Greg Richmond, president and chief executive of the National Association of Charter Authorizers, wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times calling on the state to overhaul the selection of those that can authorize charter schools. At present, the process is a free-for-all, and almost anyone can open a charter school. Local boards are authorizers; county boards are authorizers; if both of them turn down an applicant, the applicant can appeal to the state board and overturn the local and county boards.
California is awash in charter schools. According to a recent report by the ACLU, at least 20% of them engage in illegal discrimination to keep out the students they don’t want.
California also has had a steady parade of scandals, of charter owners who line their pockets with taxpayers’ money.
Will the state clean up the sector? Will it establish accountability and transparency, both for authorizers and for the charter schools? Or will the powerful California Charter School Association fight reform legislation every step of the way, calling in the debts owed by legislators who accepted their campaign cash?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
But when one carefully reads that slickly-written OpEd piece, one learns that what the charter school industry is calling for is a new bureaucracy that would completely remove charter schools from oversight by any elected official; that body would be stacked with charter school lackeys who would allow charter schools to run amuck as funnels for sending public money into private pockets and for indoctrinating children into becoming automatons for corporations and for political ideologies that are alien to America’s traditions. Don’t think for a moment that the Los Angeles Times, whose “reporting” on charter schools is actually privately paid-for by pro-charter billionaires, is going to print anything that would rein-in the profitability of the charter school industry.
ANOTHER LONG (but relevant 😉 ) POST FROM JACK: (skip it if you like)
A few months ago, I wrote about California legislation and oversight that would have prevented charters from engaging in the practice of creaming, involving kicking out whatever kids they wished as those kids have no due process when it comes to expulstions. I was teaching three charter school refugees/dumpiees at the time. The California Charter Schools Association threw everything they had to kill it, and did so.
I then watched a video where California Charter Schools Association President David Welch was decrying the unequal treatment of charter school students, in regards to school facilities.
Listening to this conman, I promptly lost my sh#%, and vented on this blog:
I wrote about it again when the ACLU came out with a detailed and damning report on charter schools’ corrupt treatment of students, and Jed Wallace tried to spin his way out of it:
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It’s interesting to read about California Charter Schools Association President Jed Wallace trying to spin his way out of today’s ACLU Report, figuratively tap-dancing away like Savion Glover & this animated penguin BELOW:
https://edsource.org/2016/report-charges-many-charter-schools-exclude-children-in-violation-of-the-law/567622
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EDSOURCE:
“In a lengthy statement, Jed Wallace, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, said,
“ ‘We agree with the ACLU and Public Advocates that charter schools must be open to any student interested in attending.’ No one, he said, should be ‘excluded or discriminated against as a result of enrollment and admissions policies at any public school, including charter public schools.’
“He said he was encouraged that the report identified only a small number of charter schools with what he felt were “clearly exclusionary practices” based on academic performance.
“ ‘We believe there is an urgency to work with these schools to make changes immediately to ensure that students are not unlawfully excluded from applying or being admitted,’ he said.”
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Hold up, Jed-ster. You know very well that — over and over and over and over again — you, CSSA, and your school privatizing allies have fought tooth-and-nail against any and all such “changes” or statutory regulations THAT WOULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS STUFF IN THE ACLU REPORT FROM HAPPENING IN THE FIRST PLACE … so your call for “urgency” to “ensure that students are not unlawfully excluded” is about as hollow as the Grand Canyon.
Also, there’s some wiggle room in his wording. Jed only wants it so “students are not unlawfully excluded.” Huh? So does that make to okay to not admit or to kick them out, just so long as they “are not unlawfully excluded”… or to put it another way, there’s nothing wrong if a charter operator “lawfully excludes” them. In the present (and past), you actively fight (and have fought) against laws that would compel charters to simply adopt the same due process rights for parents and students that the traditional public schools have.
Last spring, I watched a YouTube video of this mega-douche giving the opening speech at the California Charter Schools Associaltion convention:
(NOTE: Jed invokes their “March to a Million” plan to enroll one million California students in charter schools within so many years of something … Just remember that, next time charteristas or school privatizers try to claim they’re not competing with public schools, and genuinely just want to co-exist peacefully with the public school …
“Yeah, pay no attention to our openly stated goal to poach 1 million of your students away from your schools, and in the process, devastate your schools. Just ignore all that and let’s be friends.”)
What really got my dander up was him recalling a heartwarming chat (at about 1:07 in the video) with his future lawyer daughter — and future employee in the school privatization industry … the Wallace family business, doncha know — about how charters are not getting equal access to traditional public school campuses.
I wrote a comment under the YouTube video of Jed’s speech, and it was gone in less than an hour.
However, I saved it… here it is, with an intro:
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Jed and his daughter were bemoaning the lack of “reasonable equality” in charter schools which co-locate on public school campuses.
He was trying to make this some kind of heart-warming charter-school-promoting story… and I went off in the COMMENTS section:
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(first to COMMENT … see how long this stays before being removed)
“Jed,
“Your daughter and you are kvetching about wanting ‘reasonably equivalent facilities’ for your CCSA charter schools, yet you simultaneously seem to be against ‘reasonable equality’ in another key aspect of the education of California’s students.
“To wit, parents whose children have been denied entry and/or later booted out (err… counseled out) of CCSA charter schools sued these charter school officials —- CCSA members, of course —- because, when giving them the boot, the school officials did not afford those students the same due process rights as those in the traditional public schools. These plaintiff parents & students wanted a judge to compel California charter schools to make charter school students ‘reasonably equivalent’ with public school students when it comes to due process in expulsions.
“And what did CCSA’s lawyers do?
“They argued in court that charter schools were ‘private entities’ and, as such, their leaders/operators had no legal obligation to provide any due process to students, making those students/parents the analogous equivalent of the ‘at will’ teachers who teach at charter schools.
(So much for the “charter schools are public schools” mantra. When it suits them, charter operators momentarily drop the “We’re-public-school,-too!” canard, and instead identify themselves as “private entities” or “state actors contracted from the state”, and, thus, are totally exempt from any and all regulations that the truly “public schools” are required to follow.)
“If you’re a student (or parent) and the charter school people don’t like you for whatever reason (extra cost, being troublesome in some way, low test scores, Special Ed., immigrant who’s brand new to learning English, homeless, foster care, etc.) .. you’re gone, baby, gone… and there’s nothing that the parent or the child can do about it.
“Jed, why don’t you chew on that sad legal and educational reality with your future lawyer daughter that you’re bragging so much about about in your speech?
“Jed, if and when you and your daughter question your consciences in the dark hours of the night, and consider this specious charter school policy, will your daughter think or believe that you and the CCSA are the ‘good guys’, or that your are on ‘the side of the angels’ when you and your CCSA legal team makes such a repellent legal argument?
“In response to this, in Sacramento, a proposed law — Assembly Bill 2032 — was being considered that would compel charter schools to provide their students the same legal rights to a due process that their counterparts in the traditional public schools enjoy.
“What did you and CCSA do?
“True to form, you flooded the relevant state politicians with lobbyists in an all-hands-on-deck maneuver to kill, or at least block this legislation, and it worked. It’s been temporarily tabled. … so as a result, you can throw as many kids in the metaphorical trash all you like, and not have to answer for it.
“Way to go! You guys are all about the kids!
“Regarding those tens of thousands of students who are dumped by charter schools like so much trash, where do you think they end up, Jed?
“I’ll tell you WHERE.
“At the traditional public schools that you and the CCSA love to malign so much. I’m teaching three of these charter school dumpees myself in my class right now, including one who, along with a her mother and siblings, lives a nomadic existence going from shelter to shelter… and you know what, Jed?
“She shows up to my class every day feeling the little security she has in life, knowing full well that neither I nor my principal are going to kick her to curb when the issues and circumstances of her life manifest themselves — in being late for school, or in her acting out with bad behavior or her low test scores… or whatever.
“In other words, when it comes to my moral obligations as an educator, I can sleep at night.
“How about you?
“How about your fellow charter school CEO’s in that audience?
“How about those teachers who work in your charters and who do not fulfill these same moral obligations to students in the manner that my fellow public school teachers and I do?
“Indeed, how DO YOU charter honchos sleep at night?
“Oh, I know… on a bed full of money (I stole that from Don Draper — “Babylon” — SEASON ONE, MAD MEN).
“Regarding this dual standard for due process that charters school officials’ claim for their schools, I recommend this article by Dr. Preston Green (posted on Jennifer “Edushyster” Berkshire’s blog) :
“Signing Their Rights Away
http://edushyster.com/signing-their-rights-away/
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PRESTON GREEN:
“Charter advocates claims that charter schools are public schools because they are open to all, do not charge tuition, and do not have special entrance requirements.
“But what about student rights?
“State and federal courts have issued rulings suggesting that students attending California charter schools do not have the same due process rights as those enjoyed by public-school students.
“In Scott B. v. Board of Trustees of Orange County High School of Arts, a state appellate court found that charter schools were exempt from due process procedures that applied to public-school expulsions. In reaching this conclusion, the court observed that the state education code generally exempted charter schools from rules that applied to traditional public schools, and the expulsion statute was one of those rules.”
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AB 2032 would have changed all that, so Jed & the privatizers had to kill it, and did.
On that score, check out the public statement and directive that Jed and CCSA put out about the above-mentioned Assembly Bill 2032 — a bill that again, HAD IT PASSED, WOULD HAVE PREVENTED SOME OF THE VERY EXCLUSIONARY PRACTICES that the today’s ACLU report is condemning, those same practices that two-faced Jed today hypocritically NOW claims that he and CCSA “agree with the ACLU” need to be stopped.
Last spring, however, he called such a bill “unnecessary” in the release BELOW:
http://www.ccsa.org/advocacy/statewide/ab2032.html
(The Parentheticals and CAPS are mine, JACK)
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CALIFORNIA CHARTER SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION STATEMENT:
CCSA: “AB 2032: Oppose
“Unnecessary State Regulation of Charter School Discipline Policies
“Summary
“Expands the current suspension and expulsion petition requirement to specify that the procedures listed include:
” — List of acts for which a student must or may be suspended or expelled
” — Suspension and expulsion procedures
” — Procedures by which parents and students will be informed about the action, and their due process rights
” — Process by which the procedures will be periodically reviewed
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(Sounds pretty reasonable. Right, folks? … Well guess again. … JACK.)
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CCSA: “Impact on Charter Schools
“This bill seeks to correct a problem that does not exist, by presuming that charter schools are not providing due process to students, are using flimsy and petty reasons for expelling students, and that charter schools are not sharing expulsion decisions with the school district.
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(Jed, you know very well that the bill is not addressing any potential or in-the-future hypothetical practices that “do not exist” as yet in CCSA charter schools, as you’re trying to argue here. THE BILL SPECIFICALLY IS ADDRESSING MOUNTAINS OF DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE — SOME OF IT LAID OUT IN CIVIL LAWSUITS — OF THESE PRACTICES THAT HAVE ALREADY TAKEN PLACE. So be honest about that. … JACK)
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CCSA: “The sponsor cannot demonstrate a widespread problem that justifies the massive re-regulation that would result from imposing statutory expulsion requirements on charter schools.
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(Jed, first of all & once again, the bill’s sponsor was in possession of overwhelming evidence of this “widespread problem that justifies massive re-regulations.”
Secondly, if, as you claim, you and your fellow charter school operators were not and are not wrongfully excluding or wrongfully kicking out kids, then you should have no problem with such a law. Indeed, you should welcome it.
“Hey, we don’t do any of that stuff anyway, so go ahead and pass the law. We don’t care. It’s not relevant to how we operate.” … but you don’t say that, do you?
To wit, the average person has neither the desire nor the inclination to molest children and is utterly disgusted with the very thought of it. Therefore, he or she welcomes, and has no problem whatsoever with laws prohibiting and punishing such behavior.
Indeed, who-the-hell WOULD have any kind of a problem with laws punishing child molestation?
Why, that would be child molestors, of course — people who, in secret, currently engaging in such behavior, and wish to engage in such behavior in the future.
Get what I’m sayin’, Jed? … JACK)
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CCSA: “Currently law already addresses this issue – the current charter school petition elements must describe the procedures the school will use in expelling or suspending a student, and must be reviewed by the charter school authorizer prior to approving or renewing a charter school; the authorizer may ask for additional detail.
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(Like the 13th Amendment in the movie LINCOLN preventing any states from enacting laws legalizing or continuing slavery — or any federal amendment with federal law being supreme over state or local laws — this law proposed in AB 2032 would ensure that all charter school authorizers at any level (local, county, state) would be barred from including in their charter any vague or underhanded wording that would enable charter school to weasel out and engage in those exclusionary practices that he ACLU report condemns. If the authorizer or the charter school operator did engage in such practices, they would be in violation of Califonia law, and suffer the penalties for doing so.
Again, Jed, if, as you claim, you and your fellow charter operators are not, and in the future, will not be engaging in any of these exclusionary practices, and, like the ACLU, you all are against your CCSA Charter School operators engaging in these practices, WHY-IN-HELL ARE YOU FIGHTING SO HARD TO STOP PASSAGE OF A LAW THAT WOULD OUTLAW SUCH PRACTICES? Shouldn’t you be supporting this law, if nothing else, as a way to make your CCSA members more honest and fair in their treatment of students … a goal you claim the CCSA embraces? … JACK)
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CCSA: “If an authorizer is concerned with a charter school’s suspension or expulsion policies, it has authority to compel changes to that process.”
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(Again, just as 13th Amendment in LINCOLN that takes away any state’s ability to legalize slavery, AB2032 would make it illegal for any authorizer (local, county, state) to in any way allow these practices to exist, and that would deliver penalties to any charter operator who does engage in such practices.
‘Again, I ask you, Jed. Why are you fighting this law so hard?
I’ll tell you why, because the dark secret, is that that such practices are necessary for CCSA to reach it’s “March to a Million” goal of poaching away 1 million students from the traditional public school system. The autonomy and right to treat certain kids like sh#% is in the very DNA of the marked-based business model of corporate ed. reform movement in general, and of CCSA specifically. … JACK)
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CCSA: “Charter schools are unique public schools of choice – this one size fits all would restrict the charter school’s ability to maintain that unique character; for example, a school that requires its students to wear a uniform would find it difficult to remove a student who refuses to wear a uniform.”
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(What a bunch o’ baloney! This blather about “one size fits all” and “the ability to maintain the unique character” is just code to your CCSA authorizers saying in effect,
“Hey, you guys can go ahead and be as discriminatory as you want in your admissions and your expulsions of students, and we at CCSA will back your right to do so in every venue — the legislature, the courts, the authorizing process. We got your backs on this.”
The rights of parents and students, be damned, of course.
Now, here comes Jed’s “KILL THE BILL” celebration and marching orders. … JACK)
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CCSA: “CCSA Action & What You Can (and Did) Do
“CCSA opposed this bill, and advocated against it in Sacramento
“AB 2032 was held on the suspense file of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and will not move forward this year
“Thank you for your advocacy on this bill, and for sharing your stories of how you and your authorizer have worked together to ensure an appropriate suspension and expulsion policy is in place at your school.
“Email your questions about this bill and other charter school bills to governmentaffairs@ccsa.org
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Well done, Jed & Co!
Once again, you and CCSA show that you’re all about the kids!
Fortunately, The Onion has convened some talking heads to address the problems of public education! Warning! A bit scatalogical:
http://www.theonion.com/video/in-the-know-are-tests-biased-against-students-who–17966
That’s a good one Christine!
“Are tests biased against those students who don’t give a shit?”
The only way to regulate charter scams in California at this point, after decades of foul legislation, is moratorium. “Will the state clean up the sector? Will it establish accountability and transparency, both for authorizers and for the charter schools?” No. Not soon. Will the blue state politicians who’ve had their centrist, billionaire funded strings recently, more and more exposed, eventually losing office and allowing moratorium to gain traction? Yes.
Lose office, not losing office, of course. Sorry.
There’s no mystery here. The charter sector has more confidence in its ability to control things at the state level, where the board of education is appointed. I’m sure dealing with the hundreds or thousands of local school districts with locally elected boards creates too many fronts in their war on public education.
Diane – Please look up Livermore (CA) Charter school, if you don’t already know about it….it is in recent news for terrible scandals.
She had a blog post about it:
From what I gather, too, Livermore Valley Charter School (LVCS) started as one of those idealistic platonic ideals of a charter school: a bunch of parents got together and made a charter school, and after it was more or less established was then subsumed by the Tri-Valley Learning Corporation (TVLC), which then created the Charter Prep HS, from which the most egregious scandals are coming (but not by any means all). Somewhere along the line, two charters in Stockton, the Acacia schools, were created, but they were authorized by a different school district, until that district revoked the charters. TVLC then got a temporary restraining order against the authorizing district, and they’re begging Stockton Unified to pick up the charters.
LVCS is the oldest, and at the moment, most stable of the four schools TVLC manages, but it’s bleeding students and teachers, and the parents are now talking about arranging volunteer cleaning parties so they can do things like pull weeds and clean bathrooms at their childrens’ school. Watching the discussion, there seems to be a few camps: those who left because of how they read the writing on the wall, those who think the district has it in for them, those who are apprehensive, but staying, because the school is sooooo amazing or something, and those who seem to expect some sort of miracle, either from the Livermore school district picking them up as a different charter school or taking the student body as a whole and making it into a magnet school, and perhaps forgetting that the DA is also investigating TVLC.
Meanwhile, all the dual-enrolled, not gonna decide till the first day of school, and “switching in the first week of school” folks have made it so the district doesn’t know how many teachers it needs to pick up, if any.
And every day, sometimes multiple times a day, the local news runs more stories of misdemeanor charges (the current K-8 principal was the HS principal and failed his duty as a mandatory reporter), and abused exchange students.
If California is anything like Ohio, a lot of these laws were written with the assumption that the charter school would be superior to the public school. In other words, they were written by cheerleaders.
It takes a long time and a lot of reality to overcome that initial unsupported assumption. They’re really loathe to let it go. Add the ideologues, the people posing as ed reformers who are really anti organized labor, the people who hate “government” anything, including public schools, and it’s like pulling teeth to get them to admit that the hype surrounding “the movement” is overblown. Then there’s the people I think of as the Master Planners- those are the folks in “the movement” who are really gunning for a 100% voucher system.
The ed reform argument in Ohio has utterly and completely changed from how this thing was initially sold to the public. They no longer claim charter schools are better than public schools. Now they say some charter schools are better than some public schools, which obviously works the other way too- some public schools are better than some charter schools. What a let-down, huh? The “secret sauce” is nonsense.
My own personal favorite switcheroo is how they now claim charters that cherry-pick are the same as public magnet schools. Why do we need charter schools then? Just open more public magnet schools if you want a tiered education system. We’ll have special schools for high performers and open enrollment public schools for everyone else.
At least that would be honest.
The biggest shame to me is how the federal government bought this hook, line and sinker. They’re as radical as the most radical privatizer on public schools. One would hope they would act as a moderating influence, a neutral party to tamp down the most ridiculous claims of “the movement”. Instead they joined the movement! They’re no more an honest broker than the Walton Foundation.
They’ve lost all credibility to me. I have no idea why I’m paying them. All they do is amplify and join the chorus. Why do I need than at all if they’re indistinguishable from StudentsFirst?
excellent summary
The Ohio auditor held a charter school cheerleading and marketing event this month. On the public dime of course. 93% of kids in this state attend public schools and all our public employees are hard at work promoting charters.
At the event he proclaimed himself a member of the charter school “movement”.
This may explain why this auditor sent law enforcement charging into a public school district to seize records when there was attendance reporting fraud and has yet to hold any charter school accountable for anything.
Why the different treatment? Columbus public schools gets a law enforcement raid and the charter sector gets a publicly-funded promotion event where the regulators beg them to abide by applicable law. Ridiculously biased.
AB 709 (Gipson) and SB 322 (Leno) are two bills opposed by the California Charter Schools Association Advocates which would improve transparency, accountability, and student access at California’s charter schools. Support for these proposals is from a broad coalition including teachers, school boards, administrators, the California State PTA, the ACLU, Public Advocates, Public Counsel, and a number of other civil rights groups. There are charter schools that support these proposals, even though the statewide organization continues to fight local control and student due process. Our children are counting on Governor Jerry Brown to sign this legislation into law.