Legislative Committee Halts Charter School ‘Witch-Hunt’
When it comes to public performance audits, there’s a difference between good governance and oversight on one hand, and a far-reaching fishing expedition on the other. The latter SHAMEFUL act is what a handful of Democrat state legislators (Rep. Mike Merrifield, Rep. Judy Solano, Sen. Bob Bacon, Sen. Evie Hudak) put into motion last month.
The four lawmakers crafted an audit proposal to make a wide-ranging probe into all of the state’s public charter schools. They did not consult with charter school leaders on their expedition. They singled out charter schools from other public schools, with some of the requested information presented in an obviously skewed way. They neglected some of the oversight already provided by charter school authorizers and the Colorado Department of Education’s charter school office.
Fellow Democrat state senator Lois Tochtrop publicly called the proposal a “witch-hunt against charter schools,” and she was right. Tochtrop and the four Republicans on the committee (Sen. Kevin Lundberg, Sen. Josh Penry, Rep. Cheri Gerou, and Rep. Frank McNulty) did a GOOD thing by voting down the proposal at a Monday meeting of the Legislative Audit Committee.
Sen. Lundberg was also quoted as saying:
“This request was way over the top,” he said. “It was a misguided attempt to unfairly target and discredit Colorado’s charter schools and deprive parents of their right to public school choice.”
Click the play button below (or this link) to listen to an iVoices podcast as Colorado League of Charter Schools president Jim Griffin explains the issues at hand and why the proposal was simply out of line:
Below is a copy of the memo that includes the original request for an audit:
December 10th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
[...] (Check out our GoBash blog for all the details, including a copy of the proposal and an important podcast discussion.) Democratic state senator Lois Tochtrop was correct to describe the proposal as a “witch-hunt.” I’m glad she and the four Republicans on the Legislative Audit Committee shot down the bad idea and spared the tens of thousands of Colorado charter school students and their families from an attack on their public school choice. [...]
December 10th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
If there are no witches, why so fearful of the hunt?