Overhaul of Ed Finance in Minnesota: All day kindergarten and possible net increase of ed funding for all public schools, including charters

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This week a state Education Finance Working Group, appointed by Governor Dayton, finalized a series of recommendations to overhaul how schools are funded in Minnesota with the goal of creating a more stable, fair and equitable system of K-12 financing. (See MPR News and MinnPost).

Dr. Tom Melcher, MDE finance guru, outlined Working Group's charter proposals

Last week, Commissioner Cassellius and the MDE staff, to their great credit, reached out to the charter community and gave a sneak preview of the working group’s recommendations to a packed MDE conference room outlining how the proposed changes might impact the charter sector.

Impact on Charter Schools

If implemented as proposed, charter schools (and all public schools) would see an average net increase of $700-$800 per pupil when fully phased in over a 4-6 year period. This would include funding all day kindergarten for students in poverty with an option to use funding for Pre-k. The proposal also calls for additional Pre-K scholarships.

For charters, the ‘net increase’ of funding include a package of changes that would include a rolling in of referendum, inflationary and safe school levy monies into the basic formula as well as additional ELL and extended time aid.  Concurrently, there would be a slight reduction of lease aid from 90%/$1,200 cap to 85%/$1,133 cap, and requirement for charters to pay 10% of unfunded special-ed costs which represents about 3% of total special-ed costs.

Caution & Concern
It is far too early to predict what a final bill might entail but it is expected to be taken up by the new DFL-led legislature and the Governor as a priority in the 2013 legislative session.  First blush, the set of proposals taken as a whole would certainly be a net positive for charter schools. Although MDE staff stressed that the proposals need to be taken as a package and not just implement pieces of it, the legislative and fiscal reality may dictate that it be phased in over time to make it affordable, which could mean the negative provisions/reductions for charters become law, without or before the positive provisions/increases.

We, of course, will be monitoring closely this most important legislative initiative in the coming months.

School Leader Council hosts Nathan Eklund: ‘Improving school culture to attract and retain high quality teachers’

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Nathan Eklund, Eklund Consulting, gave a riveting and very entertaining presentation yesterday on ‘Improving school culture to attract and retain high quality teachers’ to CSP’s School Leader Council (SLC). The event was held at Hiawatha Academies’ Adelante College Prep in South Minneapolis.

‘Why doesn’t Forbes or the Star Tribune tout the best school workplaces?’, asked Eklund.  He referenced the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher study, a long-running survey of educators, parents and students. According to the report, teachers’ job satisfaction has decreased by 15 points since the survey assessed the issue in 2009. Forty-four percent of teachers reported they were very satisfied, the lowest rate MetLife has seen in 20 years. The Huffington Post article, Teachers Survey: Job Satisfaction, Security Take A Dive, summarizes the report.

The group discussion included an exploration of how CSP and its Partner Schools could collaborate to utilize and benefit from Eklund’s measures of workplace satisfaction and fulfillment for teachers.

Mr. Eklund is an expert in the field of leadership support, workplace improvement, and staff development. Eklund Consulting works with a broad range of district and charter schools and most recently has worked with the New York City Charter School Center.

Nathan Eklund at yesterday's CSP School Leaders Council (SLC) gathering at Adelante College Prep in Minneapolis

Charters 2.0: Moving forward administratively, will a little help (a lot of help actually) from MDE

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In the 2012 legislative session, Charter School Partners introduced Charters 2.0 (HF 2714), a bold series of legislative initiatives to increase the number of high-performing charter schools in Minnesota. Two provisions of the bill included: 1) ensuring adequate start-up funding for new charters, and, 2) allowing replication schools that were created under an existing charter and board the ability to access the federal/state start-up funds.

Sometimes policy is implemented via legislative changes and sometimes changes can occur administratively.  For these two very, very important provisions, these changes have and are occurring administratively.

MDE: Give credit where credit is due

Commissioner Cassellius

Without a doubt, the credit for these policy initiatives goes to Commissioner Cassellius and her very capable staff led by Charter Center Director Cindy Murphy.  Despite some tough setbacks, the staff has worked tirelessly over several years to secure the federal start-up funds for new charter schools as well as to restructure the federal Charter School Program (CSP) grants program to ensure resources are put only toward schools that show strong potential to be high-quality as well as to high-performing schools that seek to replicate.

In late 2010, the US Department of Education finally approved a 2009 request by the state of Minnesota to use the federal CSP start-up grants for expansion and replication of high-performing charter schools.  Commissioner Casselllius subsequently approved the inclusion of this concept in MDE’s 2011 proposal to USDE for a new five-year award for Minnesota under the Charter School Program.

However, another setback occurred in the Summer of 2011 when the feds announced that only two states, New York and Florida, would receive CSP federal start-up grants. At the time things looked very tenuous as to whether Minnesota would receive the five-year grant and the previous ‘win’ to utilize federal CSP funds for replication of high-performing charters was potentially a moot point.

Minnesota receives $28.2 million grant

The Commissioner and her staff’s focused efforts to pursue the federal CSP award paid off when in March 2012, the state of Minnesota received a five-year $28.2 million Charter School Program award. The grant provides monies to Minnesota to plan, design, and implement new high-quality charter schools AND allows for these resources to go for the replication of high-performing charter schools.

We, at Charter School Partners, quietly did our best to support the department in their efforts. We

  • provided a letter of support for MDE’s 2011 application to USDE for a new federal grant award, especially the proposal to provide startup grants for high-quality replication/expansion.
  • maintained an ongoing dialogue with Rep. John Kline’s office while USDE’s decision on the MDE application was pending during 2011-12. Rep. Kline is Chairman of the powerful House Education and Workforce Committee.
  • provided recommendations to MDE as to how to implement the restructured CSP sub-grant program for both new schools and replication/expansion of high-preforming existing schools.

CSP federal subgrant program announced this week

The several year effort culminated in last week’s announcement from MDE of the first round of subgrant funding competition under Minnesota’s new Federal Charter Schools Program grant process!

Round 1 applications for eligible developing schools are due October 16. A second FY 2013 competition, Round Two, will be held this winter (application deadline likely in December). Round Two will also include the first funding opportunity for significant expansion and new separate schools under a single charter (replication). The expansion and replication eligibility criteria will be finalized over the next couple of months.

In general, the following are the subgrant funding ranges under Minnesota’s new federal award for charters. The grants will be given over a three-year period.

  • Planning: $150,000-$225,000.
  • Implementation One: $125,000-225,000.
  • Implementation Two: $100,000-$225,000.

In other words, there will be a range of how much a school will receive over a three-year period based on a series of  ‘quality’ rubrics, with $675,000 as the top amount allowed. It is also possible that a new school might not receive any grant award if the quality criteria is not met.

Charters 2.0: More provisions needed

Despite realizing these two provisions in Charters 2.0, successfully launching a charter school in Minnesota is still daunting. Perhaps the most difficult challenge of charter start-ups is the current 64.3/35.7% state budget holdback funding formula.

As written about previously, the holdback has a particularly adverse impact on charter schools (versus district schools) and particularly for charters in their first couple of years. That is why the 2013 legislative version of Charters 2.0 will include initiatives that would mitigate the holdback impact on all charter schools and specifically reducing a new schools holdback formula to 90/10 for its first three years of operation.

ALT CERT process moving slowly; Beating the Odds schools again almost all charters

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ALT CERT PROCESS MOVING SLOWLY

An article in today’s MinnPost (Transplanted teachers — waiting and waiting — for alternative certification to jell) on the state of the alternative teacher certification legislation that was passed in March 2011 and signed by Governor Dayton, raises the question of whether the intent of the alternative certification licensing is being implemented and why has it taken so long?

BEATING THE ODDS SCHOOLS AGAIN ALMOST ALL CHARTERS

On August 1, 2012, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) released the first round of MCA test results for the 2011-2012 school year and for the third year in a row, the top ten Star Tribune’s ‘Beating the Odds’ schools — those schools serving 85 percent poverty  – are almost all charter schools.

In late August, MDE is expected to release the new Multiple Measurement Results (MMR) for the MCA tests, which factors in multiple measures including student proficiency, student growth, progress in closing the achievement gap, and graduation rates (for high schools).  For the last two years, Charter School Partners has included growth scores along with proficiency scores in its analysis of Minnesota schools and looks forward to utilizing the new MMR measure to continue the more in-depth assessment of our state’s public schools.

BEATING THE ODDS SCHOOLS

Math
District School Percent Proficient Poverty Level
Charter School Harvest Prep/Seed 81.0 88.6
Charter School Best Academy 77.4 91.0
Charter School Twin Cities International 74.7 96.2
Charter School Global Academy 71.5 86.2
Charter School Hiawatha Leadership Academy 71.0 92.6
Charter School Friendship Fine Arts 65.8 94.7
Charter School Aurora 65.1 96.8
Charter School Higher Ground 60.8 97.8
Charter School Noble Academy 59.9 99.1
Charter School Partnership Academy 55.6 93.6
Source: Star Tribune Beating the Odds 08/01/2012.
Reading
District School Percent Proficient Poverty Level
Charter School Harvest Prep/Seed 79.1 88.6
Charter School Global Academy 76.9 86.3
Charter School Best Academy 73.3 91.1
Charter School Friendship Fine Arts 69.2 92.3
Charter School Higher Ground 67.0 97.2
Charter School Twin Cities International 65.5 96.0
Charter School Minneapolis Academy 64.5 87.0
Charter School Hiawatha Leadership Academy 63.8 92.7
St. Paul Dayton’s Bluff Elementary 61.7 94.5
Charter School Cedar Riverside Community 61.5 97.4


Charter school mid-summer vignettes

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Rep. Paulsen applauds Minnesota’s leadership in charter schools

Last week, Minnesota’s third district congressman, Erik Paulsen (MN-3), took to the floor of the House to applaud the state’s unique role in the launching of charters schools and leading the way in public school reform nationwide. Rep. Paulsen was the author of a key amendment to HR 2218, The Empowering Parents through Quality Charter School Act, which will encourage the replication and expansion of high-quality charter schools. The bi-partisan supported bill passed the House of Representatives on August 13, 2011 and awaits action in the Senate.

National Charter School Conference, Minneapolis 2012

Bill Cosby, Al Fan. Priceless.

The National Charter School Conference was a proud moment for Minnesota’s charter school community in which its unique contribution to the launch of the charter movement was celebrated.

In many ways, the conferences was also the launch of the next chapter for charter schools — using the charter model to create the nation’s highest performing and most innovative public schools. To that end, The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released Fulfilling the Compact: Building a Breakthrough, Results-Driven Public Charter School Sector, a bold document that lays out a Charters 2.0 strategy for the next decade and beyond.  As expected, the conference spawned much press and media coverage reflecting the movement’s focus on quality, including an article from The Economist, in which Minneapolis’ own Harvest Prep was featured.

Sara Paul, Office of New Schools, Minneapolis Public Schools; Al Fan, Charter School Partners; and Eric Mahmoud, Harvest Prep on a National Charter School Conference panel on District/Charter Collaboration.


CSP launches Year 2 Fellowship

2013 Fellows, Angela Mansfield and Matthew Bannon, with CSP's Katie Barrett Kramer.

On July 9th, Charter School Partners launched its 2014 Fellowship program, a highly selective, rigorous two-year school leader program which will culminate in the opening of three new high-performing, achievement-gap closing charter schools in Minneapolis in 2014.  The three new Fellows are Daniela Vasan, Carl Phillips and James Robinson.

At the same event, 2013 Fellows, Angela Mansfield, school leader of ARCH Academy and Matthew Bannon, school leader of West Side Summit were honored for successfully completing year one of their Fellowship. Their schools will open in 2013.

A few summer charter-/ed-reform reads

Before school starts, here’s a few charter-/ed-reform books and articles for some good summer readings.  Enjoy.

BOOKS:

ARTICLES:



The National Charter Schools Conference: Minnesota, CSP, Cos & More

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It was quite a week for the Minnesota charter community as 4000 strong from across the nation came to Minneapolis to celebrate the birth and the birthplace of the charter movement.

The tone of the week was set with the Al Fan and Todd Ziebarth (V.P. for State Advocacy/Support, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools) Star Tribune Op-Ed Taking charters into next chapter, which hailed the great accomplishments of the first 20 years of the charter movement and pointed to the heightened focus on ‘quality’ as the next milestone for the charter movement.

In addition, the conference featured the release of Ember Reichgott Junge’s book, Zero Chance of Passage, which documents the improbable creation of the charter movement. For many Minnesotans, a highlight of the week was the induction of Eric Mahmoud, Jon Schroeder and City Academy into the Charter Schools Hall of Fame. Numerous local charter reps — authorizers, school leaders, financial consultants — were among the presenters of the many breakout sessions that occurred throughout the three day conference. And how about those fabulous performances from St. Paul’s High School for the Recording Arts (HSRA) and Nova Classical Academy’s 9-year old Emma Taggart playing Rachmaninoff blindfolded — they brought down the house!

Neerav Kingsland, CEO, New Schools for New Orleans

Charter School Partners also hosted a standing room only breakfast for CSP Partner Schools and community leaders with Neerav Kingsland, CEO of New Schools for New Orleans. Kingsland’s engaging presentation told of the remarkable remaking of the New Orleans public school system after Katrina — where now 80% of the city’s school children are in charters — and how the lessons of New Orleans could translate to the Twin Cities (a separate post on this will be forthcoming).

Bill Cosby interviewing Deborah Kenny

Then there was Cos, Bill Cosby, a committed education reformer, who interviewed Deborah Kenny, Founder and CEO of Harlem Village Academies, on her new book Born to Rise: A story of Children and Teachers Reaching their Highest Potential. Cos’ inimitable style of interviewing was a delight and great fun and helped illustrate the profound lessons of Deborah Kenny and her schools’ great success. The book is a must read.

The conference was a proud moment for Minnesota’s charter school community in which its unique contribution to the launch of the charter movement was celebrated.  Perhaps equally exciting and somehow apt, is that Minnesota was home this week to a discussion that in some ways is the launch of the next chapter of the charter movement — using the charter model to create the nation’s highest performing public schools.

Many thanks to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools for putting on a great conference. Next year’s National Charter Schools Conference will be held in Washington, DC.

A highlight of the conference for many Minnesotans was the induction of three new entrants into the Charter Schools Hall of Fame. Eric Mahmoud, Jon Schroeder and City Academy, the nation's first charter school which opened September 7, 1992, has joined two other Minnesotans -- Ted Kolderie and Ember Reichgott Junge, who received the designation in 2007 and 2009, respectfully .

Ember Reichgott Junge releases ‘Zero Chance of Passage’

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Reclaiming the Minnesota Origins of Charter Schools: From Idea to National Movement

This week, June 19-22, Minnesota will host the National Charter Schools Conference and its 4000 attendees to celebrate and honor the 20th anniversary of Minnesota’s remarkable legacy of birthing America’s charter school movement.

Few people know the real story of how charter schools came to be in the United States, or even what defines them.  More than twenty years ago the Minnesota legislature passed the first charter school law in the nation and on September 7, 1992, Milo Cutter opened City Academy High School in St. Paul, America’s first charter school. By all counts, it shouldn’t have happened.

Zero Chance of Passage, www.ZeroChanceofPassage.com,

Ember Reichgott Junge

written by Minnesota’s own Ember Reichgott Junge, tells the remarkable pioneering story of chartering from its early origins through the turmoil of its legislative passage in Minnesota to its explosion onto the national stage.

Chartering exists today because it was a bipartisan initiative that arose from the middle of the political spectrum and from civic leaders outside the political system. Ember tells the story of the many Minnesotan’s that were there and played their pivotal roles — Ted Kolderie, Joe Nathan, Jon Schroeder, Sen. Gen Olson, Sen. Ron Dicklich, Rep. Becky Kelso, Governor Arne Carlson, U.S. Sen. Durenberger and many more.

Reichgott Junge was the Minnesota state senator who authored the law and later became a member of the National Charter Schools Hall of Fame.  She will be a featured speaker this week at the national charter conference sponsored by The National Alliance of Public Charter Schools.

Official Minnesota Book Launch:  Tuesday, June 26, 2012  5:00-7:00 p.m. Barnes & Noble, 801 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis

New MDE measurement for achievement: Hiawatha Leadership Academy, high-performing charters closing-the-gap for Minnesota kids

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On Tuesday, May 22, the Minnesota Department of Education unveiled a new school accountability system that showed that Hiawatha Leadership Academy, a South Minneapolis charter school, was ranked the top Minnesota school receiving Title 1 funding, the top school in the state in closing the achievement gap, and was the second top performing public school in Minnesota, receiving 99.79 points out of a possible 100 in the new state ratings.

(See Get to know Hiawatha Leadership Academy, Minnesota’s ‘most successful school’ from today’s MinnPost).

In addition, the new Multiple Measurement Ratings (MMR), which factors in multiple measures including student proficiency, student growth, and progress in closing the achievement gap, also showed that nine of the top ten performing schools serving the highest population of poverty (over 85%) were charter schools. (See Al Fan’s Letter to the Editor in this morning’s Star Tribune).

Schools “Beating the Odds” using MDE’s new Multiple Measurement Rate (MMR) and Focus Rate (FR)
School MMR FR MDE Designation
Hiawatha Leadership Academy* 99.79 99.94 Reward
Ubah Medical 84.15 87.12 Reward
Best Academy* 81.86 79.67 Reward
Global Academy* 78.56 80.70 Reward
Twin Cities International Elementary 74.22 86.72 Reward
Harvest Prep* 74.11 73.52 Reward
Rochester Math & Science* 70.50 85.20
Heritage Science and Tech 68.65 72.80 Reward
Higher Ground Academy* 66.91 77.40
CCLA* 63.99 75.09
This chart shows the top 10 highest performing schools on MDE’s new MMR metric that serve over 85% free and reduced lunch eligible students. The MMR designation provides an overall snapshot of a schools performance. The FR provides an indication of how well the school is doing at closing the achievement gap.

*Denotes a CSP Partner School

New system replaces NCLB’s AYP Requirement

MDE’s new accountability measure was developed as part of Minnesota receiving a waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law.  The new measurements designate Reward Schools, Priority Schools and Focus Schools. (This interactive Star Tribune link sorts all Minnesota schools by “overall rating” (Multiple Measure Rate) or “achievement gap rating” (Focus Rate)).

Reward Schools are schools with the highest performing 15% of Title 1 schools in the state.  Reward Schools will be identified every year and will be asked by the state to share any of its best practices.  It is not yet known whether there will be financial or other incentives for Reward Schools.

There were 17 charter schools (see graph below) out of 128 total Reward Schools, including:

Cyber Village Academy – St. Paul
Harvest Prep-Seed Academy – Minneapolis
Twin Cities Academy–St. Paul
Schoolcraft Learning Community– Bemidji
Twin Cities International Elementary School–Minneapolis
Ridgeway Community School – Ridgeway
Treknorth High School – Bemidji
Main Street School for Performing Arts – Hopkins
St. Croix Preparatory Academy – Lower and Middle – Stillwater
Ubah Medical Academy – Hopkins
TEAM Academy – Waseca
Twin Cities Academy High School – St. Paul
Hiawatha Leadership Academy – Minneapolis
Clarkfield Charter School – Clarkfield
DaVinci Academy – Blaine
Global Academy – Columbia Heights
Best Academy – Minneapolis

Priority Schools are the 5% most persistently low performing Title 1 schools.  There were 42 Priority Schools, four of which were charter schools.  Priority Schools will be identified once every three years and will receive support from MDE and the newly created Regional Centers of Excellence to develop a school turnaround plan based on the federal turnaround principles.  Previously identified schools who participate in the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program were automatically designated as Priority Schools, as were numerous others.

Finally, Focus Schools are the 10% of Title 1 schools making the biggest contribution to the state’s achievement gap. 85 Focus Schools were identified, 17 of which were charter schools.  Focus Schools will be identified once every three years and will develop a school improvement plan that directly addresses poor performance either within a subgroup or in graduation rates.

The following chart identifies the Reward Schools and their scores measured against the number of students in poverty.   Invariably, the ‘Beating the Odds’ schools (85% FRL or more) are almost all charter schools.

CSP announces three new Fellows to launch gap-closing schools

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Minneapolis, MN. 5.18.12. Charter School Partners, a Minnesota-based non-profit charter support group, today announced it has selected three fellows to go through CSP’s highly selective, rigorous two-year school leader fellowship program which will culminate in the opening of three high-performing, achievement-gap closing charter schools in Minneapolis in 2014.

“The 2014 Charter School Partner Fellowship cohort was selected from an impressive list of regional and national candidates,” said Katie Barrett Kramer, Director of the CSP Fellowship. “Daniela Vasan, Carl Phillips  and James Robinson are all incredibly talented, experienced and focused future school leaders whose schools will be part of a growing cadre of high-performing schools serving all communities in Minneapolis and proving that all students are capable of learning joyfully and achieving at the highest levels”.

According to Barrett Kramer, “the Fellows will receive national caliber education and training from Charter School Partners, community partners, and school leader mentors from some of Minnesota’s most effective charter schools.  The program also includes a year-long residency at a local high-performing urban charter school, travel to best-practice charters across the country as well as selective academic coursework.”

This is the second year for the Charter School Partners Fellowship. The inaugural 2013 CSP Fellowship cohort is on course to open two schools in 2013. Angela Mansfield has served as start-up coordinator for ARC4H Academy, which will open in South Minneapolis and Matthew Bannon has been start-up coordinator for West Side Summit, which will be located on St. Paul’s West Side. Both schools have secured approval from a charter authorizer and have received $250,000.00 from the Walton Family Foundation for their pre-operational year.

Here are brief backgrounds of each of the 2012 CSP Fellows.

Daniela Vasan

Daniela Vasan

Vasan was Teacher of the Year at her public elementary school in Atlanta, Georgia. She has been a Teach for America Corps Member and has also worked as a TFA advisor in Atlanta at TFA’s pre-service Summer Institute for new teachers and served as a Curriculum Specialist.  A graduate of the University of Virginia, Ms. Vasan received a B.A. degree in Middle Eastern Studies and her Masters in Mathematic Education at Georgia State University.  She also studied in Irbid, Jordan at the University of Yarmouk, where she was part of the Intensive Arabic Immersion Program. Ms. Vasan is fluent in Spanish and is proficient in French and Arabic.

Carl Phillips

Carl Phillips

A Minneapolis native who attended Minneapolis Public Schools through twelfth grade, Carl Phillips is currently Dean of Students at Achieve Language Academy, a Pre-K to 8th grade charter school in Saint Paul, MN.  His broad leadership and teaching experience includes working in a middle and high school in Guadalajara, Mexico and teaching 4th grade as a Teach for America Corps Member in Chicago, where he also served as a founding chair of Teach For America’s Corps Leadership Group. He was also a high school social studies teacher and later Assistant Director at Lighthouse Academy of Nations in Minneapolis. Mr. Phillips also headed up Curriculum and Instruction at Breakthrough Saint Paul, a summer and Saturday school program targeted to low-income middle school students in Saint Paul.

Mr. Phillips earned a B.A. in History, graduating magna cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis, MO as well as a master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University. He currently is a member of the Center for School Change’s Minnesota Leadership Academy.

James Robinson

James Robinson

After working seven years in the Rochester, New York school district where he was a Special Education teacher, James Robinson gave up his teacher tenure and became a founding lead teacher with Rochester Prep Elementary School, a charter school which is a part of the Uncommon School network, one the nation’s most successful charter networks.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Robinson was an ESL teacher in South Korea, worked with urban youth in several programs in Rochester, New York including the Good Grades Pay initiative and was a fellow with the Urban Teachers of Tomorrow Fellowship. In addition to his work as a Special Education teacher, this fellowship allowed him numerous leadership positions within school and community settings.  Mr. Robinson received his undergraduate degree from State University of New York (SUNY) at Purchase and his Masters in Education at Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, New York.

The CSP Fellowship was developed in 2011 after extensive research of similar fellowship models including KIPP’s Fisher Fellowship, New Leaders for New Schools, Building Excellent Schools (BES) and New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO), among others, including training programs tied to several prominent national and regional universities.

According to Barrett Kramer, the Charter School Partners Fellowship program will incubate 15 new high-performing, close-the-gap charter schools Minneapolis in the next five years.

# # #

For more information contact:

Katie Barrett Kramer, kbkramer@charterschoolpartners.org, 612.423.3878, or,

Brian Sweeney, bsweeney@charterschoolpartners.org, 612.817.3266

.

National Charter Schools Week: CSP represents Minnesota charters in DC

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As part of  National Charter Schools Week, May 6-12, charter representatives from dozens of states descended on Washington, DC to advocate on behalf of charter schools.

CSP's Al Fan and Brian Sweeney, representing the Minnesota charter community this week in Washington, DC, met with most of Minnesota's Senate and House delegation. Here with Rep. John Kline, MN-2, who chairs the powerful House Education and Workforce Committee, which oversees all federal issues relating to charter schools.

Minnesota was well represented in Washington, DC this week. Ember Reichgott Junge gave an inspiring presentation at a reception in the U.S. Capitol and announced the launch of her new book "Zero Chance of Passage, The Pioneering Charter School Story!"

While the focus was on raising awareness of the growing success of the charter sector, there were specific federal charter issues that state reps discussed with their state’s Senate and House delegation, including maintaining adequate funding for charters and the critical issue of the proposed IRS regulation that would force states to prohibit charter school teachers from participating in state retirement plans, a proposal that would be devastating to the charter sector.  If implemented, it is estimated that more than 93% of our country’s charter school workforce would be affected, including most of Minnesota’s charter teachers, forcing many of them to consider either leaving their charter schools or lose their accrued pension wealth.

With the long tradition of charter schools in Minnesota, the delegation was very supportive of charter schools in general as well as the specific federal issues of concern that were raised.  It was also an opportunity to talk about Charters 2.0 and for the delegation and their staff to learn more about the evolving charter landscape in Minnesota.