Changes will be tough, charter school leaders say

Charter school officials assured state legislators Monday that work has begun to hold public charter schools more accountable for spending and student performance, but acknowledged the transition will be tough.

"There are many areas that we need to do a better job," said Carl Takamura, chairman of the Charter School Review Panel, at a legislative briefing. He added the panel is already taking steps to deal with issues, and hopes to see a "total revamping" of charter school laws in the legislative session that would give the review panel more power.

More than 30 people attended the briefing, called in the wake of a scathing audit of the network of publicly funded charter schools.

The report, released last week, concluded charter schools have been spending public money with little oversight or accountability of student performance. It also found "unethical and illegal" spending and employment practices at several charter school campuses.

State Auditor Marion Higa told lawmakers Monday that the review found "autonomy without accountability."

Of particular concern, she said, was why the review panel hasn’t asserted more authority in making sure that charter schools are being held to key goals.

She pointed out her office found charter school reports on student performance that misrepresented data or omitted portions altogether.

A good part of the two-hour briefing was spent discussing Myron B. Thompson Academy, which the audit identified as an example of "waste and abuse."

The report said the school "excessively" increased some salaries, leading to $133,000 in overpayments.

The audit also found employees were paid for work they didn’t complete, that nonemployees approved purchase orders, that employees were in the wrong union bargaining units and that the academy had "transactions" with relatives without written disclosure to the local school board, as required under its ethics policy.

Thompson’s local school board says the school did nothing wrong.

Ruth Tschumy, a member of the review panel, said members forwarded their concerns about Thompson Academy to the state attorney general’s office and the state Ethics Commission in April.

Investigations are continuing, Tschumy said.

She told legislators that the panel feels local school boards, which oversee operations at charter schools and are charged with hiring the school’s director, are the "weakest links" in the charter school system. Many don’t have the educational expertise or business know-how required to manage schools with big budgets, Tschumy said.

State Sen. Jill Tokuda, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee and head of a legislative task force charged with looking at ways to improve charter school governance, said there were "glaring concerns" in the audit that need to be dealt with quickly.

Tokuda said the hope is to "transition to a better system."

About 9,100 students attend Hawaii’s 31 public charter schools.

Takamura told lawmakers that though the panel is in "general agreement" with the audit’s findings, he wants to emphasize that most charters are doing good work and seeing gains.

"I would hate for people to be thinking that the whole charter school system is bad," he said.