Nina Rees, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, released the following statement:
“Recently, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed House Bill (HB) 2905, authored by Representative Sheila Dills, into law. The bill addresses some of the problems with full-time virtual charter school education in the state.
Oklahoma’s current charter school law is vague in several areas and results in taxpayers sending significant sums of money to schools to provide funding for students who are no longer attending them. HB 2905 addresses some of these ambiguities through new requirements to verify enrollment, eliminate multiple same-year student transfers, and track student online participation. These provisions are strong improvements to the law.
The National Alliance applauds Representative Dills for working to strengthen the quality of education options for Oklahoma parents. Going forward, we urge the Oklahoma Legislature and Governor Stitt to fund full-time virtual charter schools based upon student participation. This is the most critical step for reforming full-time virtual charter schools, ensuring that students receive a high-quality education at them, and protecting taxpayer dollars.”
About Public Charter Schools
Public charter schools are independent, public, and tuition-free schools that are given the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for advancing student achievement. Since 2010, many research studies have found that students in charter schools do better in school than their traditional school peers. For example, one study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that charter schools do a better job teaching low income students, minority students, and students who are still learning English than traditional schools. Separate studies by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Mathematica Policy Research have found that charter school students are more likely to graduate from high school, go on to college, stay in college and have higher earnings in early adulthood.
About the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is the leading national nonprofit organization committed to advancing the public charter school movement. Our mission is to lead public education to unprecedented levels of academic achievement by fostering a strong charter sector. For more information, please visit www.publiccharters.org
The American Consortium for Equity in Education, publisher of the "Equity & Access" journal, celebrates and connects the educators, associations, community partners and industry leaders who are working to solve problems and create a more equitable environment for historically underserved pre K-12 students throughout the United States.
