Julian Vasquez Heilig reports that Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation to ban for-profit charters. This is very good news. In 2015,he vetoed such a bill.
Now, here’s hoping that the Legislature can pass (and the governor will sign) a bill requiring accountability and transparency in all charters, including a ban on nepotism and conflicts of interest.
The momentum for this legislation was reignited by great reporting on K12 Inc. by reporter Jesse Calefati of the San Jose Mercury News in 2016. Give credit where it is due. Be thankful for freedom of the press!
PS:
An ally in California says this is not as big a deal as it seems. She writes:
“I just can’t understand all of the excitement about this given that there really aren’t any for profit charters left in CA anyway. This bill was approved by the Callifornia Charter Schools Association who were already celebrating and promoting that there are no for profit charters in CA. For profit charters have never really been an issue in CA, we have barely had any in the past. Of course, the vast majority of online charters contract to k12 and we all know they are a huge profit machine.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Profit or not-for-profit. Doesn’t make a lick of difference.
Now, legislating accountability and transparency could go a long way, but we know that the charter sector has argued in multiple legal venues that they are private and should not have to have that accountability and transparency.
The solution? No tax monies, and/or property/space to any non-community public schools that have to follow all the laws and mandates that those public schools have to follow.
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It’s very good that Gov. Brown did this, but even our public schools are in need of drastic reforms:
+ America, 2018… Isabella Messer a 15-year old student at Hopkinsville High School Kentucky was arrested on August 23 for twice violating the school’s dress code. First for wearing a shirt that exposed her shoulders and a few days later for wearing a t-shirt that read on the front “Do my shoulders turn you on?” and on the back: “If so, return to the 1920’s.” For this serious affront to the civil order, Messer was held in a juvenile detention jail for six days.
Remember when we used to fiercely debate paddling in schools? Those days are long gone. Now school cops are tasering students for napping…
+ Your kids can’t drink the school water
And they can’t breathe the school air
But Cruella DeVos will make sure
They all learn to say their school prayers…
Source: Roaming Charges: “I Am Not Spartacus!”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/07/roaming-charges-i-am-not-spartacus/
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Diane, I went back through your recent postings to see if you had posted the ACLU article on the state of US schools. These are real problems that will only be worsened if we continue the toxic same old same old. It’s interesting that the Gates “network” will only enable the same old with grants to many well-intended, as well as not, contractors to follow the RFP. It becomes easy to rationalize, and “we need the money.”
https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/AGcAtUpeljNoW41BtQRFwEIfFr8
Thank you so much for your amazingly prolific postings.
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Jane,
That link doesn’t go anywhere
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The reason why it is big is it sends a message that the word is out! The people that have been profiting from our children’s education are on borrowed time across this country. Leeches like those supported by Betsy DeVos now know it is only a matter of time before everyone sees through the scam and outlaws ‘for-profit’ schools.
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Leeches is the right word. Parasites works too.
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Leeches are all over higher ed, too. TN’s Republican lege has embedded the financial industry’s monetary extraction schemes into the governance & funding structures of public universities. In TN public universities, each college within a campus must raise their own money, i.e., show aROI. If the college can’t show ROI it will be penalized. Each college must generate income through donations or recruiting more students. Professors are salesmen, these days.
Defeating Republicans at the state & local levels is critical to putting a halt to these corporate leeches.
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It’s a start, & it IS a big deal, as that was the bill that was sent to him. Now, there should be a legislative amendment to ban ANY (not-for-profit, as well) new charters, they can pass that & then send that to Gov. Brown to sign.
This sends a message to other state legislators & governors; it’s a step (finally!!!) in the right direction.
Boy, I’d be thrilled if this happened in ILL-Annoy. As it is, I believe a bill was passed in both houses to limit the authority of the ILL-Annoy Charter School Commission (which could–& has–overridden local school boards’ decisions to not approve a charter). I don’t think our guv signed it (I should know that, right?), but if any reader, here, is aware, please enlighten me. And, also, correct me if I got any of that wrong.
So much news, so little time!
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Hoping Governor Gavin Newsom, the Democrat who will succeed Brown, will sign a moratorium.
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Yes!
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Fat chance.
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I’m pleasantly surprised since the California ed dept has been so pro charter for years. Definitely good news for public schools everywhere.
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It affects very few of the state’s charters.
California has more charters than any state in the nation. It also has a rich, very aggressive Charter School Association.
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“As California goes, so goes the nation.” Baby steps. One at a time. Good for Governor Brown. Good for the Mercury. Good for freedom of the press and for democracy, still alive. And yes, we truly need accountability and transparency from charter management. (And to stop ridiculously wasting time and money on the meaningless standardized testing of every student.)
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This really not a big deal. There is only one in CA. The real issue is charters run by private management companies set up as nonprofits.
Sent from my iPhone
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This is important, but the next bill on transparency and accountability is more important. Gov. Brown has vetoed similar legislation in the past, claiming erroneously that districts and counties already have the authority to police charters in these areas. But they really don’t, especially when unscrupulous charters can appeal local decisions, which are often rooted in fact and community outrage, to county boards or the state board, both of which are appointed and not elected bodies. We MUST have laws that state clearly what the guidelines are for charters to prevent misusing public funds, acting as semi-private entities, engaging in conflicts of interest, and behaving as if they are beholden to no one.
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Diane, your ally in California is correct. This is a NOTHING BURGER.
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