With many state legislative sessions wrapped up for 2024, now is a good time to take stock of how charter school supporters fared in their advocacy efforts this year. As in past years, there is much good news to report, as charter school legislative efforts continue to achieve success in red, blue, and purple states. Such success is largely due to the tireless efforts of so many state charter school association leaders, school leaders, teachers, parents, students, and others.
So far this year, we’ve seen major progress on funding, facilities, authorizing, and autonomy in several states.
Colorado led the way by equalizing funding for state-authorized charter schools, increasing funding for the Charter School Capital Construction Fund, and allowing districts to share local bond revenue with state-authorized charter schools. They notched these wins while successfully fighting off the most damaging piece of anti-charter school legislation in the country this year, a bill that would have gutted the state law’s authorizing, autonomy, and accountability provisions.
In Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds recently signed into law a bill that included an approximately $350 per pupil increase in charter school funding and improved access to vacant and underutilized district facilities. She also announced the creation of a $7 million one-time charter school start-up grant fund. The application period for this grant program opens on June 3.
Georgia enacted legislation that provides an estimated $6 million in additional funding for charter school principals and superintendents. Georgia also enacted separate legislation that increases transparency, improves oversight of Georgia’s charter schools and authorizers, protects charter school autonomy, and ensures public charter schools receive the funding to which they are entitled under state law.
In deep blue Washington state, charter school advocates successfully fought to get enrichment funding for charter schools included in this year’s state budget, money that is necessary to help offset charter schools’ lack of access to local property tax levies. While the state has provided such funding to most charter schools in the past, this year’s budget is the first one that provides this funding to all charter schools in the state.
Idaho fixed a potentially serious issue with their facilities funding policy, resulting in charter schools now receiving $400 per pupil for facilities funding. Idaho also enacted an overhaul of their charter school law. This bill, entitled the Accelerating Public Charter Schools Act, aims to better balance charter school autonomy and accountability in the state. Among other provisions, the Act provides that a charter school’s initial contract must be for six years, giving a new school sufficient time to prove its worth before it faces renewal.The Act also provides that a high-performing charter school may have its contract renewed for up to 12 years, allowing the school to spend more time focused on educating students instead of completing bureaucratic paperwork requirements.
New Mexico advocates notched two big wins, one on the offensive side and the other on the defensive side. Offensively, New Mexico enacted a bill that will further stabilize charter facility funding by mandating the Public School Capital Outlay Council provide lease assistance. This move secures Lease Assistance in perpetuity and allows schools to participate in the statewide infrastructure loan fund, a move that will likely provide significant cost savings to schools as they finance their facility projects in the future. Defensively, New Mexico defeated a resolution that would have negatively impacted their state authorizing entity, which would have resulted in a much less effective state authorizer.
There were three important bills at play in Wyoming this session, one of which made it over the finish line and removed the three-year waiting period for charter schools in non-district facilities to receive major maintentance state funds. The remaining two, which would have changed the game for state-authorized charter schools and allowed a fourth state-chartered charter school to open, did not pass.
In Tennessee, two significant charter school bills passed this year. The first bill greatly improved charter schools’ access to underutilized and vacant school district buildings in a number of ways.The legislation allows individuals to ask the Tennessee Comptroller to make a decision as to whether a district has left a qualifying property off of the list. The law also provides, for the first time in Tennessee, charter schools a “right of first refusal,” meaning that when a district intends to sell or lease a building, they must provide an interested charter school the first opportunity to purchase or lease that building at or below fair market value.
The second piece of legislation authorizes the creation of “opportunity charter schools” in Tennessee that would cater to some of the state’s most underserved student populations. These schools could serve grades 6 to 12 and must serve a population of at least 75% “at-risk” students.The bill calls for the creation of a new charter school application specifically for these schools, as well as an alternative accountability system and performance framework specifically catered for these high-risk populations that are too often getting lost in school districts’ existing alternative school system.
Missouri enacted legislation that will allow charter school founding groups in Boone County (which includes the city of Columbia) to apply to non-district entities for authorization, a major improvement to the state’s law that will finally open the door to charter schools actually being approved in this part of the state.
In Puerto Rico, a moratorium bill was defeated in the legislature.
Utah passed a number of bills to enhance charter school autonomy and flexibility, including by requiring authorizers and charter schools to develop performance metrics unique to each school, authorizing a charter school to voluntarily merge with another charter school, providing greater flexibility for charter schools to target teacher stipends to the areas each school needs, and simplifying the trust lands process for charter schools.
Finally, the Kentucky legislature passed a constitutional amendment that would allow the legislature to fund non-common schools, such as public charter schools and private schools. The amendment will be on the ballot this November.
Legislative sessions are still ongoing in several states. Our partners in California are on both offense and defense on a variety of issues this year, including accountability, authorizing, and non-classroom based charter schools. Our partners in Michigan are fighting harmful budget provisions for full-time virtual charter schools as well as mitigating possible bills that would re-regulate charter schools in multiple ways. Other states still in session to watch are Alabama, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and North Carolina. Stay tuned for more legislative updates as more states wind down their sessions.
