Challenges to Charter Laws Mount

By Jessica L. Sandham

Ten years after Minnesota became the first state to authorize charter schools, serious challenges to existing charter laws are arising in a handful of states that have traditionally been friendly to the publicly financed but administratively independent schools.

State lawmakers in both Pennsylvania and Texas are debating proposals that would temporarily halt the creation of new charter schools. And the Ohio Federation of Teachers was expected this week to file a lawsuit charging that the state's charter schools violate a provision in the Ohio Constitution requiring a "thorough and efficient system of common schools," governed by local school boards.

Even Minnesota legislators are considering imposing new accountability requirements on such schools after several high-profile school closings...