Dive Brief:

• The Arkansas Senate has already approved a bill that would give charter schools special rights to unused school buildings or underutilized space inside them, and the State House advanced the bill out of committee this week.
• The Arkansas Nonprofit News Network reports the bill would require school districts to submit annual reports to the state identifying their unused or underutilized public school facilities, giving charter schools the chance to purchase or lease that space, and it would also restrict districts from selling or leasing public school property to non-charter entities for two years after it goes on that list.
• Critics say the bill wrestles local control and decision-making power from districts that are better positioned to know what is best in their communities, while supporters say it will give charter school students access to facilities that exist specifically for educational purposes.

Dive Insight:

The Arkansas bill is an example of legislation that could become increasingly common with U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and President Donald Trump advocating for school choice. In many communities, district-run schools are placed in opposition to charter schools and activists have fought against the use of closed school buildings by charters they say are causing school closings in the first place.

In Chicago, the mass closing of 50 schools in 2012 was approved with the promise that the empty buildings would not be leased or sold to charters. This promise was meant to underscore the argument that charters were not being opened in neighborhoods with declining student enrollment. But critics say this has limited the district in finding uses for former school buildings, many of which have remained empty.