Re: 2009 House Bill 4787 (Authorize failing school “turnaround schools” [charter schools] )

Judy — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:50:40 GMT

Rep. Meekhof, having reserved the right to explain his protest against the passage of the bill, made the following statement:

“Mr. Speaker and members of the House:

This legislation aims to impose sanctions on the worst performing public schools, most of which are high schools in high-poverty, urban areas. Unfortunately, many of the reforms in this legislation have been seriously watered down. At the same time, it holds charter schools to a more stringent standard than traditional public schools, making it even harder for charter schools to try to help where traditional public schools have failed.

This legislation also makes changes to union collective bargaining powers that are totally unrelated to the issue of failing school reforms. It reverses a number of cost-saving provisions that benefit unions at the expense of students. It even allows unions leverage over areas they should not control, such as the school start date.

For these reasons, I cannot support this bill at this time.”

2009 House Bill 4787 (Authorize failing school “turnaround schools” [charter schools] )

admin — Mon, 01 Jan 2001 05:00:00 GMT

Introduced in the House on April 2, 2009, to authorize the conversion of failing public schools into “turnaround schools,” which would be charter schools managed by a private charter school management company with a successful record. This would be one of the options the Department of Education could exercise when a school has failed to meet performance standards for four years in a row. Another would be to replace a failing school with a charter school within five miles. The is tie-barred to House Bill 4788 (both must pass to go into law), and that bill was amended to expand the power of school employee unions to bargain for non-compensation related school management issues, such as decisions to privatize non-instructional services

The vote was 70 in favor, 38 opposed and 2 not voting

(House Roll Call 357 at House Journal 0)

Click here to view bill details.