In an unprecedented move, the state on Thursday ordered a suburban school district to open a charter school that it had long resisted, sending tremors through districts across Illinois that now fear losing control of their finances and classrooms.
The State Board of Education voted 7-1 to force Arlington Heights-based District 59 to bow to a local parents group and pay as much as $3.2 million annually to start the back-to-basics Thomas Jefferson Charter School–an idea that the district had rejected three times since 1996.
School officials threatened to challenge the decision in court. Local officials complained the state demanded that District 59 open the charter school, even though it acknowledged problems with the school’s proposed budget–one of the reasons local officials had rejected the proposal.
State and local officials said the state’s ruling could force a series of changes in the way school boards handle charter school proposals.
At their most optimistic, officials said the action may force school boards to work more closely with charter school proponents. That would ensure that objections are addressed before the state forces local officials to open schools that they consider unsuitable.
Others said the decision may force Illinois schools to consider offering a wider array of classes and learning options to satisfy parents who otherwise might send their children to charter schools.
“We are disappointed. We felt the state superintendent’s conditions appear to endorse our rejection,” said Charles Rose, a lawyer for District 59.
Charter school proponents, meanwhile, hailed the action by the state board, which had been recommended by state Schools Supt. Joseph Spagnolo.
“It has been a long road. School districts need to have an open mind and understand that what is being offered in their school systems is not totally what parents want,” said Jackie Gallison of Elk Grove Village, president of the parents group that came up with the Jefferson School plan.
The school was first proposed to 11 northwest suburban districts in 1996, just months after the General Assembly authorized the creation of charter schools, which are financed with tax dollars but largely free of state and local regulations.
“This will mark the beginning of change,” Gallison said. “This is one step to the end result of offering parents choice in school environment and academics.”
Within hours of Thursday’s action, local officials said the decision represented an erosion of their control over public schools.
“Now we are funneling locally raised dollars where we have no control over what is being taught,” said Martin McConahay, business manager in Libertyville Elementary District 70. That district’s rejection of a charter school proposal was upheld Thursday by the state board.
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Nonetheless, McConahay said the state’s action in the District 59 case “serves as a reminder that we may not always have local control, (which) has been a tradition for a century in our country.”
District 59 will likely hand over to the Jefferson School about $6,100 for each student who elects to attend. Supporters have estimated that from 96 to 520 pupils could enroll when the school opens, possibly in the fall of 1999. A court fight, however, could delay the opening. And supporters still have not settled on a school building, though they have scouted sites in Arlington Heights, Elk Grove Village and Mt. Prospect.
In addition to picking a building, the parents group must come up with a firm budget for the Jefferson School. Those were the only conditions that the state put on the Jefferson backers.
Some school board members said Thursday they feared that the nearly unanimous vote would force them to accept all but the most radical proposals. The only member of the state school board to vote against the Jefferson School plan was the one who lived closest to District 59, Connie Rogers, of Buffalo Grove.
But Rep. Mary Lou Cowlishaw (R-Naperville), one of the sponsors of the charter school law and a supporter of the Jefferson School, said supporters of charter schools had no choice but to overrule local districts that proved themselves hostile to such non-traditional schools.
Suburban school boards questioned not only the financial burden of charter schools, but also the plans for what the schools would teach. In particular, the suburban districts maintained that they already were meeting the needs of their students.
In the suburbs, the Jefferson School and proposed Libertyville charter school focused on a back-to-basics curriculum that some boards said was far from innovative.
While Chicago will have 15 charter schools this fall, the maximum allowed by state law, there are none in the collar counties and three Downstate.
But the state school board, egged on by a handful of conservative legislators, including U.S. Senate candidate Peter Fitzgerald, currently a state senator from Inverness, and Senate President James “Pate” Philip (R-Wood Dale), finally used its muscle. And it is prepared to meet District 59 in court.
“I believe we are on sound legal grounds, but it is an untested legal area. There is no precedent,” Spagnolo said of Thursday’s action.
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