May 20, 2011 Education Week site said that ''With a 4-3 ruling this week from its supreme court, Georgia has become the second state in which a state-level commission created explicitly to approve and oversee charter schools has been struck down by legal action.
The development leaves in limbo for the moment the educational fate of some 2,500 students enrolled in a set of eight charters the Georgia commission oversees, though efforts were under way by the local schools and their backers to find a way to stay open. As of Thursday, the schools were still operating.
The rulingRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader seems to fly in the face of national momentum to form such state chartering bodies, which many charter advocates argue can both lift roadblocks to opening more of the independent public schools and bring stronger oversight to ensure high quality.
But critics in Georgia, including a set of school systems that filed suit, charged that the law establishing that state’s commission usurped the local authority of school districts and inappropriately drained public money from those systems.
Not counting Georgia, seven states, plus the District of Columbia, have similar statewide charter boards, according to the Chicago-based National Association of Charter School Authorizers. That tally includes a board in Indiana just getting started under legislation Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, signed this month.
Meanwhile, legislative chambers in at least five other states—Illinois, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, and Oklahoma—have approved bills this year that would institute such state boards, the association says.......
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