Robert A. Fox

Legal and Policy Issues Regarding Niche Charter Schools: Race, Religion, Culture, and the Law

A growing number of ethnocentric or culturally oriented niche charter schools have opened around the country. These ethnic or culture-oriented models raise legal and policy concerns about church/state entanglement as well as concerns about diversity. Indeed, there has already been litigation focused on racial and ethnic aspects of charter schools as well as religious influences. Despite the litigation in these areas, the constitutional tensions to which ethnocentric charter schools give rise have not been fully explored in the literature. Using legal research methods, this article examines the existing litigation involving culture-oriented charter schools and discusses the policy and legal tensions involved.

The Line between Cultural Education and Religious Education: Do Ethnocentric Niche Charter Schools Have a Prayer?.

When first conceived, charter schools were envisioned as local projects initiated by parents and/or groups of teachers seeking to improve the educational performance of students (Budde, 1996). In the past two decades, the phenomenon has expanded to more than 5% of all U.S. public schools and almost 3% of all students (Center for Education Reform [CER], 2009). During this time, groups have come onto the charter school landscape representing points of view that were not a part of the original rhetoric. In the area of charter school creation and management, the originally envisioned groups of parents and teachers have been joined by educational management organizations (Plank, Arsen, & Sykes, 2000) and charter management organizations (Lake, Dusseault, Bowen, Demeritt, & Hill, 2010). Another of these phenomena are the so-called ethnocentric niche charter schools (Buchanan & Fox, 2003, 2005; Institute on Race and Poverty, 2008) that seek to integrate the celebration of cultural, ethnic, linguistic, or philosophical concepts into the educational process. This chapter provides examples of two types of ethnocentric schools and examines whether they are able to operate within the legal constraints imposed on them by state charter school laws and the First Amendment of the U.S.

Charter School Attitudes and Practices in States with Diverse Public Sector Bargaining Laws: Arizona, Hawai'i, and Minnesota.

ABSTRACT Virtually all state charter school legislation addresses teacher rights and working environment. Relationships with teacher unions are either specified in the law, or approval of the charter requires suitable provisions for employee hiring, firing, grievances, etc. Charter school evaluation almost without exception includes some references to these issues. This study uses an online survey to gather information gauging the effect of the ambient union environment on charter school practices and attitudes related to teacher rights and teacher participation in school administration and governance. In the first phase of a projected national study, three states were selected whose public sector collective bargaining environments are very different. Analysis of attitudes, practices, and demographics showed significant differences in views about teacher involvement in school governance, but little difference in views or practices concerning teacher unions in charter schools. Limited survey response resulted in collection methods which will be corrected in an anticipated national study. The online survey method of data collection is discussed. Implications for public policy and future charter school legislation are explored. Further studies should address variations in the impact of union involvement between public, private, and charter schools.

Introduction to the Special Issue: The best of the 2018 ISCR Conference

The Journal of School Choice is pleased to present a special issue highlighting the best of the seventh International School Choice and Reform Conference (ISCRC), or Journal of School Choice Conference for short, held January 2018 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. These four excellent articles include the 2018 prizewinners, awarded

Stare Decisis: Dueling Legal Interpretations of the Douglas County, Colorado Choice Scholarship Program

5,000 thanks to the generosity of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice; recently renamed EdChoice. The prizewinning article by Sherrie Reed and Heather Rose from the University of California, Davis examined the clarity and enforcement of existing charter school accountability mechanisms. This innovative work provides a baseline that for future research to improve charter accountability systems. Moreover, it is a piece of scholarship; not one of advocacy or opposition. The diversity of topics in the four articles emphasizes the diversity of educational options which, collectively, fit into the “school choice” classification. Alternatives to traditional public education have clearly found a foothold in America and internationally, and further studies promise to help policymakers in navigating the complex issues which surround efforts to educate our next generations. The Journal of School Choice is now deep into its 12th volume and, like the ISCRC, has developed a growing group of devotees. Let us take this opportunity to introduce the eighth ISCRC, which—for the first time—will take place in Lisbon, Portugal in conjunction with a meeting of the European Association for Education Law and Policy on January 10–13, 2019. This intimate gathering will bring together approximately 100 scholars from around the world whose work influences both practitioners and policymakers. Admittedly, in an age of tight university/organization travel budgets, many will find a trip to Portugal somewhat of a stretch. Yet with international airfares lower than at many times in the past, we urge you to contemplate attending and submitting a paper or proposing a symposium. Full information (including the registration process) is at iscrweb.org. JOURNAL OF SCHOOL CHOICE 2018, VOL. 12, NO. 3, 354 https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2018.1490382

Introduction to the Special Section

ABSTRACT In the absence of incontrovertible performance data in support of, or opposition to, school vouchers, court decisions on their legality become increasingly important. Analysis of legal challenges provides a rich opportunity for scholars and policymakers to follow arguments for or against their positions. We present a chronicle of the litigation history of the Douglas County, Colorado Choice Scholarship Program; a voucher program incorporating religious-based “public school partners” in which voucher recipients may enroll. We take particular notice of the differences in the way identical fact bases are interpreted by successive jurists. At this writing, the Choice Scholarship Program has been permanently enjoined from operating but further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court would surprise no one.

To Learn and To Belong: Case Studies of Emerging Ethnocentric Charter Schools in Hawai'i.

The Journal of School Choice (JSC) published its first issue in 2006 with five articles which spanned the U.S. school choice landscape from school vouchers to charter schools to parental involvement and the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. In the seven years since that beginning, the journal has changed; most notably by becoming much more international in its focus. The January–March, 2013 issue (Vol. 7, No. 1) featured, among others, a study of efficiency and equity within European education systems and a commentary about Spanish public schools in the international context. Two years ago, the journal initiated the First International School Choice and Reform Academic Conference which brought together approximately 150 select international scholars and agents of school reform. In January 2013, the second International Conference was held. In February 2014, we will gather in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for the third International Conference. Last January the Senior Editorial Committee of the JSC decided to produce a special section of the journal to feature papers presented at the Second Annual International School Choice and Reform Academic Conference. It did so because it anticipated that many conference papers would be of sufficiently high quality to merit publication in an academic peer-reviewed journal such the JSC , and because the journal and conference serve complementary functions by providing forums for considering ideas, evidence, and arguments regarding parental school choice in its many forms around the world. We, as co-chairs of the conference and Consulting Editors of the journal, were selected to be co-editors of this special section. After the conference, we assembled a list of eight target papers that we thought would be appropriate and valuable contributions to the special section, based on