The Los Angeles school board voted not to renew five charters, and required the removal of the leader of a sixth charter. That leader had acknowledged charging many thousands of dollars for first-class air travel, hotels, and meals while moonlighting as a scout for a pro basketball team.
Three of the five charters that were not renewed are a Gulen charters.
The five can appeal to the county board and the state board. They undoubtedly expect a reversal as the county board loves charters and the state board is under the thumb of pro-charter Governor Jerry Brown. After meeting him a few years ago, I thought he was a hero (especially after he railed against Race to the Top as an effort to subvert state control). But he turns out to be an admirer of privatization. He started two charters when he was mayor of Oakland, and he recently vetoed a bill to ban for-profit charters.
Here is a report on the meeting by Karen Wolfe, a parent activist. She points out that charter renewals will cost the district 6,000 more students, leading to more budget cuts. She expects the county board might overturn the school district’s non-renewal.
There is something creepy about the way charter students and parents are bused to hearings in matching T-shirts, obviously to intimidate the board or legislators. Call them the charter Orange Shirts. Charter Troopers. The charter leaders should stop using the kids as political pawns.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Considering many factors…this was a good result. The BoE did not renew the Gulen Magnolia Charter Schools, despite the many lies of the CEO, Caprise Young, who formerly led CCSA. The audits for some years showed financial problems that have not yet been cleared.
And they got the CEO of El Camino (who spent public funds for his personal use) to resign immediately…and some of his staff as well. Lucky he is not indicted for embezzling these funds.
Carl Petersen deserves kudos for keeping the heat on El Camino issues.
This long BoE meeting was grueling, and I personally thank the members of the LAUSD BoE, which I do not often do, for making some worthwhile decisions yesterday.
Great job of reporting, Karen.
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Please someone in the know, tell us who paid for all those shills to be bussed to the BoE meeting? Once again they used LAUSD school busses…hope this was not charged to the LAUSD budget so the taxpayers were again scammed…or maybe it was Eli Broad who paid for the orchestrated show?
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Thank you for posting this, Diane.
Here is our local NPR affiliate, KPCC’s report on the El Camino charter decision. This is one in which the dad told the school board that they had “implicit bias”. Ha!
“We’re going to change these laws,” said Daniel Holmes, a parent of an El Camino student, told L.A. Unified board members in a public comment session on Tuesday. “You can help by recusing yourself from the responsibility of watching over these charters.”
http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/10/18/65655/principal-of-el-camino-charter-high-school-will-st/
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Charter owners and parents think they should get public money with no oversight.
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Exactly!
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“The Los Angeles school board voted not to renew five charters,”
“Here is a report on the meeting by Karen Wolfe, a parent activist. She points out that charter renewals will cost the district 6,000 more students, leading to more budget cuts. She expects the county board might overturn the school district’s non-renewal.”
These two statements are contradictory. The first statement states that LAUSD Board voted not to renew 5 charters. This will bring back students to the LAUSD traditional public schools. Why does Karen Wolfe state that it will cost the district 6,000 more students leading to more budget cuts? I just don’t see how this can happen.
If the first statement is correct (I believe it because I watched the proceedings from the comfort of my home), the second statement is false.
This is proof positive that there is public oversight over charters at LAUSD.
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Because the board voted to approve other charters including new ones. They are voting to put themselves out of business.
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This is what I saw yesterday.
Five charters were rejected.
One new charter school was approved, another was allowed to expand and three others were renewed. Plus one high-profile high school was spared as long as its director and several board members resign.
Therefore there will be 4 less charter schools next year. Where did the net loss of 6,000 students to LAUSD public schools come from?
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Caprice Young shouldn’t get too confident about her Gulen schools being approved by the county or state. If you all remember the last time Magnolia was denied by a district was Santa Ana, they were shortly after denied by the county but rubber stamped by the State all concurrently when the audit was happening. Caprice has worn out any favors she thinks she has, she shouldn’t be too confident. On the other hand pro public school advocates should stay diligent on the next decision at the LACOE. The state is very well informed with what they are all about and remember this current issue was triggered by the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Team that Magnolia dodged answering. So in the end it was their issues at the state that caused LAUSD to cut to the chase on their denial. Here is the statement of facts to deny., they had much more information but it was halted as it was 9:30 pm at night. IMO no one wants them they are trouble and their CEO is even bigger trouble http://www.slideshare.net/GulenCemaat/magnolia-science-academy-denial-and-statement-of-facts
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Thank you for clarifying the larger issue, Diane, that the LAUSD board is voting itself out business.
Since Raj watched the 12 hour board meeting from the comfort of his home, he might have seen that the board voted on more than the non-renewal of five charters. In case he was in the bathroom or something, I’ll say here that the board voted to approve four charter revisions or renewals, approved one new charter, and publicly noticed eight more in the morning. A board member told me that amounted to over 6000 students going to charters. You can check his math by looking at the LAUSD board agendas. I updated by post to make it clearer that it was for all the charters. The evening session approved charter expansion and denied renewal for others.
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Here’s something interesting I just found (that also happened yesterday):
The Mayor and city council of an entire city, Huntington Park, California — whose schools (both public and charter) are within LAUSD’s geographic area and governance / charter oversight — just voted to impose a 1-year moratorium on authorizing any new charter schools, as well as any expansion of existing charter schools.
This was met with resistance from the California Charter Schools Association — who threatened to sue — and charteristas at the meeting where the vote took place:
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-huntington-park-charter-moratorium-20161014-snap-story.html
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CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE TAXPAYER ABUSE. Today, Ohio’s newspapers reported that Ohioans are on the hook for $500,000, in legal fees, to fight a court case against a charter school.
Where in the h_ll, is Bill Gates’ checkbook to pay the tab? Where’s Fordham’s checkbook? Where’s the Walton’s checkbook? Where’s Sen. Sherrod Brown and Sen. Rob Portman’s checkbooks? Where’s Ohio Speaker of the House, Cliff Rosenberger’s checkbook?
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The pro-charter L.A. School Report went ballistic on the vote to close the Magnolia and other charters:
http://laschoolreport.com/a-balanced-job-or-they-want-to-kill-our-charters-debate-rages-after-a-day-of-tough-charter-decisions/
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
L.A. SCHOOL REPORT:
“Frankly, this is not about good management,” Caprice Young, CEO of Magnolia Public Schools, said in an interview after she saw three of her high-performing schools rejected for renewal late Tuesday night. “This is about the fact that they want to kill our charters and nothing more.”
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Better late than never to the conversation I hope. To Ellen’s question about who paid – we the taxpayers always pay the charter schools excesses. They take our money and waste it on such wonderful activities as the rally that Karen Wolfe so beautifully spoofed recently! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csmzX9rZ2rE And as for Huntington Park — I worked there over the 30 years that I was a teacher/school librarian. Originally they had some good schools with great libraries – and also the most overcrowded elementary school in the country: Miles Ave with 3000 students. Now that tiny town of 3.1 square miles has 22 charters and just the few public schools remaining. None of the charters has a library. And the entire area has NO bookstores and just one public library of any note. I realized that literacy was not valued in this part of the district (not only this part, but definitely not there – as they closed several libraries by refusing to pay for librarians). This is a tragic loss to a community in so many many ways. Huntington Park is to be commended for their moratorium. Hopefully it isn’t a one shot deal!
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No Caprice Young is wrong we don’t want to kill her charter schools. It’s her Gulen Terrorists that want to kill all of us. What is she going to do now that OIC has declared FETO a terrorist organization. That is all the gulf states and Islamic countries now attacking all the Gulen Organizations worldwide. These schools will turn into a lightening rod and are unsafe. If you don’t think the Gulen Movement isn’t attached to terrorism then you all have missed the boat on what the Gladio B project is. Another example is how they are able to turn communities against each other, if the county approves them they are asking for trouble. Word is they have to apply by November 10, 2016 which isn’t much time. Caprice Young doesn’t have as much clout at the State of California as she thinks. The only thing she does well is take advantage of a photo op, she would be nothing without an expensive publicist. Frankly, she speaks poorly and comes off as dumb as a sack of rocks.
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While in Tennessee, the opposite just happened
The State Board of Education on Friday voted for the first time to overturn a Shelby County Schools decision rejecting a new charter school from opening.
The vote allows Green Dot Charter High School to open for the 2017-18 school year, but SCS will have no oversight of the school.
So the state interefered with the Memphis School Board’s decision. The issue is related to the Achievement School District.
Green Dot is a no-excuses charter chain.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/education/2016/10/14/state-board-overturns-scs-charter-school-rejection/91993470/
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So Green Dot failed in Louisiana, and now they infiltrate Tennessee.
We in LA know too much about Green Dot since they were founded here and have done much mischief, and wrangled with severe financial problems and with internecine warfare, reported here (and online by KPCC, LA Daily News, K12NewsNetwork, and also the LA Times archives) for years. Their former CEO, Steve Barr, got tossed out, but now is running for Governor of California….go figure…endless chutzpah from him…. talk about over-inflated egos He was the one who worked/works closely with the infamous Ben Austin to implement Parent Revolution (and probably with Broad/Austin/Deasy with their Vergara lawsuit pressuring now). He and Austin tried to take over one of the best high schools on the coast about two years ago…walking in unannounced and declaring it a charter school. The principal nipped that one in the bud.
Green Dot is a disaster.
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Ellen “Their former CEO, Steve Barr, got tossed out, but now is running for Governor of California…”
So there is a California connection! I don’t feel so bad then to bring this up here. 🙂
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