An education summit about charter schools began this morning in Louisville, and those behind the movement want to respond to the needs of economically disadvantaged parents who are unhappy with the performance of public schools where they live.

Charter schools comprise 5 percent of public schools across America, according to the website for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. There are 4,913 charter schools and 93,065 noncharter schools across America, the NAPCS website said. 

A charter school gains access to local, state and federal resources used for public education. That could include local tax resources tied to the child, but that isn’t always the case, according to Starlee Rhoades, spokesman for the NAPCS.

Sometimes, charter schools raise funds within a community, Rhoades said. 

Under a law proposed in Kentucky, charter school approval could come from a local board of education, which would choose to “charter” a school, explained state Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, chairman of the state Senate Education Committee. 

“This would not be a private school, but rather a public school,” Wilson said. Parents or teachers could choose to push the issue in a school district for a school to be chartered.

Another way a public school could be chartered would be through approval by a state commission, whose members would be appointed by the governor.

Wilson does not see charter schools taking hold locally, since the bill’s parameters tie creation of a charter school to poor performance. Academic testing programs have shown that both school districts in Warren County and Bowling Green are high-performing institutions.

A state House member said charter schools are a life preserver for areas of Kentucky where educational mediocrity has become a year-to-year standard.

“Children don’t have a choice,” said state Rep. Brad Montell, R-Shelbyville, who sponsored the House charter school authorization legislation last session. He said poorly performing public schools in Jefferson County are a large part of the problem. Jefferson County, with 88,000 students, is the state’s largest public school district. Montell said those parents need other public school options, and charter schools is a good one.

“We are going to write the bill to focus on areas with nonperforming schools,” Montell said. “This is not intended to come into a community and decimate public schools.”

Kentucky’s U.S. senators, Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, and Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, are on the program at the LeRoy Neiman Gallery of the Muhammad Ali Center today.

Wilson is also on the panel. “It’s (charter schools) been proven to be successful in other areas, such as Louisiana and Washington, D.C., turning schools around,” Wilson said.

“The politics of school reform are very complicated,” Rhoades said. “There is a lot of difficulty in any state where a charter school law is passed for the first time.”

The Kentucky Charter Schools Association is expected to lead the fight in Frankfort during the next General Assembly session, according to Rhoades. Kentucky is one of eight states that doesn’t permit charter schools. A bill in the General Assembly last session to permit charter schools, sponsored by Wilson, passed the Republican-controlled state Senate but died in the Democrat-controlled House. A House bill sponsored by Montell didn’t make it out of committee.

NAPCS, Democrats for Educational Reform and the Black Alliance for Education Options are sponsors of the meeting this morning, along with other groups.

— Chuck Mason covers education. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/bgdnschools or visit bgdailynews.com.