Mayor eyes charter school 'feeder system' as state prepares to accept applications

A feeder system of seven or eight charter schools occupying former Montgomery Public Schools buildings and ranging from elementary school to high school.

That's the vision of Mayor Todd Strange, one he hopes will come closer to fruition as the state begins accepting Montgomery charter schools applications on Jan. 16.

The feeder system application is being submitted by the non-profit Education Foundation, which has hired an outside group to draft the application. The Education Foundation is independent of the city, but in a wide-ranging, end-of-the-year interview with the Montgomery Advertiser before Christmas, Strange spoke as though the city is directly involved in the formation of the feeder system and listed it as one of his top goals for 2018.

Interim State Superintendent of Education Ed Richardson, a charter school advocate and former chairman of the Alabama Public Charter School Commission, announced in December that the state would begin accepting charter school applications to provide more financial and academic accountability in Montgomery County, issues that also caused the state to intervene in MPS operations last January.

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“We’ve been the ones in contact with Ed relative to the charter application,” Strange said. “He knows we are putting in a charter application through the Education Foundation to do what I call a feeder system charter. In other words, not to start a high school or a grammar school but to put in a feeder system. Let’s take a high school, a couple middle schools and two or three elementary schools that feed in and let’s make that the charter.”

Education Foundation Director Ann Sikes confirmed her organization's concept and plan to submit an application within the three-month window.

“We are working on a larger concept,” Sikes said. “We’re working to help attract good quality charter leaders that want to work in the context of intervention.”

Strange said Auburn University Montgomery, Faulkner University and Troy University have expressed interest in either actively leading or supporting charter schools. Strange also said another local group headed by a Montgomery doctor is mulling submitting a charter school application, but attempts to contact that person for confirmation were unsuccessful.

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If approved and implemented, the feeder system would be a part of MPS, but Logan Searcy of the state's Office of Public Charter Schools said the "huge difference" would be the charter school having a governing body outside the Montgomery County Board of Education. That board will set academic and financial mandates and change school leadership if those are not met.

"That board will have autonomy. And the money will still flow through MPS," Searcy said.

Charter schools have received criticism in larger cities such as Detroit and New Orleans after schools were caught cutting corners to reach those benchmarks. There have also been reports of charter schools removing low-performing students to maintain a higher grade average, but Alabama's school choice law says a charter school must accept any student it has capacity for and any schools at capacity must select students via random lottery.

Sikes emphasized that charter schools in Montgomery are "a tool" and not the answer for a system that is losing students, losing funding and had 80 percent of its schools not meet the minimum state achievement threshold last year, according to Richardson.

Sikes said charter schools can be incubators for new ideas that can eventually help the entire district.

"It drives home two things: autonomy and accountability," Sikes said. "Autonomy to have that flexibility to work on different types of ways of teaching our children. Not something bizarre but something like extending school year round or having different groupings by grade. But with that autonomy also comes accountability. Within the charter schools mandate, there are tangible targets to be made that, if they’re not made, the school is not allowed to continue under that same leadership.

"We need our community to realize so much of our failing is not about our kids. They can learn and succeed."

MPS is currently working with Richardson to finalize its 2018 budget. That budget does not include closing or selling schools, but the 2019 budget might as MPS continues to lose state funding due to declining enrollment.

Strange said the charter school plan would involve converting old schools for charter use. When asked if the charter plan involves the city or Education Foundation purchasing closed schools from MPS, Strange said, "That's just a negotiation," and that it's yet to be determined.