By DAN JUNEAU

Recently, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education heard a report on the status of charter schools in Louisiana.

This annual evaluation of Louisiana’s public charter schools was presented by an external, unbiased evaluator contracted by BESE. The team conducting the evaluation is affiliated with a Louisiana university and was comprised of five academic professionals.

Each school was graded on the basis of: (1) compliance with state policies and laws; (2) performance on state accountability measures; and, (3) school-level performance standards established by the school’s missions, goals and objectives.

This annual evaluation is conducted primarily to answer the question, “Are charter schools doing their job?”

Their job, of course, is educating children – more than 4,000 in Louisiana. This kind of performance evaluation is necessary and practically unheard of in the traditional public school system.

In the 2001 evaluation, the contractor reported that, of the 20 charter schools evaluated, eight have programs or components that could be considered for replication in all schools. Also noted was the fact that three other charter schools demonstrated tremendous promise, while seven schools showed potential growth.

Charter schools have operated in Louisiana since 1995, when the state first implemented the charter school law.

They are chartered by BESE (or a local school board) for an initial five-year period. After that time, if the chartering authority determines that the school is accomplishing its mission, the charter may be renewed for another five or 10 years.

Charter schools are public schools that are held to a strict standard of accountability. In return, they have flexibility with regard to their choice of curricula and personnel.

They participate in high stakes testing and all aspects of the state accountability program. If a charter school does not meet its performance goals and achieve its stated mission, the chartering authority will close it.

Charter schools are clearly working in Louisiana. Besides offering new education options for students, parents and teachers, they are achieving other goals in numerous ways. Several have met or exceeded local and state accountability standards; others are showing continued progress each year.

Heightened parental and community involvement is evidenced in every charter school, and many, particularly those serving academically and socially at-risk youth, have engendered renewed hope.

One major success of these schools is that they give parents and citizens a public school “choice.”

Unfortunately, the general image of charter schools has suffered from misunderstanding and the actions of a few people who have opened schools to achieve personal benefit. The design and intense scrutiny of charter schools have resulted in these wrongdoers being quickly removed and reported to authorities, but not before giving opponents of charter schools a new round of ammunition.

Therefore, charter school administrators and supporters have formed an association, called the Louisiana Charter Schools Association. The association not only intends to show that charter schools in Louisiana are successfully – and economically – educating our children, but that they are also bringing parents, business support, and trust back into the public school system.

Public schools are created with the values and expectations of the community that supports them.

The charter school community is diverse but unified, committed and strong, and strengthened even more through the power of an association that has educational opportunity for all children as its goal.

This year, April 29-May 3 is National Charter Schools Week and the event’s motto is “celebrating a decade of accountable public schools.”

I, for one, will be celebrating with them.

DAN JUNEAU is the president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry.