Minnesota was the first state to use charter schools as a way of bringing innovation to public education. While nine states have no legal provisions for charter schools, Minnesota has the strongest charter laws in the nation, according to the Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter group based in Washington, D.C.

And if legislators act carefully, Minnesota could have an even better policy environment for charter schools at the end of the session.

Charter public schools not only have their own governing boards, but they also have sponsoring organizations (sometimes called authorizers) that are responsible for ensuring they meet the academic, fiscal and governance terms of their charter. Minnesota leads the nation in charter schools, in part, because it allows multiple types of organizations (colleges, nonprofits, the department of education, etc.) to serve as sponsors. In some states, by contrast, charter schools must be legally and financially part of school districts. By embedding charters within districts, those states weaken the power of charter schools to serve as laboratories of innovation.

A key question about charter schools is “Who oversees the overseers?” And what happens when some sponsors are not up to the job?

Several charter school-related bills have been introduced this session, including H.F. 935 (sponsored by Rep. Linda Slocum, DFL-Richfield) and S.F. 867 (sponsored by Sen. Kathy Saltzman, DFL-Woodbury). Those two bills aim to rework laws governing charter schools, and especially chartering authorities.

(Much of the Saltzman bill was rolled into the Senate omnibus bill that the Senate passed on Tuesday. The House K-12 Education Finance Committee on March 10 heard Slocum’s charter school legislation. The committee laid over an amended form of the bill for possible inclusion in the House education omnibus bill, which will be unveiled on Monday after the Easter recess as a delete-all amendment. Committee members plan to review the omnibus bill on Tuesday, and are expected to mark up the bill at a hearing on Wednesday.)

Though any law can have unforeseen consequences, some parts of these bills have reasonable and commonsense provisions that should, as some charter public school fans have told me, strengthen public confidence in these schools. Clarifying and strengthening conflict-of-interest regulations is one example. Requiring charter school boards to create a development plan for administrators is another.

Saltzman’s bill also allows for the creation of two organizations specifically designed to oversee charter schools. While many of the nonprofits that oversee charter schools have done a good job, there’s something to be said about having new organizations that work only on charter schools – Minnesota could benefit from having some.

These are a few of the good measures contained in the current form of the legislation. But other ideas (some of which were removed from earlier versions of the bills) threaten the vitality of charter schools.

For example, an early version of S.F. 867 imposed a numeric cap on charter schools. Even if some schools need better governance, a moratorium on new schools is a poor response, and a blunt instrument that shuts off new schools. Even a temporary cap sets a dangerous precedent. Fortunately, it has since been removed from the legislation.

Another regulation, still in play, would prohibit for three years the establishment or relocation of a charter school within one mile of a district school that had been closed. Saltzman tells me that the limit is a “placeholder,” a way to recognize a problem: A school district may have too much classroom space. It closes a school, bringing enrollment and capacity into balance, but upsetting parents. A charter school opens nearby, and students leave for the new charter in droves – and the lesser number of students in a school district classroom leaves the district once again with too much empty space. Though the latest version of the bill allows the education commissioner to waive the requirement, its presence in the legislation privileges school administrators at the expense of students. Eugene Piccolo, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Charter Schools, tells me this one-mile, three-year provision is his organization’s primary concern with the bill.

Another risky proposition, discussed early on, was to require charter school leaders to have the same kind of licenses that school district leaders have. The Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals, for example, has favored the idea. Fortunately, this provision is not in the current Senate legislation.

The thing is, many charter school leaders are effective despite – you might even say because of – their training and experience outside the usual career path for school administrators. One example is Paul Vallas, who was head of the Chicago Public Schools from 1995-2001 (he’s now head of the Recovery School District in New Orleans). Vallas had spent most of his career in finance, and was budget director for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. But when Daley appointed Vallas head of the school system, Vallas became instrumental in starting reforms in the schools there. To me, that shows you don’t need traditional certifications to make a positive impact on schools.

The current Senate bill does not require a charter school administer be certified in the same way that a school district administrator is. But it does say that charter school boards have to lay out a professional development plan for their school leaders. While that’s a step towards layering schools with red tape, it could be worse. Saltzman tells me the intent is not to require, beyond broad categories, the content of a development plan, but to make sure that schools have one.

Can charter schools be better governed? Certainly. Any type of organization can be. But as school districts demonstrate from time to time, a sheaf of regulations and laws cannot eliminate malpractice or malfeasance. Vigilant parents, who value the fact that charter schools offer their children different curricula or environments, are important watchdogs as well.

As they work through the education bills, Minnesota legislators need to tread lightly. When it comes to charter public schools, it’s the aspects that make them distinctive that make all the difference.

As Pat Anderson noted in her commentary in a recent weekly update , a top-down approach by the state to require that school districts share services has a number of problems.

While a mandate from Saint Paul may not be desirable, that doesn’t negate the fact that shared purchases of supplies and services can be a winner for taxpayers.

Four scholars with the Reason Foundation, a California-based think tank that focuses on making governments more efficient, explain why and how school districts can save money and improve their effectiveness by cooperating.

School districts might be able to share a large number of non-instructional services. Here’s a partial list: administrative computing and information technology systems; payroll and auditing; legal services; grant management; and staff training and development.

A district that shares services with other units of government (or even, in some cases, a private company) can get many benefits. Instead of having one person on staff who tries to wear three hats, a district can draw on an outside organization that has a full-time specialist.

President-elect Barack Obama has finished putting together his cabinet, which includes a new secretary of education, Arne Duncan. This appointment will likely mean some modest changes that could bear fruit down the road—and certainly more federal spending on what has traditionally been a matter for state and local governments.

Mr. Duncan is currently the superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools. With roughly 410,000 students, it is the third-largest district in the country. By comparison, you’d have to combine the enrollment in the 30-largest districts in Minnesota to approach that number.

What does the new secretary think about some of the key issues in education?

The biggest issue facing federal lawmakers is No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Duncan has taken all sides of the issue. He supports the concept of the law, which appeals to the law’s backers. But he also favors giving states more flexibility in how they comply with it, which appeals to school district managers as some political conservatives. He also favors doubling the money (currently $28 billion) that the federal government spends on the law. That appeals to teacher unions.

NCLB requires schools to make progress towards universal proficiency by 2014, but states have the power to create their own proficiency standards. Some have dumbed-down the standards, which has helped more schools comply with the law. Duncan advocates a national standard, but that would take the federal government further into the education business, which is not a wise idea.

To his credit, Duncan has been a reformer in teacher pay and recruitment. Some Chicago schools participate in a pilot program to give teachers bonuses tied to student performance. That’s the good news. He also has, however, pushed Chicago teachers to get certificated by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Teachers who go through that program get a pay increase, but whether it actually increases their effectiveness is an open question.

Duncan has also been a fan of Teach for America, a national program that places liberal arts graduates in urban schools. Over 300 of its graduates, whose training is a refreshing alternative to the often stultifying schools of education, have taught in Chicago Public Schools.

Duncan has also managed to close some failing schools, sometimes reopening them as magnet or charter schools. He is also a fan of charter schools generally,  which is another bright spot in his resume.

Duncan favors two other reforms that could pay dividends down the road. The first is to create smaller schools, which have been shown to boost student achievement.

The second reform is “weighted student funding,” a method of budgeting that cuts out some school district overhead by giving more responsibility to school principals.

Duncan seems to be a person who tries to appeal to each party by giving them something they want. That’s an expensive approach to making headway in education reform, but if we’re lucky, he may, in a Democratic administration, be able to pull of something along the lines of a “Nixon to China” experience.

Still, his influence, for good or ill, will be limited by the permanent bureaucracy in the department, the Congress, his boss, and the various other players in education.

No Child Left Behind has changed the shape of schools. Now there’s a move afoot reinvent childhood itself through universal preschool.

I’m worried about this trend.

Several states, including Georgia and Oklahoma, have “universal” preschool programs, and advocates across the country are calling for it as well—including some Republicans. Democratic presidential hopeful, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, has said that, if elected, he’d propose a $10 billion universal preschool program.

Advocates of universal preschool say that it can close the achievement gap between races and income levels. Another argument is that spending money on preschool now can save money down the road—$4, 7, or $14 for each dollar spent, depending on whom you listen to—through reduced rates of high school drop-outs, welfare use, or incarceration.

But the case for universal preschool is oversold—the glowing numbers won’t hold up.

In the fall 2008 edition of Education Next, Craig Ramey, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., says that the evidence these programs benefit some children is “quite strong.” But he also says that the benefits of preschool exist “particularly for children from low-resource families.”

Who are these families? They are ones who have “limited parental education, very low family incomes, and/or parents unable to consistently provide high-quality learning opportunities” for preschool children. Ramey’s emphasis on the neediest families is echoed by other experts, such as Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution.

They’re simply being smart with the public’s money, for it’s unlikely that the lofty numbers of a few programs can be maintained. Ramey says that’s “because many of the children being served [in today’s expanded programs] have relatively low levels of risk for school failure.”

Compare today’s programs with the Perry Preschool Program, for example. All the children in that program were developmentally or cognitively delayed—certainly not representative of children as a whole. Meanwhile, Head Start, the single-largest preschool program, has been a disappointment.
On the other hand, the advocacy group Pre-K Now favors pre-K programs “for all children.” Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois is one politician who has led the push for a “preschool for all” program that includes three and four-year old children—even those of parents who could pay their own way.
Calling for universal rather than targeted preschool programs is a smart political tactic. That’s because public programs that are tailored to the poor don’t have the same political power. Over time, they don’t expand as rapidly as middle-class entitlements do.
Universal programs disappoint, though, since preschool is subject to the “fade-out” effect. That is, many programs have produced benefits that are observed one or two years but disappear in time. The research on the question of the permanence of gains is mixed. Some research says that preschool gives children cognitive gains, but causes them to regress socially.

The ultimate “fade out,” though comes in the K-12 system itself. Student performance generally declines as a class moves from elementary to middle to high school, suggesting that academic problems lie not in the early years of a child’s school career, but later on.

A universal preschool program is financially foolish and regressive. It consumes funds that could be used to reward teachers who achieve great results with students in the most challenging neighborhoods, and spends it on programs for middle-class. That’s the first way that it’s regressive. The second way is that it depends in part on taxes from the very poor. Though they may not pay much if anything in income taxes, they do pay sales and other taxes.

A universal program could strangle existing preschool and daycare providers. Today, families find a variety of options in daycare and preschool, including family care and centered-based care. A universal system could drive a number of those options out of business, by imposing an expensive regulatory scheme and favoring some providers over others.

But the most serious problem with universal preschool is that it is based in a flawed moral vision that does not respect the boundary between family and politics.

In a healthy society, a number of different institutions address the many different needs that we have as individuals, families and communities. Commercial businesses determine what’s appropriate behavior on the job, but we don’t expect them to set the rules for all of life. Religious institutions help us think about life’s ultimate meaning, but they don’t set interest rates.

Government has its place, too. But setting it up as a major player in determining what a successful childhood is like—something envisioned by the preschool advocates who call on government to organize stakeholders and then fund preschool enrollments—puts today’s public officials in the place of Plato’s philosopher-king, molding the next generation. Anyone who values freedom of conscience and religion, not to mention a civil society distinct from the political world, should be horrified.

In some limited circumstances, we might be served by limited, targeted, voluntary preschool programs. But a universal program is a classic case of the perils of good intentions.