SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Many public school leaders believe charter schools pose a mortal threat to government-run schools, and will do everything in their power to keep the alternative schools out of their communities.

Quite often, that means school leaders will deny applications from charter school operators who want to open a new school within the district. Government school leaders in many states can do that because the law allows them to.

It’s an obvious conflict of interest – sort of like putting McDonalds’ officials in charge of deciding whether or not Burger King can open in their market.

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Illinois lawmakers addressed this conflict of interest problem three years ago by creating a state commission that has the power to override a school district’s veto of a proposed charter school. The commission seemed like such a common sense idea at the time that it received “overwhelming” support in both the Illinois House and Senate, the Chicago Tribune reports.

But now there’s an effort underway by state Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia and other Illinois lawmakers to kill off that state commission – officially known as the Illinois State Charter School Commission – because it receives funding from foundations that support charter schools.

LaVia – who voted for the commission in 2011 – now says the body doesn’t have enough “legislative oversight” and that pro-charter foundations could have undue influence over how members vote on applications.

Charges of corruption seem over-the-top, given that the commission has only overturned two of the 13 decisions by local school boards that have been brought to them on appeal.

And while Chapa LaVia’s concerns about potential corruption may be reasonable, they’re kind of surprising. As a new Chicago Tribune editorial notes, the commission accepts funding from foundations because that’s how the legislature designed the commission to work.

“The expectation was that it would be funded by outside donations and from fees collected from schools it authorizes and oversees,” according to the Tribune editorial. “If lawmakers think that creates a potential conflict of interest, they should provide direct funding.”

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Sounds reasonable to us.

The Tribune editorial goes on to suggest that the Illinois State Charter School Commission refrain from overriding rejected charter applications in districts that have a history of welcoming the alternative public schools. In those cases, the paper argues, district leaders should receive the benefit of the doubt that they had a good reason for denying an application.

However, the Tribune editorial concludes that lawmakers’ “efforts to kill or straitjacket the commission are off base.”  The paper says the commission is needed to ensure local officials aren’t rejecting charter school applications just because they want to protect the status quo on their home turf.