Arizona: Protecting Charter School Autonomy
Jul 2nd, 2007 by Annette
Center for Educational Opportunity Goldwater Institute
Files Lawsuit to Protect Charter School Autonomy Goldwater Institute
News Release June 25, 2007
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Phoenix — Today five charter schools announced they filed suit to prevent being forced to change the curricula that has helped them rank among the top public schools in the country. The lawsuit is the first filed by the new Goldwater Institute Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has mandated that the schools align their curricula to an ADE-determined grade-by-grade curriculum sequence. “These rules would have the perverse effect of dumbing-down some of the most successful schools in the entire United States,” said Clint Bolick, the litigation center’s director.
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In 2003, ADE began requiring charter schools to align their curricula to state prescribed curriculum, despite its lack of authority for such a mandate. Charter schools were able to comply with the alignment requirement until this year, when ADE further mandated that all schools teach U.S. history in the seventh and eighth grades. By contrast, the Great Hearts Academies teach ancient history in seventh grade and medieval history in eighth grade as foundations to U.S. history taught in ninth grade. (end of snip)
