The immense power of the seven-member Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board is being displayed as it contemplates closing a Canton school – SR1 College Preparatory and STEM Academy – for alleged money woes.
The Board is expected to make a decision later this summer. But will that decision be constitutional?
SR1 is one of 12 charter schools currently in operation in Mississippi after being approved by the state Authorizer Board. Those schools cumulatively receive about $50 million annually in state and local funding, plus additional federal funding, making the Authorizer Board responsible for more public money than most of Mississippi’s agencies, boards and commissions.
Supporters have long argued that charter schools overseen by the Authorizer Board are public schools. The primary differences between charter and traditional public schools are that charters do not have to adhere to some of the rules and regulations of traditional schools, and students have to apply and agree to certain conditions to be admitted to a charter school.
When the charter schools were finally approved in the mid-2010s after a hotly contested legislative debate, the Authorizer Board also was created to oversee the new public schools.
The creation of the Authorizer Board was eye-opening since the charter schools were touted as public schools and the Mississippi Constitution is clear about which public entity administers public schools.
Ed Board, not Authorizer Board, in constitution
Section 203 of the Mississippi Constitution, approved by voters in 1982, clearly states that the nine-member Mississippi Board of Education, in the old days referred to as a lay Board of Education, would oversee public schools. The members of the Board of Education are appointed on a rotating basis by the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House. Members of the Charter School Authorizer Board are appointed by the governor and lieutenant governor, along with one person from the Mississippi Department of Education, presumably appointed by the state Board of Education. Members of both boards face Senate confirmation.
It was viewed as a seminal event when voters approved the “lay state Board of Education” as part of Gov. William Winter’s education reform efforts of the early 1980s, an effort to take education out of the hands of politicians. Previously, the state Board consisted of three statewide elected officials: the superintendent of education, the attorney general and the secretary of state.
Section 203 of the state constitution says the Board of Education “shall manage and invest school funds according to law, formulate policies according to law for implementation by the state Department of Education, and perform such other duties as prescribed by law.”
The Charter School Authorizer Board is not in the Mississippi Constitution. It was not approved by voters. It was created by a law passed by the Mississippi Legislature.
Normally, at least according to ninth grade civics most Mississippians of an older age took, a law does not trump the constitution.
Supreme Court says charter schools are public
The Mississippi Supreme Court also has weighed in to proclaim charter schools are indeed public schools. That ruling came after a group of Jackson parents challenged the constitutionality of local public money being diverted to charter schools.
In the 2019 majority decision, Justice Robert Chamberlin, who is now a federal judge in the Northern District of Mississippi, wrote: “In other words, charter schools are not established as a separate school district and remain a public school of the local school district for the purposes of Article 8, Section 206.”
Section 206 of the Mississippi Constitution requires the Legislature to establish funds for the public schools and gives local governments the authority to provide additional money to the schools.
Thus far, no one has challenged whether it is constitutional for the Authorizer Board instead of the state Board of Education to oversee the charter schools.
And truth be known, it seems unlikely that the current Mississippi Supreme Court would buck the wishes of Gov. Tate Reeves and Republican legislative leaders who support charter schools. Many lawmakers who are still in office voted to create the Authorizer Board. And let’s just say the current Supreme Court has been reluctant to rule against the state’s political leadership.
But still, if charter schools are public schools, then why are they not administered by the Board of Education like the Mississippi Constitution mandates?
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