Charter School Battle Heats Up in Wyoming

by Wyoming Liberty Staff

Wyoming is no stranger to the ugliness of the school choice battle. When it comes to the state monopoly over education, parents are almost always the losers. Currently, local school districts are the only body with the authority under the law to approve an independent public charter school. These elected school boards have been resistant to almost every attempt by parents and teachers to start charter schools in the cowboy state. . After all, why would they want to create competition for themselves?

Case in point just happened in Wyoming where a group of teachers from Natrona County and numerous families in the Casper area were attempting to get approval for their charter school, The Guild Charter School. The school would serve K-8 students and had strong support around the community.

Last night parents and teachers in Casper were informed by the local school board of its unanimous decision to reject their application to become a charter school, with board members stating (among other things) that the school did not offer anything new in the way of expanding "learning opportunities and teaching methods" that the district (supposedly) didn't already offer.

The proposed charter school had over 150 children in Natrona County hoping to attend, a fact apparently missed by the Natrona County School District, who chose last night to defend their turf instead of serve the families in their community. These parents seem to think their children need expanded "learning opportunities and teaching methods" whether the local school board does or not.

This kind of jealously entrenched education bureaucracy is nothing new to Wyoming when it comes to local school boards and charter applicants who fall under their chopping block.

But why reject these schools when so many parents across the state and country want them? Waiting lists serve as an excellent reminder to school boards that they are not supplying every possible "learning opportunity and teaching method" that families want and so families are continually looking to charter schools and other educational alternatives to fill the gap.

Over the past several years waiting lists for students hoping to attend a public charter school have grown as supply struggles to keep up with demand across the country, due in large part to the rising success of charter schools nationwide and the growing frustration with traditional public school failures.

Here in Wyoming, Laramie County's top performing public school, Poder Academy, is a public charter school that continually maintains a waiting list of parents hoping to get their children into this impressive school.

In Colorado, the top three highest performing high schools are charters schools, including Liberty Commons School in Fort Collins, Colorado, which came in as number one. Parents to our south are also flocking to these high performing schools for a variety of reasons including a desire for a particular curriculum or more freedom and creativity in the classroom, something that is being squelched due in large part to the growing trend in local school districts to bring about oppressive district-wide uniformity.

My own family was affected by a charter school waiting list over a year ago. My niece, who is now in 2^nd grade, was placed on the Liberty Commons Elementary Charter School list when she was a kindergartener. Her parents were deeply disappointed when she did not get into the highly sought after public charter school.

Last year, a vacancy came up in a classroom at Liberty Commons, and my niece won the lottery draw to fill that empty seat. It was a momentous day for our entire family when we all learned that she would be able to attend this incredible school. Her parents were overjoyed at the opportunity and also amazed that something as arbitrary as a random lottery drawing would allow their child to attend a school they pay taxes to support. We all felt sad for the long list of children who did not win that lottery draw.

In Louisiana where the entire New Orleans school district was converted to charter schools after Hurricane Katrina and where the state currently has over 130 charter schools statewide, a 2013 Stanford University report shows that these charter schools provided their students with the equivalent of 50 to 65 days more of learning than their public school counterparts.

Around 65% of all charter schools in the country maintain waiting lists, hoping to serve an ever-growing group of parents in their communities who wish to place their children in these successful alternative schools.

A recent state Supreme Court decision in Washington serves as yet another example of the fights that occur over school choice. A lawsuit was filed on behalf of the League of Women Voter's, Washington teacher's union, El Centro de la Raza and the Washington Association of School Administrators alleging that charter schools were unconstitutional because they received public funds without public representation, a rather circular argument given the charter school law came into being in the state by a vote of the people in 2012.

The decision rendered by the court agreed with the state's teachers unions and has for all intents and purposes rendered operating a charter school practically illegal.

The success of charter schools and the long waiting lists contrasts sharply against the motives of those who use all the power they have to close them down, like the Natrona County School Board. This gives you the perfect picture of what is really happening between those who fight for parental rights and school choice as a way to allow for freedom in education and those education bureaucrats who say they are doing what is "best for the children" but who really wish to maintain their monopoly over the delivery of education and the use of all taxpayer funded education dollars in America.

Despite the ever-increasing waiting lists across the country and clear evidence of parent's desire (like those in Casper) for more of these schools, Wyoming lawmakers have been glacial in their movement towards enacting much needed changes to the charter school laws.

Wyoming needs a charter school law that allows other entities besides our local school boards to have the authority to open schools. As long as school boards like the one in Natrona County, who see charters as a direct competitor to their money and prestige in the education business are allowed to say no, Wyoming will continue to see very few, if any, charter schools opening.

Legal decisions like the one in Washington also continue to punctuate why government involvement in education leaves parents and students in deeply vulnerable positions and why it has produced nothing but decades of failure.

There is a kind of lunacy in this fight that just can't be missed. It is utterly insane that the very people who pay for education – taxpayers – are also the ones who must beg to be given a choice on how and where their child is educated. And they generally lose the battle to get that choice, like the voters in Washington and the parents and teachers in Casper, Wyoming.