The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has ranked Louisiana as the second highest of all the states, based on how our state’s charter school law aligns with the organization’s model law.

The NAPCS is a charter school advocacy organization. NAPCS doesn't consider charter schools just an educational model; they consider charter education a movement.

Therefore, it's no surprise that their rankings reward states for making charter schools less accountable to local voters and taxpayers.

For example, Louisiana gets full marks for having no caps on charters or geographic limits on student attendance.

We also earn praise because Louisiana now is recruiting “local charter authorizers” that can create hundreds of charter schools without approval of affected communities, school boards or the state education board.

The group likes the fact that for-profit corporations are “explicitly allowed to operate all or parts of schools.”

Louisiana’s law gets high marks because of the wide-ranging authority given to charter school boards, which have little responsibility to the community at large.

The Alliance praises Louisiana’s law for exempting charter schools from most state and district laws and regulations.

Louisiana gets a high score for allowing charter schools with an “A” or “B” grade to open two additional schools without approval from any other body.

Each of these elements, considered positive by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, tends to divert funds approved by local voters away from the purposes listed on the ballot. They reduce accountability to the local voters and taxpayers who democratically elect representatives to community school boards.