Julian Vasquez Heilig calls BS on KIPP in California, where they are pushing a KIPP charter into a community that doesn’t want them.
The local district, already financially drained by charters, rejected them. The county district rejected them. As in, go away. Now they are applying to the state board, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the California Charter School lobby.
”KIPP is now trying to insert more schools into the San Francisco Bay Area. But they are having a problem. They ran into some snags in the local authorizing process. First, the local district said that there are now more charters than neighborhood public schools and they are teetering on financial disaster. Their march towards bankruptcy is occurring even with increased funding from the state the past few years because the loss of students to charters has resulted in massive budget shortfalls. After their 3-2 denial by the district, KIPP then went to the county for their second and final attempt at local authorizing. However, that didn’t go well for KIPP because the county wanted assurances that that KIPP would abide by AB 1090, which is a California financial conflict of interest law. KIPP refused to abide by California financial conflict of interest laws. What!?
“Charters talk on and on about how interested they are in transparency and accountability #NotUs. They tell legislators that they are abiding by the law #NotUs. Then they tell other people that the law doesn’t apply to them (See video below) #NotUs. This sort of malfeasance goes on and on because we allow charters to talk out of two sides of their mouth. We also allow the “good” charters to say, “We are good” and of course there is some “bad.” #NotUs Which ultimately provides cover for the entire sector at the expense of transparency and accountability for children, families and taxpayers.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The destruction of existing public schools is not an unintended by product of charter schools. For some, like Betsy DeVos, it is the goal: privatize everything. For others, it is “collateral damage” on the path to other goals: provide an escape hatch for the “deserving poor,” undermine unions, avoid democracy, open the public sector as an investment opportunity. For some parents, it is an opportunity to send their kids to school with only a select group of kids (segregation). For others it is a desperate choice, brought on by systematic underfunding and over-testing.
Overall, the advocacy for privatization, is either and abandonment or outright attack on the unifying values of democracy and the common good, while effectively championing a selfish strain of individualism.
Time for Democrats to unequivocally embrace equity and integration!
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Here is a question: How does one get Gov. Jerry Brown to care even a tiny little bit about charter school oversight?
If Brown is hopeless on this, then why is he hopeless? Has Brown even once been challenged by a reporter about his views?
And given that it seems like this is about the desires of the public being thwarted by rich charters, can you make this an issue in the California primary for Governor?
Is it possible to get all the candidates to go on record with what happens when a local community doesn’t want a charter but the state board of education — which the governor appoints — demands that the local community spend their own money for a charter that they don’t want?
Could this KIPP issue be a blessing in disguise because it makes voters understand which candidates in the primary are going to tell their communities they will have a charter school whether they want it or not, and which ones stand up for public education?
I believe that worked very well in Virginia. Public school parents fought for the candidate who supported public schools.
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This is a 6 minute video documenting KIPP’s refusal to abide by the 1090 conflict of interest government code. Please see the related links in the description underneath it for more. Blogpost forthcoming on EduResearcher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90LAsBgh6Fg
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The charter sector has gotten far too much mileage and partiality by cozying up the right politicians with a bucket of cash for the next elections. In California politicians have created a system where it is unlikely charters will be turned down for authorization, even if there is no apparent need. This is rigged political madness, not choice.
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“rigged choice.” When choice is not a choice.
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