate a child — society’s or the parent’s? (Atlanta Journal Constitution). The Georgia Legislature considers an expansion of the tax-credit scholarship program (Rome News Tribune). (more…)

Charter schools. The Tampa Tribune writes up the latest report on charter laws from the National Association of Public Charter Schools and quotes Robert Haag, president and CEO of the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools: "You want choices for your child's education, just like anything else in life. You don't want to be stuck just going to Publix. You want to be able to go to Winn-Dixie or Whole Foods or any of those places."

The Pembroke Pines charter school system is battling the Broward school district for funding, reports the South Florida Sun Sentinel. An F-rated charter middle school in Orlando plans to ask the Orange County school district for designation as an alternative school, which wouldn't be graded, reports SchoolZone. The Orlando Sentinel editorial board doesn't like the idea of more construction money for charter schools - or the possibility of a parent trigger.

School spending. The Manatee school district's Fitch bond rating is downgraded from stable to negative, reports the Bradenton Herald. The district posts thousands of documents from the forensic audit into a $3.4 million deficit, the Herald also reports. The documents show a school board member forced former superintendent Tim McGonegal to resign after he learned of the deficit, reports the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

Following Florida: Nevada should adopt Florida's ed reforms, particularly its expansion of school choice options, says this op-ed in Nevada Business Magazine.

Rick Scott. As the governor woos teachers, the Tea Party scratches its head. Tampa Bay Times.

Exposed, again! Another news outlet gives space to the Jeb Bush corporate-connections-conspiracy story.

Teacher evaluations. The Tampa Bay Times offers an update on the Gates-funded effort in Hillsborough. A Flagler teacher will focus on teacher evaluations as a fellow with the Hope Street Group, a national public policy outfit, reports the Daytona Beach News Journal. (more…)

Texas: State lawmakers propose an ambitious school choice expansion plan that includes a tax credit scholarship for low-income students and the lifting of a cap on charter schools (Dallas Morning News). More from the Austin American Statesman and San Antonio Express-News.

Tennessee: A key state lawmaker, House Speaker Beth Harwell, says the legislature will consider a statewide charter school authorizer (The Tennessean). Area businesses help push growth of charters in the Nashville area (The Tennessean). Gov. Bill Haslam gives mixed signals on the possibility of voucher legislation next year (Knoxville News-Sentinel). More from the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Louisiana: The Recovery School District in New Orleans is moving towards an all-charter system (New Orleans Times Picayune). The latest enrollment counts show families who accepted vouchers are sticking with their schools (Alexandria Town Talk).

North Carolina: Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools superintendent Heath Morrison calls private, charter and traditional public school leaders together to discuss the possibility of partnerships (Charlotte Observer).

Indiana: A new study finds the state's charter schools are among the best in the nation when compared to their traditional public school counterparts (Indianapolis Star). But the poor performance of many charters under one authorizer, Ball State University, drags down the overall results (Indianapolis Star).

Illinois: Members of the Chicago teachers union march to protest a wealthy charter school supporter and ally of Mayor Rahm Emanuel (Chicago Sun Times).

Ohio: Federal education officials are investigating whether charter schools in Ohio and three other states - Texas, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - are discriminating against students with disabilities (StateImpact Ohio).

Wisconsin: Possible expansion of vouchers, extra pay for low-performing schools with improvement plans, and more education funding are all on tap for the next legislative session, Gov. Scott Walker says (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

Georgia: A judge rules that the Atlanta school district must stop withholding money from the city's charter schools to help pay for the district's pension program (Atlanta Journal Constitution).

If the chatter among Florida charter school supporters is any indication, expect to see proposed legislation next spring that calls for equitable funding for charter schools and the return of charter authorizers who are independent from public school districts.

“This is a forced marriage that needs counseling,’’ joked Ralph Arza, a former Florida legislator who now serves as the governmental affairs director for the Florida Consortium on Public Charter Schools.

More than 100 charter school operators and advocates, who met Wednesday during the 16^th Annual Florida Charter School Conference in Orlando, also want more streamlined applications and sanctions against districts that drag out the appeals process.

The way it works now, some applications call for thousands of pages of documentation, said Collette Papa of Academica, a charter school management company with about 100 schools in Florida. If a district denies the application, the appeals process can take anywhere from three to six months, Papa said. If the charter school wins approval, often it’s too late to hire teachers, secure a site and recruit students in time to open the same year, she said.

Papa was part of a 7-member panel that included Mike Kooi from the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice, Pamela Owens of Charter Schools of Boynton Beach, Marvin Pitts of Mavericks in Education in south Florida, Gene Waddell of Indian River Charter High School in Vero Beach and Tim Kitts, who operates five Bay Haven Charter Academy schools in Panama City.

The panel discussion anchored a town hall meeting that kicked off the two-day conference. It was sponsored by the consortium and led by Arza, who served in the Legislature between 2000 and 2006 and helped pass education laws including former Gov. Jeb Bush’s A++ plan.

Since that time, Arza said, the state has slowly chipped away at the heart of school choice reforms. (more…)

Florida Gov. Rick Scott wants a summit to "discuss ways to remove barriers to choice options in low performing areas," according to a draft of his education plans for the next legislative session. Posted on the Gradebook blog this morning, the draft offers a few more details about the governor's proposals than today's story did, but not much. Page 5 deals with school choice, and includes these pieces:

Incentives for educational choice options

Choices in education are critical to ensuring that every student has access to high quality learning opportunities that will prepare them for college and careers. Florida has partnered with the Charter School Growth Fund to develop and support high quality operators that can open new charter schools and establish turnaround options for chronically failing schools in high need areas. To ensure all parents and students have the ability to choose what is right to them, Florida should also remove any enrollment caps on existing charter schools, so that results and capacity can determine enrollment. This flexibility also comes with a responsibility for Florida to work to make sure that all charter schools  participate in the school grading system that has made Florida a leader in educational opportunity. To further the state's investment in choice, Governor Scott will be asking stakeholders to come together for a Choice and Competition Summit to discuss ways to remove barriers to choice options in low performing areas. (more…)

There’s no denying there are some bad charter schools, and that some do things that make school districts justifiably upset or rightly suspicious. School choice supporters should honestly acknowledge that and diligently help in the search for solutions. At the same time, there’s no doubt that district opposition often hinges on arguments that suggest motivations other than what’s best for kids. Take two recent examples from Florida.

In Duval County, the school board just shot down applications for two charter schools because, according to the Florida Times Union, they wanted to set up in an area where traditional public schools have 5,000 empty seats. “This would add some additional seats where we already have more than we can really manage and pay for,” the district’s chief operating officer told board members. I can’t pretend to know for sure why that part of Duval has so many under-enrolled schools. But numbers that high may reflect a combination of dwindling demand and an increasing array of learning options – phenomena that are relatively new for Florida districts and pose challenges to the historic pattern for planning new schools.

Duval received 20 charter applications this year, a record high for the third year in a row. I grew up in Duval and I’m proud of it, so it pains me to point this out: Low-income students do particularly poorly there. Next to their peers in the state’s 12 biggest districts, low-income students in Duval (the sixth biggest) ranked in the bottom three in reading in every tested grade this year, according to data recently posted on the Florida Department of Education web site. Performance like that may explain why Duval parents continue to warm to charters.

All these factors no doubt make facility planning more difficult, but officials would be wise to keep in mind that no one is forcing parents to attend these charter schools. To deny new charters based solely on traditional school enrollment patterns, then, is to appear bureaucratically heavy-handed and insensitive to the needs of students. It also, quite arbitrarily, denies parents more options.

In Volusia County, meanwhile, the superintendent recommended last month that the school board reject all nine applications for new charters. Ultimately, the board turned down four and the other five withdrew. (more…)