Shawgi Tell looks at how charter schools are governed, and how that violates a democratic approach.
Charter school “boards” and “commissions” exist in numerous states. They usually consist of unelected individuals who are major promoters of school privatization. These private persons tend to be appointed by state leaders with significant political and economic power.
The main purpose of such capital-centered entities is to trample on democratic governance arrangements (e.g. elected school boards, elected state legislators, State Boards of Education) in order to rapidly impose pay-the-rich schemes on everyone. There is nothing democratic or pro-social about charter school “boards” and “commissions.”
The seven-member Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board (MCSAB) is a good example of such a top-down unconstitutional entity. Six of its members are appointed by the Governor or the Lt. Governor
The MCSAB has approved 12 charter schools over the years. Together, these privately-operated schools “receive about $50 million annually in state and local funding, plus additional federal funding, making the Authorizer Board [MCSAB] responsible for more public money than most of Mississippi’s agencies, boards and commissions.”
A key question is this: if privately-operated charter schools are going to be called “public schools,” then why don’t they fall under the authority of the Mississippi State Board of Education, as required by the Mississippi Constitution? Why, in other words, is the MCSAB authorizing these so-called “public schools?” What constitutional authority does it have to do so?