More Attacks on Charter Schools

How many days left in this year's legislative session? Charter school advocates won't be able to rest easy until the General Assembly declares sine die on May 9th. Today two amendments were added to the School Finance Act bill. One amendment cuts 3.5 million from charter school capital construction. This means charter schools would split 5 million dollars instead of 8.5 million dollars. Five years ago this capital construction fund was created with $5 million. As the number of eligible charter school students increases, the per student amount decreases.

The second amendment added to the bill would eliminate those who have charter school governing board experience from serving on the Charter School Institute and would also prohibit someone from serving on both the State Board of Education while working for the Charter School Institute.

This last minute attack on charter schools was the discussion when about 60 charter school leaders from Colorado met this afternoon during the National Charter School Conference. In addition, many conference attendees from Colorado report hearing people from across the nation talking about the "special place in hell" email of Rep. Merrifield.