This is unbelievable!
The California Charter School Association pretends to be fighting for the civil rights of children by pushing school choice and undermining public schools.
Yet it wrote a note congratulating the Billionaire Queen of Vouchers, Betsy DeVos, on her nomination to be Secretary of Education:
The California Charter Schools Association congratulates Betsy DeVos, a longtime supporter of charter schools, on her appointment as Secretary of Education. Mrs. DeVos has long demonstrated a commitment to providing families with improved public school options and we look forward to working with the administration on proposals allowing all students in California to access their right to a high quality public education.
Let’s be clear. DeVos is first and foremost a supporter of vouchers. When vouchers are not available, because voters don’t approve them (as in her home state of Michigan), she supports charters. She doesn’t necessarily support “high-quality charters,” she supports low-quality charters, no-quality charters, and for-profit charters. Last spring, she and her husband spent nearly $1.5 million in campaign contributions to block legislative efforts to make charter schools accountable. Detroit is her petri dish; it is the lowest-performing urban district in the nation on NAEP measures. In addition, she and her family have also devoted large sums to anti-gay legislative campaigns.
How hypocritical can CCSA be?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Queen of Vouchers with her petri dish, Detroit, hailed by the California Charter Schools Association….but also by Lamar Alexander who spear-headed ESSA to get rid of federal overreach. I guess that is a politics as usual in DC.
You are correct to nail the hypocrisy in all claims from the charter industry about “choice” as a civil rights issue. Vouchers, like charter choices, mean that schools get to choose which students to enroll and to keep enrolled.
By all preliminary estimates, the proposed $20 billion voucher program for low-income families, $12,000 per voucher, will not work for “choice” unless states come up with big money, estimated at $110 billion. That seems unlikely to me.
In any case, disputes are likely to emerge about the meaning of ” low-income family” as a qualification for receiving a voucher. The simple proxy of eligiblity for free or reduced price lunch might be ditched for other eligibility criteria or combined with other criteria, including for example, a proof of citizenship for the student who would be the beneficiary (consistent with Trump’s views on too many illegal immigrants on the dole).
The whole voucher program could be envisioned as version of RTT, recast as “Let’s make a Deal,” with a bit of shark-tanking on “innovative” ideas for states to participate in the game of getting money for vouchers;
Here are some hypothetical tests If you want to your state to compete for vouchers:
• Lift caps on charters.
• Remove regulations on charters.
• Remove collective bargaining rights for school personnel
• Remove Blaine amendments (restrictions about the use of taxpayer funds for religious schools). http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2016/01/constitution-check-are-the-states-blaine-amendments-on-shaky-ground/
• Build out broadband sufficient for all students, parents and schools to engage in learning anytime anywhere
• Eliminate all restrictions on for-profit operators of schools.
• Eliminate all regulations against direct advertising of education services to students and parents.
• Permit unlimited data collection and use of data about students and school personnel by education service providers that receive vouchers
• Require public schools to have their curriculum materials approved by a panel of parents and representatives from the community.
• Require voucher recipients to verify that their students are U. S. Citizens.
• Issue vouchers in the form of debit cards “for education” in order to provide maximum flexibility for families and for providers of education services.
Add your own ideas for Devos/Trump wheeling and dealing with “block grants to states for redistribution as vouchers.
If the CCSA wants “all students in California to access their right to a high quality public education,” they should advocate for equitable funding for public schools instead of inequitably, unjustly, fund sucking charter scams. But, they won’t. That’s AstroTurf for you — doesn’t evolve, doesn’t grow, and causes injury.