In 2011, the United Nations declared October 11 the International Day of the Girl Child, in order “to help galvanize worldwide enthusiasm for goals to better girls’ lives, providing an opportunity for them to show leadership and reach their full potential.”
The movement was sparked by members of School Girls Unite, an organization of youth leaders advocating for the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Following their lead, President Barack Obama proclaimed Oct. 10 Day of the Girl in 2013, writing:
“Over the past few decades, the global community has made great progress in increasing opportunity and equality for women and girls, but far too many girls face futures limited by violence, social norms, educational barriers, and even national law. On International Day of the Girl, we stand firm in the belief that all men and women are created equal, and we advance the vision of a world where girls and boys look to the future with the same sense of promise and possibility.”
In a 2016 op-ed, First Lady Michelle Obama wrote that the issue of gender equity is not just a matter of policy; it is personal.
“Unlike so many girls around the world, we have a voice. That’s why, particularly on this International Day of the Girl, I ask that you use yours to help these girls get the education they deserve. They’re counting on us, and I have no intention of letting them down. I plan to keep working on their behalf, not just for the rest of my time as First Lady, but for the rest of my life.”
Staying true to her promise, on Oct. 11, Obama and TODAY held a special event on 30 Rockefeller Plaza to “empower and celebrate girls all over the world.” Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson and Meghan Trainor are slated to perform.
The visibility of the event is powerful; still, it cannot, and must not, overshadow the lived experiences of Black girls who, too often, are victimized, criminalized, and erased.
In 2014, President Obama launched My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative to address persistent opportunity gaps facing Black boys. In response, over 250 Black men and other men of color challenged Obama’s decision to focus solely on Black men and boys, and called for the inclusion of Black women and girls, stating in an open letter: “MBK, in its current iteration, solely collects social data on Black men and boys. What might we find out about the scope, depth and history of our structural impediments, if we also required the collection of targeted data for Black women and girls?
“If the denunciation of male privilege, sexism and rape culture is not at the center of our quest for racial justice, then we have endorsed a position of benign neglect towards the challenges that girls and women face that undermine their well-being and the well-being of the community as a whole.”
Specifically, for Black girls in the United States, the intractable scourge of white supremacy stains every corner of their lives; meaning they must battle misogynoir on both institutional and interpersonal levels at every turn.
In the study Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girlhood (pdf), co-authored by Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake, and Thalia Gonzalez, the answers of survey participants provided anecdotal evidence of how dehumanized Black girls are in this country. According to participants:
Black girls need less nurturing
Black girls need less protection
Black girls need to be supported less
Black girls need to be comforted less
Black girls are more independent
Black girls know more about adult topics
Black girls know more about sex
While the above racist and sexist perceptions are false, the institutionalized and systemic ramifications of such dangerous thinking are very real, with Black girls suffering the consequences.
According to the 2015 report “Gender Justice: System-Level Juvenile Justice Reform for Girls” (pdf), 84 percent of girls in the juvenile-detention system have experienced family violence; additionally, “[girls] in the justice system have experienced abuse, violence, adversity and deprivation across many of the domains of their lives—family, peers, intimate partners and community.”
Black girls are also less likely to receive any pain medication—and if they do receive it, it is less than their white counterparts.
As Melissa Harris-Perry wrote in 2016, “Girlhood has never been a shield against the brutality of white supremacy.”
Still, we rise. Our Black girls are full of promise. They are leaders and scholars, artists and writers, singers and athletes.
But even if they were none of these things, they have the unassailable right to dignity, safety, love and joy, free of the burdens and pain this nation has piled on their backs.
Former Houston ISD superintendent Richard Carranza is speaking out about his disappointment in HISD’s failure to pass major reforms while he was here. Carranza, who now leads the New York public school system after abruptly quitting HISD, said the district lacked the appetite for changes that would boost outcomes for lower-income and minority students.
“As soon as I left, it seemed like people just didn’t have the stomach to take the fight,” Carranza said.
In an interview with Atlantic Magazine, Carranza who was with the district for 18 months, said HISD leaders resisted changes that would benefit historically underserved students, creating inequitable access to quality education among students from all backgrounds.
The Atlantic article largely focused on his immediate reform efforts in New York City, but Carranza didn’t mince words as he talked about HISD’s current campus funding model and the geographic layout of its magnet schools, which he said have favored students from more affluent and white backgrounds. In the months before his departure from HISD, Carranza proposed shifting toward a more centralized funding model that largely would benefit schools in lower-income and predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
“You would think if you want to integrate schools and really provide a robust push for the entire system, you would place some really sexy magnet schools in those African-American neighborhoods. No! They were all concentrated in white, upper-middle-class neighborhoods, so that if you’re an African-American student, you have to leave your neighborhood to go to those programs,” he said.
Carranza’s comments cut to key questions about the district’s dedication to impoverished and minority students, while also raising the specter that Carranza’s abrupt departure contributed to the proposals stalling. During his tenure the district dealt with
Ultimately, HISD trustees tweaked the district’s current campus funding model and shelved the magnet proposals, to Carranza’s dismay. However, it is arguable whether trustees resisted Carranza’s proposal because they “didn’t have the stomach to take the fight.” Some trustees embraced Carranza’s proposal, but others thought the district administration was moving too hastily and did not provide enough details about the proposal’s merits.
“Carranza didn’t leave any definite plans on the table. Only ideals,” HISD Board President Rhonda Skillern-Jones said. “For me, there were conceptual changes that were never fully vetted or fleshed out by the administration.”
The district also was dealing with a large budget deficit and a looming threat of a state takeover of the school system resulting from a state law that required the Texas Education Agency to control operations of any school district in which one or more schools failed to meet state academic standards for five consecutive years, prompting a few trustees to question whether HISD was tackling too much at one time.
Is cash-strapped HISD decreasing teacher salaries for the upcoming school year? That’s that claim one teacher is making in a viral Facebook post that’s racked up more than 18,000 views and 700 shares.
Victor Treviño III, the teacher behind the video, feels like the current fight over teacher pay is déjà vu of a similar battle in 2016.
Treviño says he’s most upset the plan’s reportedly been in the works since March, but he only recently found out about it after being tipped off by a concerned HISD employee.
“Obviously teachers, we don’t get into this profession to become millionaires, but at the same time, we don’t want to be undervalued. We don’t want to be exploited,” said Treviño, who’s taught at Austin High School in southeast Houston for 11 years.
In a now-viral video, Treviño warns the district is planning to lower teachers’ expected salaries in the upcoming school year, while at the same time, he says, adding high-level, high salary administration jobs.
“If you really care about students’ achievement, we need to be able to attract and retain the most highly qualified teachers in those classrooms,” said Treviño, who wants HISD to scrap the idea and also begin a new superintendent search.
“That draft of the salary schedule freezes salaries at their current level,” said Andy Dewey, Executive Vice President of the Houston Federation of Teachers, the union for HISD teachers. “Nobody would get less money next year.”
However, Dewey says if that draft proposal is adopted, those employees will not make what they expected to make based on the current salary schedule.
“That’s where Victor is saying the pay cut is coming from, the fact that they are not getting the amount of money that was promised them for next year,” Dewey said.
Dewey says if the board approves freezing salaries, that change would come after the July 13 deadline for teachers to resign and potentially find higher-paying jobs elsewhere.
“Frankly, I believe if HISD tries to do that after the resignation date, they’ll be in breach of contract,” he said.
Dewey says union officials will meet with district higher-ups on Aug. 2 during their monthly consultation. He hopes officials will back off the proposal.
KHOU requested an interview with HISD officials Thursday and emailed several questions, including whether the draft proposal was still under consideration and how long it’s been in the works. In response, HISD sent the following statement:
“Teachers will not see a pay decrease in their salaries for the 2018-2019 school year.”
This week, HISD joined with more than 20,000 members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated to publicly thank them for donating thousands of dollars to district students and staff in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
During Houston’s time of devastation, Alpha Kappa Alpha — one of the oldest African-American and Greek letter organizations — provided thousands of dollars in donations, as well as clothes, shoes, nonperishable food items, toiletries, and school supplies that were distributed districtwide to those impacted by the storm.
Members of local chapters also volunteered at donation sites and distribution centers across the city.
“The members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. immediately came to our aid following Hurricane Harvey,” said HISD Board of Education Trustee Wanda Adams, who served as board president during the storm. “The international president of the sorority, Dorothy Buckhanan Wilson, sent out a notice to her members asking them to direct aid and support to HISD students. The ladies answered in a big way by donating countless supplies and resources.”
Adams joined with Board of Education President Rhonda Skillern-Jones, Trustee Jolanda Jones and Interim Superintendent Dr. Grenita Lathan on Monday to present a resolution of appreciation to the organization during their 68th annual Boule. The Boule — the largest of its kind in the country — is an annual international conference that provides women with networking opportunities, leadership training, and development. It was held at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
Alondra Alvarez lives about five minutes from her high school on Detroit’s southwest side but she drives there instead of walking because her mother fears for her safety. Once the 18-year-old enters the building, her surroundings take on a more secure feel almost immediately as she passes through a bank of closely monitored metal detectors.
“My mom has never been comfortable with me walking to school. My mom is really scared of street thugs,” said Alvarez, who attends Western International.
As schools around the U.S. look for ways to impose tougher security measures in the wake of last month’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead, they don’t have to look further than urban districts such as Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York that installed metal detectors and other security in the 1980s and 1990s to combat gang and drug violence.
Security experts believe these measures have made urban districts less prone to mass shootings, which have mostly occurred in suburban and rural districts.
Officials in some suburban and rural school districts are now considering detectors as they rethink their security plans after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz allegedly brought in a duffel bag containing an assault rifle and opened fire. He’s charged with 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
The massacre has galvanized thousands of students around the country who walked out of their classrooms for 17 minutes — one for each Parkland victim — on March 14 to protest gun violence.
“I think urban schools are eons ahead. They’ve been dealing with violence a lot longer than suburban schools,” said Philip Smith, president of the National African American Gun Association.
During the mid-1980s, Detroit was one of the first districts in the nation to put permanent, walk-through metal detectors in high schools and middle schools. New York schools also had them in some buildings.
By 1992, metal detectors had been installed in a few dozen Chicago high schools. And in 1993, under pressure to make schools safer, Los Angeles’ district announced that it would randomly search students with metal detectors.
Such measures “are designed to identify and hopefully deter anybody from bringing a weapon to school, but metal detectors alone portray an illusion of being safe,” said Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of the 50,000-student Detroit Public Schools Community District.
“Our schools need to be safer than they are,” Vitti said. “As a nation, we need to fully fund and make sure all districts can adequately staff school resource officers and also offer mental health and first-aid training to all educators.”
Security measures don’t always keep guns off school grounds. A 17-year-old high school senior was killed and another student wounded March 7 in a Birmingham, Alabama, classroom shooting. Metal detectors at the school were not in use that day. A 17-year-old student has been charged with manslaughter.
Two students were shot and three people suffered other injuries in February when a gun in a backpack accidentally fired inside a Los Angeles Unified School District middle school. The district does random metal-detector wand searches daily in middle schools and high schools. A 12-year-old girl has been charged with being a minor in possession of a firearm and having a weapon on school grounds.
In response to the Parkland shooting, Florida’s governor has said he wants to spend $500 million to increase law enforcement and mental health counselors at schools, to make buildings more secure with metal detectors and to create an anonymous tip line.
A package of legislation passed by the New York state Senate includes provisions for metal detectors and improved security technology in schools. A parent in Knox County, Kentucky, has said his law office would donate $25,000 for metal detectors in schools there.
Alvarez, the student at Detroit’s Western International, said she and others who attend the school go through metal detectors every morning. Her elementary and middle schools also had metal detectors.
“I’ve always seen it as something that made me feel safe,” she said, adding that all schools should have them and not just inner-city ones “so students don’t feel discriminated against.”
Metal detectors are seen as a symptom of a “stigma that already exists,” said Mark Fancher, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan’s Racial Justice Project.
“There is a presumption that urban schools — particularly those with students of color — are violent places and security demands you have procedures in place that are intended to protect the safety of the students,” Fancher said.
But metal detectors, property searches, security guards and police in schools create conditions similar to those found in prisons, he said.
“Students, themselves, internalize these things,” Fancher said. “If you create a school that looks like a prison, the people who go there will pretty much decide that’s what is expected of them.”
Many urban districts have a greater awareness and sensitivity when it comes to students’ needs, said Kenneth Trump, president of the Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services, a K-12 security consulting firm.
“I think in urban schools, the approach of most of the educators, administrators and security personnel is, ‘We realize there are issues kids bring to school,’” said Trump, who has been in the school safety field for more than 30 years. “The people will tell you, ‘We are not in denial … we acknowledge our problems. We just don’t have enough resources to deal with it.’”
Suburban and rural administrators, parents and students often view themselves as different from their big-city counterparts, and that may impact how they treat school security, he said.
“There’s very often that divide of ‘There’s us and there’s them. We’re not the urban district. We are the alternative. We’re the place people go to get away from the urban district,’” he said.
Shooting guard Klay Thompson spoke to the media about the team’s choice after their Monday night win against the New York Knicks.
“The White House is a great honor, but there are some other circumstances that we felt uncomfortable going,” Thompson said. “We’re not going to politicize anything. We’re going to hang out with some kids, and take them to the African American Museum, and hopefully teach them some things we learned along the way.”
It’s customary for NBA Finals champions to visit the White House. But after the Warriors’ win in June, many players made it clear that they did not want to go because they disagreed with President Donald Trump’s politics. In September, star point guard Stephen Curry shared his views on a possible White House visit with USA Today.
“We don’t stand for basically what our president has — the things that he’s said and the things that he hasn’t said in the right times, that we won’t stand for it,” Curry said. “And by acting and not going, hopefully that will inspire some change when it comes to what we tolerate in this country and what is accepted and what we turn a blind eye to.”
Following Curry’s comments, Trump tweeted thatthe team was uninvited. The team’s head coach, Steve Kerr, decided to let the players choose how they wanted to spend time in the nation’s capital this week while there for a game against the Washington Wizards, according to ESPN.
The team had many options, including holding a ceremony with Democratic politicians, according to NBC News. But the team wanted to depoliticize the D.C. visit.
A recent statement from the Warriors, per the New York Post, indicated the team chose to “constructively use our trip to the nation’s capital in February to celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion — the values that we embrace as an organization.”
After nearly a century of educating Black students, Concordia College in Selma, Alabama announced on Wednesday that it will cease operations at the end of the spring semester.
“It was the toughest thing I’ve had to do in my 50 years of higher education,” Dr. James Lyons, the interim president of Concordia, told the Selma Times Journal, adding that the students “were quite shocked” by the news.
Like Concordia, many of the more than 100 HBCUs across the nation have dire financial problems, partly because operating costs are increasing while enrollment and financial aid decrease. Students at HBCUs are disproportionately low-income. About 70 percent of all HBCU students rely on federal grants and work-study programs to finance their education at a time when the Trump administration seeks ways to cut higher education funding.
Concordia, which opened in 1922, needed a minimum of $8 million to pay its debts and keep the doors open for at least one year—just enough money to buy time to find major investors. “It’s very difficult to operate an institution with the lowest possible tuition and fees when you are faced with escalating costs,” Lyons stated.
HBCUs are worth fighting for because, despite the challenges, they educate scores of Black students who would otherwise not attend college. These institutions accept scores of “at risk” students who need remedial academic work after graduating from public school systems that failed to educate them. Although they represent just 3 percent of all colleges and universities, HBCUs graduate more than 20 percent of Black college students and a disproportionately higher percentage of students who earn STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) degrees, compared to majority White institutions.
DEFENDER NEWS NETWORK — The Houston Independent School District has selected 22-year veteran educator and administrator Joseph Williams as the new principal for Wheatley High School. Williams’ tenure at Wheatley is effective today.
Williams is known for transforming underperforming schools into thriving campuses. Wheatley is in Year Six Improvement Required status, as designated by the Texas Education Agency, meaning it has not met state standards for six years.
For 90 years, Wheatley has served Houston’s historic Fifth Ward community and is recognized for its award-winning athletics program and notable alumni, which include Barbara Jordan, the first African-American U.S. Congresswoman from the South; her successor, U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland; and musician Archie Bell of Archie Bell & the Drells, among others.
“Joseph has consistently demonstrated a commitment toward improving teaching and learning while serving at HISD,” said Area Superintendent Erick Pruitt. “Every campus Joseph has led has consistently improved outcomes for students. I am excited to see what he will offer to Wheatley students and its community.”
Williams comes to Wheatley from Key Middle School, where he spent the last four years as principal.
During his tenure at Key, Williams led the school out of Improvement Required status by meeting state standards. Under his leadership, Key became the school with the second-highest student population growth in Texas among 40 comparative schools during the 2015-16 school year.
He also piloted and implemented the school’s ProUnitas Wraparound Services Program, designed to provide holistic services and support for students and their families, and implemented a Fine Arts Magnet Program alongside a multidisciplinary sports curriculum.
Prior to his assignment at Key Middle School, he also served as principal of Kelso Elementary School, Dogan Elementary School and assistant principal at Aldine Independent School District’s Vera Escamilla Intermediate School. Williams’ role at Wheatley marks his return to the high school’s feeder pattern. He began his career as a fifth-grade teacher at Atherton Elementary, where he was named Teacher of the Year for two consecutive years.
Throughout his career in education, Williams has worked as a fellow at Harvard University and has also partnered with the National Center for Urban School Transformation, Building Excellent Schools (BES), and Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Texas Southern University, obtained his teacher’s certification from St. Thomas University, and holds a master of education degree in administration and supervision from the University of Houston.
DEFENDER NEWS NETWORK — As HISD begins to prepare a budget for the upcoming 2018-2019 school year, the district is estimating a $208 million shortfall as result of the financial impact of Hurricane Harvey and recapture.
HISD has seen a decline in student enrollment and is planning for a further decline for the coming school year, which will mean a decrease in state funding. The district also anticipates the storm will have a significant impact on the city’s property values, which will be released in April 2018. HISD’s main source of funding is property tax dollars. To date, the district has received no indication of how much and when they’ll be reimbursed for Harvey-related expenditures.
These factors, combined with the district’s 2018-2019 recapture payment, is creating an estimated $208 million deficit and is requiring HISD to make difficult choices about how funds will be allocated at the school and district level for the upcoming 2018-2019 school year.
“While we may have made it through Hurricane Harvey, we are now firmly in the financial storm,” said HISD Superintendent of Schools Richard Carranza. “The financial struggles brought by Harvey, recapture, and school finance have put us in a difficult position, but it is our duty to proceed thoughtfully about the resources, materials, and staffing we need to ensure we meet our goals of educating the whole child and providing all students with the essential services they need to be successful.”
Utilizing an equity lens, the district has reviewed its current funding model and is proposing a shift for the 2018-2019 school year. Currently, schools receive funding through a Per Unit Allocation (PUA), which allocates dollars per student and allows principals to decide how those dollars are used on their campus. Under the proposed staffing model, or Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) model, principals will still decide whom they will hire, but the district will ensure that every school has essential positions such as a nurse, counselor, and librarian. Schools would be assigned positions rather than dollars based on the number of students they serve.
A Principal’s Advisory Committee has been assembled to assist with the process of creating the district FTE model in a way that meets the needs of all schools. The committee includes representatives from all trustee districts, school levels, and types of schools. The committee has, and will continue to meet, regularly with the HISD budgeting department to offer their feedback, which will be included in all budget presentations made to HISD Board of Education.
In addition to the proposed FTE school budgeting model, all HISD departments are being asked to make cuts for the coming school year totaling $116 million, which is 56% of the $208 million deficit.
HISD Board of Education members will review a draft budget proposal, which includes recommendations from the Principals Advisory committee and proposed department cuts, at a workshop on Thursday, Feb. 1, at 2 p.m. in the Manuel Rodriguez Board Auditorium located at the Hattie Mae White Educational Support Center, 4400 W. 18th St. 77092.
Future board workshops and community meetings will be held over the coming weeks and months to review changes and updates to the proposed budget. By law, the HISD Board of Education must approve a budget by June 30, 2018.
The board workshop will be broadcast live online at www.hisdtv.org and
DEFENDER NEWS NETWORK — More than half of Texas public school students are in districts that don’t require teachers to be certified, according to state officials, due to a recent law giving schools more freedom on educational requirements.
A 2015 law lets public schools access exemptions from requirements such as teacher certification, school start dates and class sizes — the same exemptions allowed for open enrollment charter schools. Using a District of Innovation plan, districts can create a comprehensive educational program and identify provisions under Texas law that would inhibit their goals.
Data from the Texas Education Agency found that 604 rural and urban districts with innovation plans have received an exemption from teacher certification so far. Texas Association of School Boards spokesperson Dax Gonzalez said most of those districts are using the exemption so industry specialists — such as engineers, nurses and law enforcement officials — can offer hands-on learning to students in career and technology classes.
But the move has some education experts worried that districts are laying the groundwork for having uncertified teachers handle core subjects like math, science and language arts, despite a promise not to do so. Although uncertified educators have been able to teach core classes through waivers and permits, those are approved on a case-by-case basis.
Usually, in order to teach in Texas classrooms, candidates must obtain certification by earning a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university, completing an educator preparation program, passing the appropriate teacher certification exams, being fingerprinted for a national criminal background check and submitting a state application.
In Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District, Tim Soto is one of eight uncertified teachers, all responsible for career and technology courses. The electronic technician was hired to teach classes on hands-on tool usage and safety and electrical field practices.
This is Soto’s first year as a teacher, but he has worked for Harlingen CISD for 26 years as an apprentice electrician and a technology specialist. Soto, a college graduate, said he “jumped at the chance” to to give back to the district. And, he said, he’s received nothing but support from other teachers and his students’ parents in creating his curriculum.
“I was nervous, but things just fell into place,” Soto said. “I’ve found that my years of experience are invaluable for students. Instead of having them just read out of a textbook, I can show them how to use the proper tools and help them avoid making mistakes as an apprentice.”
But districts aren’t required to limit the exemption to only career and technology courses. The blanket certification exemption legally allows them to hire uncertified teachers for staple classes like Algebra I or Biology, and even for special education or early childhood classes.
“We don’t want it to expand,” said Kate Kuhlmann, a lobbyist with the Association of Texas Professional Educators. “There are a lot of people that have great content knowledge, but it’s also really important they have a strong understanding of and training in what it means to be a teacher.”
Because there are already avenues around teacher certification — such as waivers and permits that have to be accepted by TEA, the commissioner of education or the school board — a broader exemption should not be necessary, said Texas State Teachers Association spokesperson Clay Robison. Robison called the innovation plan exemption a way for districts to “cut corners” without the same accountability.
Many states have responded to a national teacher shortage by allowing emergency-type hires, said Desiree Carver-Thomas, a research and policy associate with the Learning Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in California. More than 100,000 teachers were unqualified based on their state’s certification standards, according to data between 2015 and 2017, Carver-Thomas said.
But Texas exemption standards are among the broadest nationally, Kuhlmann said. Many states just offer permits or waivers for districts that need to fill classrooms with uncertified teachers. And while states like Kansas and Alabama have innovation district models that offer a teacher certification exemption, Kuhlmann said they have built-in parameters for how many districts can qualify and what classes fall under the exemption.
Still, receiving a response for case-by-case applications in Texas can take nearly a month, and there’s always the possibility of being rejected. And unlike the permit or waiver process, choosing exemptions under a District of Innovation plan involves community input, two-thirds buy-in from the district’s board of trustees and approval from a district-level decision-making committee, said Bruce Gearing, Dripping Springs ISD’s superintendent.
Gearing said he doesn’t foresee his district hiring uncertified teachers outside of career and technical education. Even if that need arises, he said, the district would have to go through a public amendment process to change the implementation of the teacher certification exemption.
“It’s about trust,” Gonzalez, the TASB spokesperson, said. “You either trust local school boards and administrations to go out and find the best teachers for students, or you don’t. And again, this exemption just allows a flexibility that charter schools already have.”
