Lawmakers have yet to bridge the partisan divide on school funding issues, but the House of Representatives showed Monday that Republicans and Democrats can work together on tough policy issues.

Facing opposition from a group of lawmakers concerned the proposal would lead to racial segregation, a bipartisan contingent coalesced to pass legislation allowing the state to create a pilot charter school designed to boost academic outcomes for American Indian students. The plan, found in Senate Bill 63, moved to the governor’s desk on a 49-20 vote.

The legislation allows the state to authorize and oversee a publicly funded private school, provided South Dakota is chosen from the pool of 41 states vying for a federal Race to the Top grants. Authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the competition allows the U.S. Department of Education to hand out more than $4 billion to states that initiate education reforms.

On Monday, all the typical policy issues related to charter schools – privatization, school choice, funding – took a back seat to race.

Rep. Noel Hammiel, R-Mitchell, referenced landmark U.S Supreme Court cases Plessy vs. Ferguson and Brown vs. Board of Education during his five-minute speech against SB 63. He told lawmakers that starting a charter school for American Indian students would amount to racial segregation.

“I don’t know if transporting American Indian kids from around the state to a central location is a good idea,” he said. “I have some concerns about that.”

Rep. Hammiel also cited a recent UCLA study that found that charter school enrollment lacks diversity and is split along economic lines. He cautioned lawmakers against endorsing legislation that he said may make it tougher to bridge the state’s racial divides.

The bill’s supporters acknowledged sharing concerns about segregation. But rather than using race as a reason to vote against the measure, proponents instead focused on the what they said were glaring achievement gaps between American Indian students and their peers.

“What we are doing now for our children on the reservations is not working,” said Rep. Oran Sorensen, D-Dell Rapids. “Maybe we need to have the courage to go one step further.”

The law enabling the creation of the state-run school is contingent upon receiving the federal grant. According to the federal education department, South Dakota can receive up to $75 million if the state’s plan is chosen. South Dakota submitted its application last February, and the U.S. Department of Education will likely announce its first round of selections sometime this week.

South Dakota Education Secretary Tom Oster has openly acknowledged that he doesn’t believe the state will receive the funding.

If the state is awarded the grant, the funds will be used to establish a secondary school that gives enrollment priority to students from federally recognized American Indian tribes. The facility will offer instruction focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The campus will also feature dormitory housing and offer enough classes to allow students to complete two years of college.

The bill now moves onto the governor, who has already given his blessing to the project.

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Members of House Education endorsed a measure Wednesday that will reduce small school aid provided for students who open enroll from larger schools to smaller schools.

The proposal, filed as HB 1150, creates a new mechanism to calculate state aid for students who open enroll. If passed, per-student aid would be based on the fall enrollment of the larger of two schools involved in an open enrollment.

Lawmakers heard testimony on the bill nearly two weeks ago. During its initial hearing, the bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Deb Peters, R-Hartford, told committee members that the measure would save $1.3 million. She also testified the savings would be redistributed to all schools – a statement later refuted by Education Secretary Tom Oster.

With an eye on the potential savings in a tight budget year, lawmakers backed the bill on a 9-5 vote. The committee’s endorsement came following an amendment that would exempt sparse schools from funding restrictions the bill puts in place.

The measure now moves onto the House.

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Members of House Education said Friday that they aren’t ready to adopt legislation to curtail busing of open enrolled students, but they also suggested they may not be far off from action if school districts don’t work out busing issues in the near future.

The commentary came during debate on HB 1219, a measure offered by Peggy Gibson, D-Huron, that would require schools to transport students to centrally located distribution points.

Rep. Gibson told legislators that school districts have confused and upset taxpayers by sending buses into neighboring districts to pick up students. In particular, elderly constituents in her district have questioned the need for additional education funding because they see buses from different districts passing each other on roadways.

Diana Miller, a lobbyist for a group of large schools, echoed Rep. Gibson’s concerns, telling lawmakers that the unprecedented budget shortfall – as indicated by the lack of increase proposed for education – requires lawmakers to look at “fresh, new ways to do things.” Passing the measure, she said, would save districts money.

The South Dakota Department of Education, the Sioux Falls School District and the South Dakota Coalition of Schools testified against the legislation.

Charlie Flowers, a lobbyist for small and mid-sized schools, asked lawmakers to defeat the measure and support local control. Districts that lose students to open enrollment “need to look at why you are losing these students,” he said.

Committee members nearly unanimously voted to kill the bill, but not without qualifications.

Lawmakers, including Rep. Oran Sorensen, D-Garretson, challenged big and small schools to eliminate animosity and begin working together on enrollment issues. He suggested that if schools can’t come to a compromise, the Legislature will have to act.

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The Senate Education committee unanimously endorsed an amended SB 63 Thursday, paving the way for the state to make its application for federal Race to the Top funds.

Lawmakers stripped the provisions to allow local school boards to apply for charter schools, leaving only the portions that allow the State Board of Education to charter a single pilot school. As drafted, the state's chartering authority is conditional upon receiving the Race to the Top grant.

Education Secretary Tom Oster introduced the legislation, providing a brief overview of the state's plans to develop a residential secondary school offering instruction in grades 9-12 and two years of college. The school - which will focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics instruction - would give enrollment preference to American Indian students, but would be open to all students.

The secretary told lawmakers that the state has a economic and moral imperative to improve educational outcomes for South Dakota's American Indian students, who have historically not performed as well on state assessments and are less likely to graduate from high school or college.

Keith Moore, chief diversity officer for the University of South Dakota, and Stacy Phelps, a member of the State Board of Education and Indian education pioneer, joined Oster in pitching the legislation.

"It's going to be a school of hope, a school of promise," said Keith Moore, the state's former Indian Education director, after assuring lawmakers that the non-traditional residential school would not conjure up images of boarding schools that have strained relationships with the state's tribal entities.

Phelps said the school would be based on the successes of South Dakota’s GEAR UP initiative, a state Indian education initiative that has proven to improve high school graduation rates and dramatically improved the number of American Indian students who have completed college.

Legislators were impressed by the application and gave it their full support.

Sen. Bob Gray, R-Pierre, briefly summed up his endorsement of the legislation.

“This could be the most significant thing we do this session,” he said.

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Consider our eyebrows raised.

Open Forum is watching Oklahoma's legislature as they debate a concept near and dear to our hearts – local school governance.  

For a quick read on the Sooner state's School District Empowerment program, click here or here, or get some more detail from our colleagues at the Oklahoma State School Boards Association(OSSBA).

If you're not so link-happy, here's the gist: up to 20 percent of the state's schools would be eligible for a pilot initiative that exempts the public schools from nearly every state education mandate currently sealed in Oklahoma law.

Essentially, the School District Empowerment program offers traditional public schools the same kind of deregulation that school choice enthusiasts fight to obtain for publicly funded but privately run charter schools. The legislation promises true local public school governance, which is why our friends at OSSBA are backing the effort.

Open Forum has often been curious why strong advocates of school choice have focused their efforts on charter schools. If charter-backers believe government mandates are barriers to student achievement, why not push for broad-based deregulation of public schools? At the very least, doesn't the creation of an entirely new system of publicly funded schools seem…redundant?

We admit – it's bothersome to think that our public education system has moved so far from local governance that state lawmakers have to consider legislation to “empower” local communities. But…with a country focused on education reform and President Obama pushing for additional charter schools, Open Forum thinks Oklahoma's effort deserves to be part of the debate.

Of course, like any education reform measure, the legislation has opposition. In this case, the fight against the legislation is being led by the state's two largest teacher unions, who are concerned that the legislation would, among other things, eliminate collective bargaining (read their take here and here).

So… what's the difference between regulated and unregulated public schools? Well, this chart goes a long way to explaining the legal differences. And, though the body of research is expanding, there's no definitive word on whether charter schools actually improve student achievement.

As always, the Forum is open.

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Open Forum doesn't hide our affinity for public schools. We think it's hard to beat the accountability and responsiveness the public school environment promises, despite some calls for private sector solutions to public school woes.

That's why research coming out of Philly has earned our attention.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Johns Hopkins University has published research comparing student performance in the city's public schools to student performance in numerous privately run, publicly funded schools.

The public school system outlays more than $6 million a year to private companies, who manage more than 20 Philadelphia schools. It's regarded as the largest privatization experiment in the nation.

And, really… the story's lede says it all:

City schools under Philadelphia School District control outperformed those run by outside managers paid millions of dollars to run them, according to a study released today.

Read it all here.

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Charter schools aren't a silver-bullet solution to meeting the needs of struggling students, members of House Education decided Monday.

Lawmakers killed HB 1295 on a 10-5 vote, citing problems with the structure of the legislation but verbally committing to explore the charter school issue further.

Supporters of the measure said enabling charter schools would provide alternative routes for struggling students, focusing specifically on charters as an avenue to improve outcomes for Native American students.

ASBSD opposed the legislation, telling lawmakers that the plan would allow for the creation of publicly funded private schools that would lack public oversight. Representatives from the Sioux Falls School District, Rapid City Area Schools and a lobbyist for 11 large schools also testified against the plan.

Despite turning the measure away, one lawmaker pledged to continue to investigate charter schools and the impact they could have on Native American students.

“Our reservation schools are failing our kids,” said Rep. Ryan Olson, R-Onida, before suggesting that the Legislature study the issue in the summer interim and bring forward recommendations on how to improve the legislation.

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Lawmakers signaled reluctance Monday to change the state's open enrollment laws, killing a tandem of bills that legislators said would hinder student and parental choice.

A measure that would have barred districts from sending busses into neighboring districts to pick-up open-enrolled students was killed at the request of the sponsor.

Rep. Brock Greenfield, R-Clark, said he brought HB 1235 to stimulate discussion on the state's open enrollment policies. After hearing from school leaders, Rep. Greenfield felt the bussing issue no longer needed legislative attention.

The committee also dismissed HB 1236, a bill that would have prevented students from open-enrolling after the statewide enrollment count in September.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Greenfield, told lawmakers that, unlike the bussing issue, prohibiting mid-year transfers has some support among educators. He asked lawmakers to hold the bill so he could prepare amendments adding a second spring transfer deadline and a waiver process, but legislators didn't think that was necessary.

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