Today, D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen will declare his intention to introduce a bill that among other things will force charter schools to comply with open meeting and Freedom of Information Act regulations. He will announce his legislation, the Public School Transparency Amendment Act of 2019, on the steps of the Wilson Building at 10:30 a.m., and will be joined by none other than Christian Herr, the Cesar Chavez Prep PCS science teacher who was behind the disastrous move to unionize the Bruce Building campus. Checking the Chavez calendar demonstrates that school is in session on this Wednesday. In fact, this week is Prep’s spirit celebration. I guess Mr. Herr is playing hooky.

The proposed law contains other requirements intentionally included to divert charter school attention from their mission of providing a world-class education to children, most of whom are living in poverty and are at risk of not making it alive to their eighteenth year.

Here a few disgusting nuggets:

• Charter school boards must include two teachers and, in high schools and adult learning schools, must add a student;
• Charter schools must include a list of all contracts in their annual reports;
• The DC Public Charter School Board must make public all contracts initiated by its schools that are over $25,000 and therefore subject to a request for proposal, to include the vendor selected, and the reason behind the choice. It also removes an exemption for schools, requiring them to issue an RFP for contracting with management organizations. This provision is implicitly directed at the union’s declared enemy TenSquare Consulting but the unintended consequence of this rule will be to strongly discourage high performing CMO’s to come to our city;
• Annual reports of charter schools must include the amount of money donated to a charter school by name when the contribution is over $500. Currently, those giving over $500 must be listed by name but not the specific number of dollars gifted; and
• Charter schools must list the names of all employees and their salaries, also in the annual report.

A highly interesting bit of information about the draft directives is that they are a complete surprise to chairman Phil Mendelson and education committee chairman David Grosso.

Mr. Allen seems to know that he is doing something unseemly. In his press release about today’s event he writes, “Still, recognizing that charter schools are structured and run differently than traditional schools, the bill includes measures to evaluate any administrative challenges so the Council and the Mayor can adjust in future years.”

The evaluation he is referring to is just another unfunded mandate on charters. The initial year this statute is in effect, schools would need to report to the Council the number of FOIA requests they have received and the expenses related to complying with them.

The one glaring advantage charters have in this situation is that the D.C. Council has no authority over them in regards to the specifics of Mr. Allen’s rules. So now this representative has drawn a red line in the sand over the self-determination granted to charters as part of the 1995 School Reform Act.

Who will be brave enough to defend charter school autonomy once and for all. FOCUS? The DCPCSB? Education Forward DC? CityBridge Education? Charter Board Partners? PAVE? Democrats for Education Reform?

Those of us who believe in educational freedom will be watching.