Additional evidence for stronger charter school oversight

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

When it comes to Minnesota charter school programs, more should be done to oversee the overseers. Excessive leniency on the part of groups charged with evaluating and authorizing the schools allows some of them to remain open long after failing to live up to criteria for operating.

Last September, the Minnesota Star Tribune published a three-part series detailing oversight problems including financial and academic failures among many of Minnesota’s charter schools. As of this month, nine of the 181 charters schools operating at the beginning of 2024 have closed, the most since the first charter school went out of business in 1996.

A more recent Star Tribune news story documented additional reasons why oversight of charters needs attention. An example of the latest problem: For five years after SciTech Academy opened in Richfield, the charter school experienced multiple failures — including low test scores and financial problems.

According to a 2023 contract review by the school’s nonprofit regulator, the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools, the school could have been closed based on nearly three dozen contract violations — or given no more than a one-year extension. Instead, according to a subsequent analysis by the Minnesota Department of Education, the guild gave SciTech a three-year contract, typically reserved for schools that meet most of their goals.

That type of leniency is common in Minnesota, where state leaders largely leave the regulation of charters to 10 nonprofits, called authorizers. Their performance record suggests the need for further evaluation by the state, which could result in stronger rules of operation for both the authorizers and the schools.

The most recent news reports showed that some authorizers overlooked academic issues and that each authorizer created its own criteria for evaluating schools, making it difficult to make comparisons. Sometimes the authorizers set the bar too low so as to allow months or years of poor performance. About 75% of the contracts were renewed despite reviews showing charter schools did not meet agreed on academic goals.

Another finding: In Minnesota and 13 other states, authorizers are paid fees for each charter school they oversee, which may create an “inappropriate incentive” or conflict of interest to renew contracts for “low-quality charter schools,” according to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.

In response, local nonprofit leaders say their decisions to extend contracts has nothing to do with the fees they receive and that they take deliberate steps to avoid any potential conflicts.