Utah ranks 12th for its charter school law

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is out with its report on how each state governs its charter schools in law.  Utah did not make significant changes, according to the report, last year so our score didn't change, but we dropped two places from number 10 because of progress made by other states.  The most notable of those was Maine, which went from not ranked at all (they didn't have a charter school law a year ago) to having the top law in the country.

If Utah had passed the equitable charter funding concept last year that UAPCS has pushed for many years, we would have stayed in tenth place.  As it is, we get only middling marks or funding equity and access o all streams of state and federal funding.

Here's the report's abstract on Utah:

Utah did not pass any legislation in 2011 impacting its score and ranking. Its score stayed at 121 points. However, its ranking dropped from #10 to #12 because it was surpassed by states that made substantial changes to their charter laws. Potential areas for improvement include removing restrictions on charter school growth, ensuring authorizing accountability, beefing up its requirements for performance-based charter contracts, enacting statutory guidelines for relationships between charter schools and educational service providers, and providing more operational autonomy to charter schools.

UAPCS is sponsoring several bills this year that can help the school move up in its ranking by getting closer to the NAPCS model of charter governance.  One bill would beef up and provide alternative licensure options for teachers.  The much-discussed "moral obligation" for charter school bonding would also increase access to funding for charter facilities as recommended by the model. And, obviously, there will be another attempt at funding parity and backpack funding models that allow all taxpayer funding to follow a student to the public school of his choice.

The State Charter Board might suggest some of its own changes under the headline, "I told you so."  Some of their attempts to strengthen "accountability" are suggested by the NAPCS model, including "a regular review process" for charters by their authorizer and "a performance framework."