Washington, D.C. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools president and CEO Nina Rees today released the following statement in response to the filing of a federal lawsuit challenging Connecticut laws and policies that significantly inhibit students and parents from accessing good public school options:
“We support the brave step taken yesterday by students and parents in Connecticut, with the support of Students Matter. Their filing of a federal lawsuit that challenges the overly restrictive magnet school, charter public school, and open-choice enrollment policies in the state is rightly focused on creating more great public schools for the students who need them the most.
“As an example of these overly restrictive policies, Connecticut’s charter public school law is ranked #31 out of 43, according to the National Alliances report Measuring Up to the Model: A Ranking of State Charter School Laws. The laws arbitrary caps on charter school growth, major limitations on a charter public schools flexibility to innovate, and unstable and unreliable funding mechanism create significant roadblocks to creating more high-quality public schools for the states families, at a time when 6,000 student names are on charter school wait lists.
“We hope this lawsuit spurs action by Connecticut lawmakers to improve their magnet school, charter public school, and open-choice enrollment policies so that more students can access these successful programs.”
About Charter Public Schools
Charter public schools are independent, public, and tuition-free schools that are given the freedom to be more innovative while being held accountable for advancing student achievement. Since 2010, many research studies have found that students in charter schools do better in school than their traditional school peers. For example, one study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that charter schools do a better job teaching low income students, minority students, and students who are still learning English than traditional schools. Separate studies by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Mathematica Policy Research have found that charter school students are more likely to graduate from high school, go on to college, stay in college and have higher earnings in early adulthood.About the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is the leading national nonprofit organization committed to advancing the public charter school movement. Our mission is to lead public education to unprecedented levels of academic achievement by fostering a strong charter sector. For more information, please visit www.publiccharters.org.
