Rocketship Charters, which puts kids on computers and cuts costs by hiring Teach for America kids, applied to open a charter school in the Mount Diablo School District in California. The local school board voted no, unanimously. The Rocketship corporation appealed to the Costra County School Board, which also rejected their petition. The corporation then took their appeal to the State Board of Education, which overturned the local board and the county board and granted permission to the charter to open in the Mount Diablo district.
Of course, this means that the public schools in the district will have fewer resources, and will have to lay off teachers and cut programs so that the charter can thrive. The district, which serves most children, will suffer to feed the charter.
Another illustration of California’s willingness to sacrifice public schools and local control for the sake of the charter industry. Once again, the 1% get their way, regardless of the will of the local community and its elected board.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The civil rights issue of our time, the digital education feed lot?
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Yes, this is definitely a movement fueled by the 1%. I am an ordinary citizen of California and no one ever asked me to vote on this issue. To this day I have no clue as to how it came about. I just hope citizens eventually rebel against it, especially when they realize that their local schools are being taken from them and school tax money is disappearing into private pockets.
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It came about by an extremely charter-favorable law passed 1992 before charters were a “thing” (only the second law in the country). The schools must be approved unless they are fundamentally unsound (even if it would bankrupt the originating district), and there are three levels of appeal- the last to a state board packed with charter advocates. Later, when voters realized that CA schools were held hostage by tax cutting zealots and tried to change the law in 2003 to make it easier to pass bond measures intended to help local schools by lowering the 2/3 vote requirement to 55% (Prop 39), charter advocates managed to sneak in to the proposition a measure that requires public schools to make their facilities available to charters. Because, apparently, it is only “fair” that these schools, many of which are privately run, have access to facilities constructed at public expense. So you see it s a very long con.
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Parasite. Host.
For all you Common Core zealots out there with your close reading of informational texts: which is which?
😎
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The charter lobby obviously knows how to place its bribes where they get the most leverage.
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If you have a problem at your charter school – just remember – you have no elected local school board, no county board of ed, no state Board of ed, no local or state union, no school site council, no PTA, no bilingual commitee to voice your complaint. This is a private company that answers to no one but their own hand picked board. There are no checks and balances provided by elected or government officials -so you are on your own with any questions or problems you might have.
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To top it off, Rocketship provides a substandard education. The curriculum is no good, the teachers are inexperienced, and the students’ scores are middling to below-average. Nothing, really, to commend the charter school.
Q: Why in the world would the state of California approve of it?
A: Well-heeled lobbyists and weak-kneed politicians.
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Here is the bottom line – why does anyone enroll their kids in Rocketshit? And, I spelled that correctly.
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Many of the folks this school is aimed at are limited English speakers and live in a very poor neighborhood where the local elementary schools have high rate of free school lunches. Rocketship may exploit the fact that many of them have no computers at home to make it look like they are providing a special opportunity for their kids to become familiar with technology (even if it is being plopped in front of a screen following a script). Many parents are not well informed about Rocketship and its record of failure (many of the Northern California schools they have opened have quickly closed). Test scores in the local schools are low due to the aforementioned high rate of ELL, which may make the parents believe they have little to lose, because their home schools are “failing” anyway. These are just some of the reasons.
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A founder of New Schools Venture Fund, is on the Rocketship board. Her “marching orders” and, the goal for NSVF, is “To develop charter management organizations that produce a diverse supply of different brands on a large scale.” (Philanthropy Roundtable)
When you see the words “brands on a large scale” and “philanthropy”, in the same few paragraphs, feel to make sure your wallet’s still there..
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