On his blog, Julian Vasquez Heilig reports that the California Charter Schools Association is shocked! shocked! to learn that some charters require parents to volunteer time or pay not to volunteer their time. He discusses a survey conducted by a civil rights group called Public Advocates, which reached this conclusion.
Apparently the California Charter School Association hasn’t heard of such a thing happening in practice or charter school policy, even though Public Advocates delivered the evidence to the public via parent whistleblowers and publicly available policy documents. Public Advocates’ report documented its year-long investigation into an inequitable and illegal practice by some of California’s charter schools, and calls for charter schools to end requiring payment in lieu of volunteer hours. Public Advocates is demanding that the state take immediate action to stop the practice and increase its oversight of charter schools more generally.
Heilig quotes the story in the San Francisco Chronicle:
At least 170 California charter schools are violating the state Constitution by requiring parents to volunteer up to 100 hours a year if they want their kids to participate in field trips and other activities or remain enrolled in the school, according to civil rights lawyers in a report released Thursday.
A survey of 555 California charter schools — about half of all charters in the state — found that nearly a third impose family volunteer time, with some allowing parents to pay $5 to $25 per hour to buy their way out of the commitment.
“One of the reasons it’s so alarming to us is it’s punishing a kid for something that’s not the kid’s fault,” said Hilary Hammel, attorney at the nonprofit law firm Public Advocates and lead author on the report.
Hammel cited an Oakland parent who found on the first day of seventh grade that her son was not enrolled at his charter school because she had not completed the required volunteer hours the previous year. She was told she could either pay $300 on the spot or go buy three large boxes of paper.
She went and bought $80 worth of paper and returned to enroll her son.
Does that happen in public schools too?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This has been going on in FL for years. Most charters I know of here in Miami make the parents do about 10 hrs, or pay $50 instead. Yes, it is wrong because a Charter should not demand more than a public school.
Though maybe Public schools should demand some parental involvement (with some kind of penalty for not fulfilling it?). I like the idea because it helps families see, feel, experience that a public school is not a “consumer-only” venture, but should require some kind of input.
If it “takes a village to raise a child”, then maybe the village should spend some time at the school?
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You’re missing the point: the village doesn’t include the parents. How dare we expect parents take an interest in the education of their children. Unfair competition with the state.
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Well, maybe in the Brave New World of overreaching Federal control, the village is void of any families and parents, but in the CE, Current Era, of “families are first” I would expect mom and dad to care and contribute to their public schools, and if not, then use their own private money for a private education. Charters seem to be always struggling with “conflict of interests”, as they try to serve “all”, but with private interests dictating how that service should be. The lack of accountability (ex. charter administrations have no school district/board to answer to [at least, not like public schools], employees have no union to support them) and excessive freedoms of charters can be a problem.
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I won’t cast a wide net, but my neighbors sent their kids to a charter for two years. They showed me the “parent contract.” They were required to do many things including volunteering their time and fundraising. They were fundraising for a for-profit school. Isn’t that essentially free labor?
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Steve K: if what you write is true, then if their parent contract required them to give of their time and effort for, among other things, “fundraising for a for-profit school”—
Isn’t that worse than “free labor”? Isn’t that coerced labor?
Regardless of the legal niceties, I find what you describe to be immoral and dishonest.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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The opposite is happening in PA. They are requring all volunteers to get background checks ( http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2014/11/20/North-Allegheny-officials-say-new-state-law-on-volunteers-problematic/stories/201411200059 ) which is inspired by the Jerry Sandusky scandal, but is an effective way of preventing volunteer work in public schools.
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Sounds like peonage to me. But then perhaps I’m over reacting.
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Why be shocked at ANYTHING the charters do now????
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To all of whom it may concern:
It is time to analyze, to calculate, and to examine critically the STIFF price to pay for DEMOCRACY.
Democracy is for people who earn through hard fighting and through appreciation of its merit. In other word, Democracy is not ready for people just to enjoy without hard fighting, nor without appreciation.
Let’s do a very simple calculation. The bottom price of babysitting is $5.00 per hour, or $40.00 per day, or $200.00 weekly per student. If we have a crowded classroom of 35 minimum, then each teacher without any teaching preparation at all, without any insult of incompetency, will earn minimum without tax deduction the clear amount of $200×35 = $7000 weekly. (Please note that with degree and experience, a minimum wage is $50 to $200 per hour, let’s multiply 10 times more as the minimum, teacher MUST EARN $70,000 weekly for a class of 35 pupils. Most of all, in PSE, each class minimum of 200 students! And all adjunct professors have no pension and no respect from administrators, how sad to be in teaching profession!)
Now, you see what I imply about Union leaders, Parents, and Administrators who from DOE to principals earn their living at the expense of all PRECIOUS, CONSCIENTIOUS, and CARING teaching professionals.
Whenever teachers call out for support, please all Union Leaders, Parents, DOE, and principals MUST REMEMBER that their democracy needs to EARN by a hard fight along with all PRECIOUS, CONSCIENTIOUS, and CARING teachers.
Whenever GREEDY, CONTROLLING, and POWER HUNGER business tycoons try to successfully OPPRESS the teaching professionals, all Union Leaders, Parents, DOE, and principals MUST ACKNOWLEDGE that they bought all of you out easily, they can shut you down the same way easily. The future of all people who are GAGAers is the oblivious picture of A SLAVE, AN ADDICT, or mindless and useless human beings.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all seen Angels on earth. All precious, conscientious and caring teachers are truly seen Angels on earth. I can feel for their pain and frustration in fighting against villainous devils as well as I can see their victory in cultivating and maintaining humanity in many upcoming young generations in K-12.
Back2basic
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Sounds like The Hunger Games to me.
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I find nothing wrong with this. Parental apathy is a real problem that directly affects student success; anything that gets parents more involved in their children’s schools is a good thing.
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I have parents fighting disease and some severely disabled. Disabled parents are not making six figure salaries. Paying off a charter may mean less food or rent. Should their kids be excluded?
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I guess you agree with Mike Petrelli – the fact that charters skim for the best students with the most committed families is a feature, not a bug. I guess those kids unlucky enough to get born to families who can’t/won’t commit are just SOL.
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This is another way charters weed out the weak and artificially inflate their performance, intentionally or not.
I know of no studies that show that parent involvement in school boosts kids’ achievement. In fact I’ve read that in Asia parent involvement AT HOME helps, but that Asian parents rarely if ever come into schools. By contrast, I’ve read that American parents who help out on campus tend to have kids with lower-than-average performance –they’re trying to be vigilant with their kids, but it works no miracles This mania for “parent involvement” seems just another wooly headed fashion in education that everyone sanctimoniously endorses without really knowing what they’re talking about.
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Amanda Ripley, America’s most-interviewed education expert, says parental involvement – physical presence, fundraising, general boosterism- in school doesn’t make any difference in academic performance of students.
Of course, academic performance may not be the only reason parents want to be involved, but mandating involvement may not be worthwhile.
It’s obviously good for fundraising, but even there it would matter where the volunteer-generated funds go.
I wonder if mandated parental involvement is just more “secret sauce” – something they believe sets them apart from public schools.
http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/sunday-commentary/20131127-qa-amanda-ripley-on-creating-the-smartest-kids-in-the-world.ece
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Mandatory volunteer hours are illegal? Tell Maryland’s charters then. Some of these places are like totalitarian regimes, seriously, where a word against the supreme leader, the CEO, gets a kid or a family emotionally battered, banished from the school, and worse.
It was/is so sad to see the volunteers being run into the ground collecting box tops and having bake sales to prove their loyalty while the CEO is so handsomely compensated – $5000.00 plus a week ! for basically politicking against real public schools and bullying families into towing the party line.
The parents aren’t “involved”, they are basically slaves to the whims of the ruling class, or “the founders”.
It’s like looking in on a cult, it seems obvious to us what’s happening, but they can’t seem to see it.
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