Introduction
In Maine, charter schools are required to comply with specific standards, and their compliance with these standards is regularly reviewed by the Maine Charter School Commission (the Commission). If a charter school fails to comply with these standards too egregiously, the Commission may choose to shut it down. This is a highly subjective process, with no bright line established for several of the standards of review, as well as how many violations would lead to a charter school being shut down.
Charter schools are effectively a merger of several characteristics of private schools and public schools, as they involve a private organization contracting with the state to operate a public school under certain conditions established by a contract, or “charter.” Many states are light handed in their regulations of charter schools, but Maine instead creates a regulatory structure that places many burdens on charter schools wishing to operate in the state.
In Maine there are only 10 charter schools allowed by statute, although some operate multiple campuses, akin to a charter school district. The justification the state of Maine uses for this cap is that, while charter schools are public schools, they compete with noncharter public schools for per-pupil funding. Thus, if too many children transfer to charter schools, noncharter public schools may not have a large enough student population to sustain themselves.
While this is one reason that Maine gives to explain why it is so restrictive on charter schools, this justification is greatly undermined by the fact that charter schools disproportionately attract students of low-income backgrounds or specific learning disabilities, such as autism or emotional disturbances. In addition, Maine enrolls the highest proportion of disabled students in their charter schools of any state. The percent of charter schools’ student bodies that are disabled is 8.38% higher than the student bodies of Maine’s noncharter public schools.
Per-pupil funding is designed to provide more funding to schools with more students, and it does so by providing additional funding estimated in part based on the extra cost of teaching an additional student. Since charter schools disproportionately teach students that require special education resources or are low-income, on average they should improve the bottom line for noncharter schools rather than make it worse. This is because while they do reduce other schools’ per-pupil funding, they are also removing particularly resource intensive students from the student population.
Because Maine is so restrictive on charter schools, the state has not been able to provide educational services with maximum effectiveness. With major declines in educational quality occurring during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial that Maine invest in innovative education models. Thus, to illustrate the unfairness and burden that Maine’s regulatory system places on charter schools, Maine Policy Institute in this report applies those same charter standards to noncharter public schools to estimate how many would be shut down if held to the same requirements. This data will inform policymakers about the unnecessary nature of so many of the requirements applied to charter schools under Maine law, as well as show the benefits of reforming Maine’s charter school system as a whole.
It is important to remember that some of these standards are highly subjective, as is the Commission’s final determination on whether to shut down a charter school. Maine requires at least five of the seven charter school commissioners to approve renewal, which means while these standards can be somewhat subjective, they are still quite stringent.
Additionally, because many of these standards are not measured for noncharter public schools, Maine Policy Institute had to use or create secondary measures to estimate what a noncharter public school’s performance would be if held to that standard. Using the data published primarily through the Maine Department of Education (MDOE), we then estimated how many noncharter public schools would be found in violation of each standard. Because there is no bright line test the Commission uses to judge whether a charter school should be shut down, we cannot be absolutely certain that a given noncharter public school would or would not be approved for renewal.
However, because the one charter school that was ever denied renewal in Maine, Harpswell Coastal Academy, was shut down for violations in three separate standards of measurement, we place special emphasis on whether a school violates at least three of the three standards we measure.
In our analysis, we measure nine different standards, abandoning others because they rely on exit surveys which noncharter public schools simply don’t use. In our final conclusion, out of the more than five-hundred noncharter public schools measured, 71 schools were failing at least three standards (with 28 failing more than three). This means that 14%, or nearly one-in-seven noncharter public schools, would likely be labelled as failing if treated like a charter school.
Additionally, 172 noncharter public schools are failing at least two standards, over one-third of all schools. We consider this a “yellow flag” standard at risk of future closure under the same standards used for charters.
Lastly, 364 schools, or 61.28%, were violating at least one of the standards we measured, which is often enough for the charter commission to begin what is called the “Intervention Protocol Process.” The Commission issues a Corrective Action Plan, and failure to meet those standards set by the Commission can lead to the school being placed on probation or having sanctions issued, including charter revocation. On their face, over three in five noncharter public schools in Maine would not be able to function as fully standard-compliant charter schools, and would likely have Corrective Action Plans issued against them.
It should be noted that many charter schools also are below expectations for at least one or two standards. However, the three standard failure rate is quite low among charters, and three standard failures was the same criteria that resulted in Harpswell Coastal’s closure. Thus, the 14% failure rate for noncharter public schools is both the more concerning and more pertinent finding in this report.
In our analysis, we look at the nine charter school programs currently operating in Maine. Data from Harpswell Coastal Academy, which closed in 2023, is not used in this report. Nonetheless, the Harpswell Coastal Academy provides a clear example of what conduct will result in a charter school being closed. However, we only consider currently active charter schools in our analysis of noncharter public schools’ performance in our standards, as there is no up-to-date 2023-2024 school year data for Harpswell Coastal Academy from which to compare.
Additionally, for several of the standards that are based on grade range, we divide the Community Regional Charter School into its subsidiary programs. There are three campuses for this charter, each with separate grade ranges served: Overman Academy (Grades 6-12), Dimensions Academy (K-8), and Creative Children’s Academy (Preschool-Kindergarten). The Overman Academy and Dimensions Academy have very different grade ranges, leading to them being compared to different types of noncharter schools for academic performance. Meanwhile, the Creative Children’s Academy doesn’t have old enough students for standardized testing or other school performance standards to apply.
First, the report will discuss the methodology we apply across nine standards of review applying charter school standards to noncharter schools. After applying the standards, we measure how many noncharter schools would fail each standard, then combine failed standards to measure how many noncharter schools would be considered failing if held to the same charter standards used to close Harpswell Coastal Academy.