Categories: General

New Newsworks Post: Why School Boards Shouldn’t Have a Say in Charter School Authorization

It starts here:

Last week Assemblyman Troy Singleton (D-Camden) released a bill that updates New Jersey’s 20-year-old charter school law. The draft of the bill invests local school boards with the power to control 30 percent of an aspiring charter’s application score…

What’s wrong with delegating charter approval to democratically-elected school board members? After all, local districts pay tuition and transportation for charter school students.  Shouldn’t community representatives have power to deter perceived threats to traditional district dominance?

Here’s what’s wrong:  delegating charter school authorization to school boards permits majority rule to trample the rights of the minority group of residents who want to send their children to charter schools. This permutation of democracy is commonly referred to as “tyranny of the majority,” a phrase first used by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835.

Read the rest here.

Laura Waters

View Comments

Recent Posts

BREAKING: Statement from JerseyCAN on State’s Long-Delayed Release of Student Test Results

This is a statement by Paula White, Executive Director of JerseyCAN, on the New Jersey…

2 years ago

NJEA: Murphy’s Elimination of Teacher Performance Test Is a Major Win for Students and Educators

This is a press release. Earlier today, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill to eliminate…

2 years ago

Murphy Signs Bill Eliminating EdTPA Test for Teacher Certification

Today Gov. Phil Murphy signed Senate Bill 896, which prohibits the New Jersey Department of…

2 years ago

LILLEY: Blue States Had More School Closures and More Learning Loss — Just Like NJ under Gov. Murphy

The 74 conducted a study of the relative learning loss in Democratic (Blue) and Republican (Red) states and…

2 years ago

One of Newark Superintendent’s New High Schools Tolerates Racism Against Black Students

In October 2020 Newark Superintendent Roger Leon announced with great fanfare the opening of district’s…

2 years ago