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enact a four-part system to hold schools accountable.
• Set improved academic standards.
• Create a new way of assessing each school’s program in achieving these standards.
• Develop a type of “report card” for individual schools to show their progress and
• School accreditation will be granted only if the school is meeting these standards. Schools receiving accreditation will have more flexibility in obtaining and using state funding, whereas loss of accreditation will mean that strings will be attached to state funding.
The commission’s interim report includes a few recommendations that Del. Katzen feels could raise questions and perhaps concerns. For example, one recommendation in the report is to allow the creation of charter schools.
Charter schools are public schools that agree to a results-based contract called a charter, in return for operating under a semiautonomous status.
Because charter schools would be public, they would be non-sectarian, tuition-free, and would have to meet all of the federal laws pertaining to public schools. They would receive the same percentage of state and local per pupil funding as would traditional public schools.
What is different about a charter school is that, as long as it yields the results specified in its charter, it can waive all state and local regulations except those dealing with health, safety, civil rights, and state Standards of Quality and Standards of Learning. For example teachers would not have to be certified.
Any individual or group would be able to
, See Report, Page A-6
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