Bill Would Let Colleges and Universities Initiate Charter Schools

02.23.2010 by Whittney Evans

(KCPW News) A Utah House committee voted yesterday to allow Utah colleges and universities to initiate charter schools. Currently, that can only be done by local school districts and the State Charter School Board. Republican Senator Stuart Adams, who is sponsoring the legislation, says a strong connection between K-12 education and colleges and universities will give students a great advantage.

“In some states it’s by far the preferred event because of that institutional ability, that expertise that colleges and universities bring to the educational process. They bring perhaps an expertise that can’t be done by simply having a separate charter authorization,” said Adams.

But Deputy State Superintendent Martell Menlove said there’s no need to allow another entity to do what the State Charter School Board already does well.

“There is the discussion of the state charter school board still monitoring and doing those types of things. But we also know that if they don’t authorize it, then they may be less than willing to come back and monitor what’s going on and say ‘hey somebody else did this,’” he said.

The bill passed out of the House Education Committee with unanimous support, and now goes to the House floor.