MORGANTOWN – The State Senate approved an amended version of the House charters schools bill on Monday and sent it back to the House.
The vote was 19-14 with three Republicans joining the Democrats to vote no.
HB 2012 took a twist on Friday when Sen. Dave Sypolt, R-Preston, offered an amendment to undo part of the Education Committee’s amendment approved Tuesday.
Sypolt’s amendment removed an initial cap of three charter schools statewide and put it back to the 10 in the original House version. The amendment also removed a cap on enrollment at the two statewide virtual schools of 1,500 for three years and returned it to 5% of all statewide enrollment for each school.
Both amendments had been offered by Sen. Mike Romano, D-Harrison. Romano took a tilt at another windmill on Monday with another amendment. This one would have required the state Board of Education to hold charter school authorizers accountable for student performance in the same was as traditional public schools. If the authorizer failed to close an underperforming school the state BOE could revoke the charter.
“There is no other accountability in this bill that ensures charter schools are educating our children,” he said.
Education chair Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, opposed it saying the state BOE has already written a rule to this effect. The amendment failed 10-23.
Debating the amended bill, one of the GOP opponents, Amy Grady, R,-Mason, asked Rucker if the bill included a local referendum to get voter support for a proposed charter. Rucker said the bill requires a public hearing, but a referendum is something she’d be happy to discuss in the future.
Romano again voiced concerns that the charters – brick-and-mortar and virtual – will draw off about $7,400 per student form the traditional schools, forcing them to cut teachers and staff, and the bill provides no mechanism to backfill the diminished budgets.
Virtual charters, he said, have no physical needs and a much higher student-teacher ratio. He cited the example of a Florida program that has one instructor per 274 students. “Why are we taking these risks with so many unknowns?”
For-profit companies will be running the charters, he said, possibly costing the state millions through mismanagement and misconduct. If we want innovation, “why don’t we take the handcuffs off of our public schools?”
Rucker argued that a charter school is just another public school. “And it’s still educating our students.”
She speculated that charter schools could draw back disenchanted students who’ve left the system, and perhaps increase overall state school enrollment and boost the money to be sent to the traditional schools.
Sen. Bill Ihlenfeld, D-Ohio, worried the charters won’t serve economically disadvantaged areas where schools are underachieving.
And Sen. Richard Lindsay, D-Kanawha said the Professional Charter School Board, which will have the power to authorize charters, would be able to override local county objections to a charter and start one nonetheless.
Rucker said 46 other states have authorized charter schools and the traditional schools haven’t suffered. And while virtual schools don’t have buildings, testimony in committee revealed that about 80% of a virtual school’s costs is personnel. Technology also costs money.
She concluded that there is accountability, in the form of a mandatory audit two years after a charter school launches.
All local senators voted with their party. Along with Grady, Republicans Bill Hamilton, Upshur, and Ryan Weld, Brooke, voted no. On Friday, Republican David Stover, Wyoming, voted against the Sypolt amendment, but was he absent on Monday.
When the bill reaches the House, delegates can either concur with the Senate amendments and approve the bill, disagree and further amend it, or disagree and send it to the negotiating table for some kind of compromise.
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