At 10 am, Pacific Time (1 pm EST), there will be a teleconference discussion of the need for charter school accountability in California. You can listen in.
Will California adopt laws to stop the graft and fraud in the unregulated, unsupervised charter industry? Or will the state keep handing out taxpayers’ money to anyone who wants to open a school and then let them do whatever they want, with no oversight?
California Teachers Association August 31, 2016
1118 10th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
http://www.cta.org
Contacts: Claudia Briggs at (916) 325-1550 or Mike Myslinski at (650) 552-5324
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Parents and Community Groups Call on Gov. Brown to Sign Legislation to Increase Accountability and Transparency at California’s Public Charter Schools
Media Teleconference Panel Thursday to Outline Impact on Students from Charter Fraud, Waste of Taxpayer Funds
SACRAMENTO – A coalition of parents, lawmakers and elected leaders, education leaders and community groups will come together in a media teleconference Thursday to call on Gov. Jerry Brown to support co-sponsored legislation that increases accountability and transparency at California charter schools. Recent news headlines and academic studies have documented the waste, fraud and abuse by privately-managed charter schools, which have cost taxpayers millions while hurting students. CTA and other civil rights groups have sponsored and supported numerous pieces of legislation to ensure equal access for all students.
Teleconference speakers include:
Ø State Treasurer John Chiang to talk about the need for tighter laws to address fraud and waste in California’s public charter schools.
Ø Assembly Member Mike Gipson, author of AB 709, which addresses the need for transparency and accountability and is now on the governor’s desk awaiting action.
Ø Carol Kocivar of the California State Parent Teachers Association will talk about the need for all students to have equal opportunity to attend a charter school.
Ø Dr. George McKenna, Vice President of the LAUSD School Board, to talk about the impact on students in the state’s city where the charter movement is expanding and promises to expand significantly in the coming years.
Ø Anaheim Union High School District Superintendent Mike Matsuda will share experiences from Anaheim and the negative impact on students and communities.
Ø Bob Lawson from In the Public Interest will discuss recent findings showing the public appetite and support for tighter measures to eliminate fraud, waste and discriminatory practices that keep students from accessing non-traditional public schools – charter schools.
Ø Amy Roylance, parent of a student at the Livermore Valley Charter School, who had to withdraw her students on the first day of school this year. The charter is being investigated by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for financial fraud and potential criminal charges.
Ø Victor Leung of the ACLU to discuss their recent report, Unequal Access.
WHAT: National Media Teleconference
WHEN: Thursday, September 1, 2016
10:00 a.m. PST
WHERE: Call 888-500-6951; Enter Conference ID: 7802692
Please dial in 5-10 minutes prior to start time.
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The 325,000-member California Teachers Association is affiliated with the 3 million-member National Education Association.
I highly recommend the ACLU report: Unequal Access on illegal charter school policies in California. It is short and also of potential interest beyond California.
https://www.aclusocal.org/unequal-access/
Or, the charters could just re-apply as selective admission magnet schools.
That’s what the current system allows. Of course, that presents a political and PR problem because they have insisted they aren’t selecting students for the last 20 years.
Separate and unequal access is how most charters operate, and as the ACLU points out, the money drain places the neediest students in public schools with diminished resources.
I know we spend 90% of our time in the US on charter schools, but the ed reform “movement” are currently writing the rules that will govern every public school in the country in state legislatures.
Are any of our teachers, principals or superintendents involved in this effort, or will it be 100% directed by the same lobbying groups and foundations who run public education in DC?
We could all get a very nasty surprise when they finish ESSA. We know they went in with a goal of expanding “choice”. What might that mean for existing public schools, the schools 90% of kids attend? Are they just codifying this agenda into state law?
Choice is the cherished American value. Compulsion is the cherished socialist/communist/collectivist value. Public schools have leaned much too far to the left toward compulsion. You can have freedom or equality but not both. America has traditionally opted for freedom. But the “equalitarians” are in control of much at the moment and are trying to bring us all under their collectivist thumb. Bye, bye Freedom.
What kind of choice and freedom that AMERICANS have to lose jobs from foreigners through H-1B visa or contract work, or outsourced manufacturers in China, India, Brasil, Mexico…?
What kind of choice and freedom that educators have to lose their tenure and their pension plan?
So far, there is ONLY choice and freedom for techies tycoons who can exert their MILLIONS of dollars in Charter schools to LOOT BILLIONS of dollars FROM taxpayers for PUBLIC EDUCATION FUND. Back2basic
Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
The Washington State and New York State supreme courts and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they aren’t accountable to the public about what the actually do with the public money they take away from genuine public schools.
And yet, private charter schools across our nation are allowed to divert hundreds of millions of public school tax dollars away from educating America’s children and into private pockets. Any thoughtful person should pause a moment and ask: “Why are hedge funds the biggest promoters of charter schools?” Hedge funds aren’t altruistic. There’s got to be big profit involved.
And even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its “reporting” on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.”
One typical under-the-radar big profit practice of charter schools is to pay exorbitant rates to rent buildings that are owned by the charter school board members or by their proxy companies which then pocket the public’s tax money as profit. Another nearly invisible profit practice is that although charter schools use public tax money to purchase millions of dollars of such things as computers, the things they buy with public tax money become — incredibly — their private property and can be sold by them for profit…and then use public tax money to buy more, and sell again, and again, and again, pocketing profit after profit.
And, as the NAACP and ACLU have learned, charter schools are often engaged in racial and economic-class discrimination.
The Washington State and New York State supreme courts and the National Labor Relations Board rulings that charter schools are not public schools are based on the fact that charter schools aren’t accountable to the public because they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools and crafted by charter school lobbyists facetiously say they are government subdivisions.
Charter schools should (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that they are accountable to the public; (2) charter school operators must legally be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) charter schools should be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property.