Thursday, June 02, 2011

10 Reasons the Board of Regents Should Not Approve the Achievement First Mayoral Academies' Application

OK, here's the pdf: 10 Reasons the Board of Regents Should Not Approve the Achievement First Mayoral Academies' Application:

1) The application is incomplete according to RI law and regulation.

The BOARD OF REGENTS’ REGULATIONS GOVERNING RHODE ISLAND PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOLS states "In the case of a proposed Mayoral Academy, the proposed Charter submitted to the Commissioner shall include all the material required by R.I.G.L. 16-77.4-2."

R.I.G.L. 16-77.4-2 (17) states "Provide a copy of the proposed bylaws of the mayoral academy."

Rhode Island Mayoral Academies (RIMA) have not provided a copy of the proposed bylaws of the mayoral academy. They have, instead, provided the bylaws of another charter school which has substantially different governance requirements than a Rhode Island mayoral academy.

This application is incomplete according to Rhode Island law and regulation. It should never have been moved to public comment. If Commissioner Gist recommends the approval of a preliminary charter based on this incomplete application she will be contradicting her role as the chief law enforcement officer for public education in Rhode Island.

There are nine more. I read #1 to Deb Gist and the Board of Regents at their meeting this afternoon in East Greenwich. I also went to the second meeting in Cranston on Tuesday and spent three minutes pretty much mocking Mayors Fung and Taveras.

The main takeaway from Tuesday is that 90% of Cranston will probably hate their mayoral academy forever until they kill it. The main takeaway from today it that the Board of Regents isn't used to that many public comments. I think they'd better get used to it.

Actually, the thing that sticks with me today is the comment by the guy from DfER, who used the occasion to point out the threat of loss of RttT money if they don't expand charters immediately. More comically, he talked about how they'd worked hard to pass a more charter-friendly law. I truly don't understand why they think this mayoral academy law is charter-friendly. Virtually every problem they're having with this application is directly attributable to the mayoral academy law. It has to be driving Achievement First up the wall.

Oh, and consider the pdf licensed CC BY 2.0, so feel free to reuse and remix with attribution.

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