The elected School Board of Pittsburgh unanimously rejected a charter school called Catalyst Academy because of concern about its proposed disciplinary policy and its ability to meet the needs of students with disabilities. The School Board’s decision was overturned by the state’s Charter Appeals Board, which was appointed by the former Republican Governor. The members of the CAB have ties to the charter industry.
This is NOT how democracy should work.
Why should a highly conflicted board appointed by a former Governor have the authority to override the decision of a democratically elected community school board?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s a good local story that pulls back a curtain a bit on Andre Agassi’s funding of charter school facilities:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2019/05/22/andre-agassi-fund-southwest-detroit-charter-school/3765115002/
Do ed reformers support this? Agassi profiteering on these Detroit charters?
Take note in the story of how NONE of this money stays in Detroit. None of it stays local.
The “authorizer” isn’t even local to Detroit. Grand Valley State University isn’t anywhere near Detroit, yet they take a 3% cut of each Detroit charter school dollar. People in Detroit are apparently incapable of running their own charter schools. That is outsourced to a tennis celebrity in Nevada and a university hundreds of miles from Detroit, along with all the funding.
Detroit pumped millions and millions into this charter school and they have NOTHING to show for it. They don’t even own the facility. They got a fly by night school that won’t graduate a single student, but Agassi made out like a bandit.
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there it is: AGASSI MADE OUT LIKE A BANDIT. The entire story in six words.
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Authorizing at the state level is the preferred model of profiteers as it is easier to buy a panel at the state level than deal with locals that actually pay the bill and care about local public schools. Pennsylvania’s irresponsible charter laws can drain local budgets without any safeguards for local school districts. The result is that some districts in Delaware County are on the verge of collapse. California is trying to reverse a similar unfair policy while Florida is going to jump into this deep end of profiteering. DeSantis is taking authorizing power out of the hands of local school boards and putting the power in the hands of a state board.
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Diane To answer your question “Why should a highly conflicted board appointed by a former Governor have the authority to override the decision of a democratically elected community school board?”
. . . because they can . . . And don’t we all know they all “know better”? I think we are looking at a prototype of how power is going to work as the cancer on the public good, that is, the chartered mindset and industry, take over the host. CBK
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it is because they are very important people. Much more important than voters, who do not always vote for the most important people. Voters are not to be trusted. Only important people count.
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For certain folks, democracy is an expendable inconvenience.
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Two Missouri charter bills (house and senate) including this same proposal (a state “charter commission” headed by a former Mayor’s charter efforts would “hear appeals” (rubber stamp) of local unapproved charters) did not get to a vote … this year (only because other issues took the front page).
The takeaway?
Complacency is not an option!
Why? because to these national, corporate, and states’ regimes, the new mantra is: “Failure IS an Option” for some kids in some districts in some states. (Or “Some animals are more equal than others”)
Fortunately, this blog, NPE investigations, and Carol Burris’ Washington Post columns are important pieces to send to new and educational naive state representatives and outstate newspapers – especially during the months not in session prior to the 2020 sessions and elections.
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