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Six of the candidates for Arizona superintendent of public instruction want more financial oversight for state’s public charter schools.
Six of the candidates running for state superintendent of public instruction believe Arizona’s public charter schools need more financial oversight.
The six candidates — Republicans Diane Douglas, Jonathan Gelbart, Frank Riggs and Tracy Livingston; and Democrats David Schapira and Kathy Hoffman — sat down with The Arizona Republic’s editorial board Thursday to discuss their campaigns.
While both district and charter schools receive public funds, they are subject to very different regulations on how they can spend those funds. For example, charters are not subject to the auditor general’ s annual classroom spending audit as districts are. Charter schools also do not have to follow the state’s procurement laws.
Some charter advocates say the lack of regulation is important for innovation and helps improve student achievement. Others say it has opened the doors to misspending.
An Arizona Republic analysis of state audits found that dozens of charter schools are at risk of closing within a year because of poor finances. And a Republic investigation chronicled how the founder of American Leadership Academy, one of the state’s largest charter networks, made millions of dollars in profit in part through the state’s lax charter laws.
Candidates were asked whether any changes should be made to the state’s regulation of charter schools. All six present called for more financial transparency of charters.
The other Republican candidate, Bob Branch, chose not to attend the editorial board meeting. He declined to answer the question when a reporter contacted him later.
Here is how the candidates responded, in alphabetical order:
Diane Douglas, incumbent and Republican:
Douglas, who is seeking re-election after winning office in 2014, said the state needs “to make sure that the accountability for charter schools is equal of that with districts.”
“The reporting that they (charter schools) have to do with the Department (of Education) is not anywhere near what we mandate of our traditional district schools, and yet they’re still all using the same public money,” Douglas told The Republic’s editorial board.
Douglas said Arizona has a “very charter-friendly” environment, and acknowledged any reforms would have to go through the state Legislature.
“As much as I support parents’ rights to make the educational decisions for their children, we do need to make sure that we’re always protecting taxpayer money,” Douglas said. Jonathan Gelbart, Republican: Referencing the newspaper’s story on American Leadership Academy, Gelbart, a former director of charterschool development for BASIS Charter Schools, said “self-dealing on real estate” is “probably the No. 1 charterschool financing transparency issue.”
“It’s not only ALA. Some of the other groups are doing that, and I think it’s a huge problem,” Gelbart said.
Gelbart added: “I absolutely believe that charter schools need to have an arm’s-length relationship between the management organization and the board of the charter holder to prevent that kind of self-dealing and conflict of interest.”
Kathy Hoffman, Democrat: Hoffman, an educator in the Peoria Unified School District, said, “Our charter schools should be as transparent as our public district schools.”
She said if elected, she will work with federal officials to ensure charter schools are properly serving students with special needs and minority students.
“Our students’ civil rights are being violated in charter schools,” she said. Tracy Livingston, Republican: Livingston, a former teacher and Maricopa Community Colleges board member, said charter schools “need to be fully transparent” about their finances.
“They take public money,” Livingston said of Arizona’s charter schools. “They should be accountable, and they should be able to tell us where every dime is going and what every student is doing, and how they’re testing. They should be able to pretty much mimic what the public schools have to do.”
Part of Livingston’s campaign platform involves boosting financial trans-
parency among district and charter schools.
“I support the charter system. I support school choice,” Livingston said. “But there’s that uneven level playing field, which is why we still have the fight between the public (districts) and the public charters, and we need to make that a little bit more inclusive.”
Frank Riggs, Republican:
Riggs, a former California U.S. congressman and 2014 Arizona gubernatorial candidate, sponsored the federal Charter School Expansion Act of 1998 that created a competitive grants program to help charters expand across the nation.
“I never envisioned in doing that legislation that there would be those that would figure out how to profiteer from charter schools,” Riggs told The
Republic’s editorial board.
Riggs said the state charter board “needs to intervene early with charter schools when their red flags are raised.”
He said he would push for regulation which would mandate that “every charter school in the state has to have a governing board consisting of a majority of independent directors, not family and friends,” and be properly trained.
Riggs added: “I’ve said for many months and spoken to many people, like Eileen Sigmund, CEO of Arizona Charter Schools Association, and others, (and said), ‘Look folks, you need to get your act together. You need to call out the bad actors.’”
David Schapira, Democrat: Schapira, a former teacher, highschool administrator and state lawmaker, currently serves on the Tempe City Council.
“The charter board and Department of Education can and should be ensuring that our taxpayer dollars that go to these private entities are spent appropriately,” he said.
That charter schools should follow state procurement laws “is something that every fiscal conservative in the state should be marching at the Capitol about,” Schapira said.
“They all need to follow state procurement rules. We need accountability for taxpayer dollars spent in any publicly funded schools.”
He said if elected, he will collect the data “to at least make sure the public is aware of the schools that are misallocating, misspending public taxpayer dollars.”