May 19, 2025 Testimony (Senate Finance)
NSEA supports SB318 to address the for-profit components of Nevada’s charter school industry.
NSEA supported SB318 in the Education Committee, and you can read our detailed support for the policy proposal, especially the limitation on contracting with education management organizations.
Related to the fiscal note submitted, SB318 addresses the profit-motive in Nevada’s charter school system. Currently, EMOs are largely unaccountable and not transparent as to their operations or performance. For profit companies like Academica take millions of Nevada tax dollars. Any type of savings from economies of scale from using EMOs would be more than offset by the profit that is siphoned off from the system. This means, if SB318 is implemented with fidelity, it will save charter schools money.
Requiring prevailing wages in charter school construction projects will have no impact on charter schools who rent facilities, as the rental market is dependent on what prospective tenants are willing to pay and not the cost of providing facilities. While this provision may have an impact on the financials of the for-profit charter school development industry, the overall cost to Nevada will be less, as promoting prevailing wage work has a positive economic impact, while ensuring workers and their families will be less reliant on other public services.
NSEA fully supports SB318 and thanks Senator Daly for authoring this important piece of legislation. We ask for your support.
March 19, 2025 Testimony (Senate Education)
Charter schools were initially promoted by educators who sought to innovate within the local public school system to better meet the needs of their students. However, over the last 3 decades, charters have grown dramatically to include large numbers of charters that are privately managed by for-profit education management organizations. These EMOs are largely unaccountable and not transparent as to their operations or performance. The explosive growth of charters has been driven by billionaire investment and deliberate efforts to ensure that charters are exempt from the basic safeguards and standards that apply to public schools, which mirror efforts to privatize other public institutions for profit. NSEA is not against charter schools. We are against the profit motive that drives the current charter industry. SB318 addresses this by curbing education management organizations and requiring basic labor standards in charter school construction projects.
Chartered for Profit, a report by the Network for Public Education, highlights significant issues with for-profit EMOs. While technically prohibited from directly running charter schools, EMOs exploit legal loopholes by setting up nonprofit boards that function as mere fronts, allowing EMOs to control school operations and finances. This arrangement prioritizes profit over student outcomes, leading to cost-cutting measures that can result in lower teacher salaries, high turnover rates, and reduced student services. Additionally, Chartered for Profit details how EMOs engage in self-dealing, where related-party transactions funnel public funds into privately owned real estate and service contracts, often with little oversight. The lack of transparency and accountability in these arrangements undermines the original mission of charter schools and diverts taxpayer dollars away from classrooms and student learning.
Since 2017, NSEA has been asking for greater control and oversight of charter schools, especially given the separate and unequal dynamics between charter schools and neighborhood public schools. In 2017, NSEA worked with CCSD on AB78 to require charter schools to notify the school district and conduct a needs assessment before they could be approved. In 2019, NSEA sponsored and the Committee on Education introduced AB462, a proposed moratorium on new charter schools in Nevada. In a political compromise, the legislature amended AB462 to require the Charter School Authority to develop and implement a growth management plan. However, with the supercharged growth in charter schools since its passage, it’s clear AB462 failed to adequately manage charter growth. To provide some perspective, since the spring of 2019, SPCSA schools have grown by over 25,000 students, or 57%. In that same time, district schools have lost over 40,000 students, about 9%. The State Public Charter School Authority is now the second largest school district in the state.
When a student leaves a neighborhood school for a charter school, the public funding for that student goes with them, but the neighborhood school’s overhead costs remain. Charter schools can exacerbate existing inequities by creating barriers to entry for vulnerable students. This could be as simple as students with the greatest support self-selecting into charters, effectively siphoning away students with the most engaged parents, leaving students with greater needs and fewer resources. Also, charter schools are much quick to expel students with behavior problems and/or other issues, sending these students back to their neighborhood public schools. This has created a two-tiered system of public education. While the SPCSA authority has worked on inequities in their student population, charters educate a significantly lower percentage of students with IEPs, students who are low-income, and English learners.
These are some of the reasons why NSEA opposed the expansion of Academica’s Mater Academy into the North Valleys in Reno. The new Mater Academy is slated to be built immediately next to WCSD’s Alice Smith Elementary School, a WCSD school currently at 72% capacity. The SPCSA approval process had no regard for the students and educators at Alice Smith Elementary School or any school in the Washoe County School District. In fact, WCSD notified the SPSCA that a new 1460 seat charter school in that location would cause the closure of at least one school at the elementary level. It’s painfully clear that profit motive and not community interest drove the decision to site Mater Academy in that location. That is why NSEA opposed the expansion of Mater Academy and continues to ask the Legislature for greater controls and accountability of charter schools.
NSEA fully supports SB318 and thanks Senator Daly for authoring this important piece of legislation. We ask for your support.
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