California is a state where charters have gone wild.
Rick Hennessy, the part time superintendent of the small Twain Harte School district responds to parents who want to secede to create their own charter school that their action will damage the education of those left behind.
if the charter school is approved, the district will lose $250,000 in the 2019-20 school year and would have to look at the following budget cuts:
Eliminate one full time teacher
Eliminate all art instruction
Eliminate all music instruction
Eliminate the librarian
Eliminate all class trips
Eliminate school counselor
Eliminate purchases of classroom library books
Eliminate Safe School Ambassador
Eliminate Treehouse Program (addresses social adjustment for grades K-3)
The proposed charter school would also have a segregative impact, he writes.
Furthermore, the charter’s petition does not include providing lunches or transportation for their students. Any charter school petition is supposed to recruit or attract the same socio-economic student group that is enrolled in the regular district. Over 60 percent of Twain Harte students ride the bus as well as receive a free or reduced lunch. It seems that the charter petition is targeting middle class or higher families that can provide transportation up the hill; which would seem to rule out most of our current students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It seems that the charter petition is targeting middle class or higher families that can provide transportation up the hill; which would seem to rule out most of our current students.
This part of a new nationwide strategy to shore up the lowed growth in charter school expansions. I am not sure that this case is part of the strategy, but it could be.
It’s not a new thing for parents to secede from a school district to start their own exclusive charter, or turn an existing public school into an exclusive charter. It’s one of the ways charters are used deliberately to create segregation — though at times it’s not racial segregation but socioeconomic segregation, separating those with social capital from those without.
If public money is supposed to go to common schools, a segregating charter has the opposite effect. Instead of bringing diverse groups together to learn and work, public funds are financing an exclusive group’s right to segregate in order to create a separate and unequal school for some at the expense of many.
YES. There is often a very snobby element attached to the “choice” school game.
This post highlights the many problems that a charter school can have on a small district. Unregulated charter growth forces many students to sacrifice quality for wishes of a small group. Small districts are less able to absorb charter drain and stranded costs, and the immediate impact of the loss will harm the quantity and quality of the programs that the public school can offer. It may also have a negative impact on the socio-economic and racial balance of the public district.
When decisions about charter growth are made on the state level, local communities are at the mercy of state actors that are likely in the pocket of the charter lobby. Local counties and school districts should have a say in whether a charter school is even warranted or needed, not just the state which is often captured by big money interests.
This is a clear and present danger designed to create a caste system in the United States that divides those who have it all from those who have little or nothing.
Free local public schools welcome all comers. The common school is a bedrock of our democracy. Your neighborhood public school levels the field and is there to serve all …regardless of race, creed, income, religion, country of origin…
I agree – – – and most of those local public schools are funded by local public revenues. Federal funds are a small fraction of the public money that funds public schools. When those public schools have locally elected school boards, that also ensures the elected representatives will be watched by active, concerned citizens in that vote in that community to make sure those elected school board members are doing the job they promised they were going to do when they ran for election.
In addition, elected school board members are watching the hired administrators to make sure they are doing their jobs.
The person who wants to start this school might have some economic motivations. She currently owns a seasonal business. We vacation in Pinecrest frequently; a beautiful, scenic mountain lake with lots of outdoor recreation, which the locals depend on for their survival. But, the townspeople are at the mercy of droughts and fires, both of which have caused a lot of economic hardship recently.
I would rather not say what district I am in…it is in the bay area but I used to live and work in LA …I grew up in LA … because I like to post on here .. but …I would like to say that charters can really hurt smaller districts…we just fought one off…it seems now some of the public are putting two and two together and realizing the money game (or grab) that charters play. The charters can create huge cuts for smaller districts. The charter lobby is strong in CA and they can bump up their request to the next level and get permission, even if your district can not afford them to be there. We need to educate the public about the reform crowd.