Opinion: Local charter schools need free market influence

If state law encouraged competition between charter and traditional schools, might lower-income families have a better array of options? Lee E. Ohanian of the Independent Institute discusses California AB 1505 (passed in 2019), under which new charters can be denied application if they’re deemed too corrival with existing schools — and emphasizes that a market-driven educational system would more effectively serve diverse students.

The Kairos charter school [a high-performing, limited-bureaucracy K–12 school in Vacaville, CA] recipe for success can be replicated. But a recent California law has made it difficult to form new charter schools. California Assembly Bill 1505, which passed in 2019 despite strong opposition from the Senate Republican Caucus, changed the approval process for new charter schools. Under AB 1505, an application for a new charter school can be denied if the charter would have a negative fiscal impact within the district. Traditional schools do not want to face the competition created by a charter school, since students who matriculate to a charter school take much of the associated per-pupil funding with them.

Under the new law, a charter school application could be denied if it would substantially undermine existing services or academic or programmatic offerings provided by incumbent schools. A new charter school could also be denied if the existing school was performing so poorly that it was in either state receivership or if the introduction of the charter school would draw enough resources away from the existing school that it could not meet its financial obligations.

Yes, the new law is written to keep students trapped inside the worst-performing schools. The truly awful aspect of this new law is that the worst-performing schools tend to be in low-income neighborhoods, where parents cannot afford private schools or other educational alternatives. If this law were about any other good or service provided today, it would represent a blatant violation of our antitrust laws. Somehow we continue to tolerate a horribly performing monopoly, one that substantially damages our children and our future.

This article originally appeared in the Independent Institute. Read the whole thing here.

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