On Thursday the California State Board will decide about the fate of Thrive Charter School in San Diego. The district refused to renew the charter, saying that it is a failing school. The County Office of Education rejected Thrive’s appeal. Thrive now goes to the State Board with a final appeal. Thursday’s meeting will be the first in which Linda Darling-Hammond will chair the State Board.
So we will learn whether the State Board Will side with the district or with a failing charter.
Tom Ultican has written about Thrive in the past. He recently received an unsolicited letter from someone who worked as a sub at Thrive.
Thrive Public Schools Renewal Petition Hearing on Friday
Tom says that the big charter school lobby—the California Charter Schools Association—is going all in to “save” Thrive, despite its poor performance.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Deformers deny reality. They are into control and money.
I doubt they would be able to understand Reggio Emilio’s work and a child-centered curriculum. Why? Simple: EVERYTHING is ABOUT THEM, the deformers. They cannot see beyond themselves.
Sure hope these hearings are not “FIXED.”
Please keep in mind that there are several steps taken ahead of the final CA state board vote. First, the CDE’s charter division reviews the appeal and makes a recommendation. In this case, the recommendation was to deny. The next step is for the CA Advisory Commission to review the appeal and the charter division’s recommendation and then vote on whether or not their “advisory” vote will be to support the decision to deny or to recommend a reversal to approve. Then, the final vote takes place at the board meeting. While the board takes into consideration the recommendations of their own staff and the recommendation of the Advisory Commission, the board can make its own decision despite to ignore these two recommendations. Presently, the Advisory Commission is heavily populated by charter friendly members. In the case of Thrive, the charter division recommended denial. But, there was no recommendation from the Advisory Commission’s Feb. 5th meeting because it needed 5 votes. See below:
ITEM 04
Subject: Renewal Petition for the Establishment of a Charter School Under the Oversight of the State Board of Education: Consideration of Thrive Public School, which was denied by the San Diego Unified School District.
CDE Recommendation: The CDE proposes to recommend that the SBE hold a public hearing to deny the request to renew Thrive Public School (TPS), a transitional kindergarten (TK) through grade twelve charter school based on the CDE’s findings pursuant to EC sections 47605(b)(1), 47605(b)(5), and 5 CCR Section 11967.5.
The TPS petitioner does not meet the renewal criteria and does not present a sound educational program as they do not perform, overall, at least equal to its comparable district schools where the majority of TPS pupils would otherwise attend.
Additionally, the TPS petition does not include the necessary language for Element 2–Measurable Pupil Outcomes.
Action: Commissioner Garbolino-Mojica moved for recommendation to the SBE of the CDE staff recommendation.
Commissioner Jackson seconded the motion.
Yes votes: Commissioners Constancio, Garbolino-Mojica, Jackson, and Sever
No votes: Commissioners Austin and Ryan
Members absent: Commissioners Engelberg and Hinton Hodge
Abstentions: None
The ACCS moved to recommend approval of the CDE staff recommendation. The motion did not pass by a vote of four to two. Five votes are required to move an ACCS recommendation forward to the SBE; therefore, no recommendation moved.
If the described process existed in Ohio, the charter school that was found lacking, would be re-approved, despite an Ohio newspaper exposé showing taxpayer funds were used to lease a $100,000 car for top staff. And, there would be evidence that the state GOP received donations from the charter operator.
Big shout out to Gates and Fordham.
California a disaster area now for real…reports show hundreds of homeless people living on the streets all over LA. California has transformed itself into a haven for non english speaking immigrants mainly from mexico who then take:
1. free medical
2. freee housing
3. free education – and a voucher to boot if you want to go to a muslime school
4. free lunch for all kids
5. free training for all immigrants to help them deal with hate and bigotry rampant in CA
6. free college and university now
7. free cell phones under the ole obama plan – obama phones
8. free access to become a us government employee –
9. sanctuary state and city as CA will never call ICE to remove illegal persons they just throw them back into society even though they may have commited a crime even murder!
10. free clothing and medicine
this post needs to be seen lets not be like the twitters and facebooks of the world and limit my free speech as this is factual information that all need to see. Thanks Diane
Without immigration, Medicare and Social Security won’t be solvent for you, free drone. Birth rates in second and greater, generation Americans aren’t keeping pace to provide enough workers. And, the reason for that is concentration of wealth. If you want to get politically active, fight the billionaires who are robbing all of us of economic opportunity.
But then, free drone, you are a Fox ditto head who doesn’t think and enjoys hatred directed at people who are more similar to you in every way than the richest 0.1%.
Are you free drone from Fox News?
Please spread good news about US Republican Party that has been protecting and supporting hatred people like Trump, Betty DeVos and their associates Senators who commit to ruin US Public Education by allowing Charter Schools and Voucher Institutions to loot Billion Dollars from taxpayers. OMG!!! Back2basic