Oklahoman: Rural Public Charter Schools Bill ‘Increases Opportunity’
Oklahoma rural charter bill increases opportunity
by The Oklahoman Editorial Board
OKLAHOMA has some nationally ranked charter schools, but has also maintained severe restrictions on charter school expansion. Indeed Oklahoma “was one of the few remaining states that restricted the growth of charter schools just to, basically, urban areas,” Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president for state advocacy and support for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, recently noted to The Oklahoman’s editorial writers.
Nationally, Ziebarth said, roughly 55 percent of charter schools exist in urban areas, while 45 percent are in “suburban areas, rural areas and small towns.” Oklahoma was an outlier. But thanks to a new law, students living outside the urban core may now have greater public school choice.
Senate Bill 782, by Sen. Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, and Rep. Lee Denney, R-Cushing, expands the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act to allow these schools outside of Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. The new law provides an appeals process to the state education board for charter applications initially denied by a local district. Ziebarth also touts the law’s “strong accountability provisions,” which apply not only to charter schools, but to the entities that authorize charter schools.