Public charter schools in D.C. have recently come under scrutiny for what many see as a lack of transparency. Unlike traditional public schools, charters aren’t required to make salaries, records, or vendor contracts under $100,000 public, nor are they required to have open meetings.  Most states do have rules requiring transparency in those areas, and now the District may be moving in that direction.

Councilmember Charles Allen of Ward 6 this week announced the measure as part of the “Public School Transparency Amendment Act of 2019,” which will be introduced next week.

Under the proposed legislation, the Public Charter School Board, which oversees 123 public charter schools educating 43,958 students in pre-K through 12th grade in the District, would be required to report Freedom of Information Act requests to the D.C. Council. Allen’s bill would also require reporting of all employees’ names and salaries (D.C. Public Schools already make this information public).

The bill also aims to give the school community—including teachers and students—a stronger voice by requiring public charter schools to include two teachers and a student (in the case of high schools and adult learning schools) on the school board.

“When tax dollars are involved, the public has a right to know how that money is spent and the decisions around it,” said Allen in a press release about the legislation. “I know most charter schools are committed to transparency on their own and do a great job with it. But parents and teachers should be able to have some baseline guarantees that don’t vary school to school.”

The nonprofit organization EmpowerEd DC has led the push for legislation to increase transparency in public charter schools. Executive Director Scott Goldstein feels the legislation will help give teachers and parents more of a voice. “Teachers, parents, and students should be part of the conversation if the board is making decisions to increase class size, cut personnel, etc.,” he says. “Those decisions will be better if community stakeholders are a part of them.”

Public charter schools receive tax dollars on a per-student basis, and they are required to make some information public, such as assessment and performance information and yearly graduation rates. But other aspects of transparency are not currently required.

Now, more than 20 years after Congress first paved the way for charters with the D.C. School Reform Act of 1995, these schools educate nearly half of the District’s students. And after the abrupt closure of César Chávez PCS for Public Policy Middle School, D.C.’s only unionized charter, the pressure has grown to require charter schools to make more information public.

The Public Charter School Board has felt that pressure, and said it would be taking steps to increase transparency. But by adding a FOIA clause and putting teachers on school boards, Allen’s bill takes the call for transparency a few steps further than PCSB’s policy proposals.

The Public Charter School Board characterized the legislation as “misguided” in a statement, saying that it “fails to take into account the extraordinary transparency measures already taken by the Public Charter School Board … Nothing in this bill will help close the achievement gap, reduce the number of students living in poverty, or reduce truancy. We support a smart, reasonable approach that provides the transparency parents need, but does not divert school efforts, attention, and funds away from educating students.”

Irene Holtzman, executive director of the charter school advocacy organization Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, echoes those concerns. She says the proposed legislation would burden charter schools—many of which have very small staffs—with reporting requirements that other nonprofits that also receive government funding don’t have.

“We’re already funded at just 70 percent of traditional public schools. Another unfunded mandate is unreasonable,” says Holtzman. “Where is the focus on outcomes? How will these requirements help parents or anyone else evaluate how effectively and equitably all our public schools are serving students?”

EmpowerEd’s Goldstein notes that neither traditional public schools nor charters report on teachers by school including demographics or teaching experience. He, along with FOCUS and other advocates, would also like to see more budget transparency from DCPS. “There are areas for both sectors to improve, and we hope to see more actions on transparency, especially with their budget,” he says.

Once it is introduced, the bill will be referred to a committee, likely the Committee on Education.

This story has been updated to reflect that the measure was announced this week and will be formally introduced next week.