Parent advocate Carl J. Petersen thinks there’s something fishy about the school building boom in Los Angeles. It makes no sense. Enrollment is declining. Why so many new schools?
He suspects it’s about making room for more charter schools.
He begins:
Decades of changing demographics have left public schools and charters competing for a share of the shrinking school-age population. This shift was predicted by the LAUSD years before it occurred and should have resulted in dramatic changes to how many new facilities the District planned to build. Instead, Monica Garcia led efforts to greatly expand the number of classrooms available in Los Angeles.
Perhaps by design, Garcia’s building spree has left charter schools with an opportunity to claim “empty “space on District campuses using PROP-39. At one school I visited during my 2017 campaign in BD2, the campus appeared to be built with a separate entrance for a charter school. The waste of taxpayer money was not an accident.
Over 15 years into the demographic shift, the use of scarce education funding to build more capacity has not stopped. A tour of a neighborhood near the intersection of North Vermont and West 1st Street near Korea Town provides an example.
Before charter schools, this small area had two campuses: Virgil Middle School, which was built in 1914, and Frank del Amo Elementary School. Despite the decades-long reduction in the number of school-age children, the Value chain of charters built a brand new building for the Everest Value School. Across the street, the Central City Value Charter High School was opened in what appears to be a converted commercial space. While enrollment declines are continuing in both public and charter schools, the Bright Star charter school chain is building the Rise Kohyang High School across the street from Virgil.
In addition to these five school campuses that will be located within blocks of each other, the Virgil campus hosts two other separate schools. The Sammy Lee Medical and Health Services Magnet is an elementary school operated by the LAUSD. The Citizens of the World charter chain has also forced one of its franchises onto the campus using PROP-39.
Please open the link and read on.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A bizarro Trojan Horse.
LikeLike
Once charter schools get established, their funders and supporters politick for a larger share of public funds. Whether it is a marketing company or a PAC often financed by dark money, the continuing strategy is always more money and more blurring of the lines between public and private. If residents believe that state laws are being violated, as in this case, they should file a lawsuit.
LikeLike
It’s even worse….two of the charters shown in the video(open the link) are NOT held to the same strict building standards(e.g. The Field Act) as public schools. The third charter, Rise Kohyang HS, is under construction after having received a 50% grant(approx. 32 million) from the LA School Construction Bonds and therefore must follow the state standards. HOWEVER, all three are built with little to no play space. This is typical for charter facilities because the cost of land in the downtown area of LA is prohibitive. That 32 million could have and should have been spent on the major need for older schools that are in need of repair and upgrading.
LikeLike
Is it possible LA Unified is building new school close to locations they are planning to tear down due to age and falling apart? Relocate the students once the new campus is done?
I hope so.
LikeLike
There are still board members and high level administrators in LAUSD who supported billionaire Eli Broad’s plan to privatize half of Los Angeles, turn the entire system of schools into a test score based Yelp market, cripple the teachers union, make teaching a temp gig instead of a profession, and break up the district, making it Los Angeles Disunited School Dissed-trict. The board and city approve construction projects relatively freely to this day because they hired yet another corporate “reformer” superintendent, this one from Florida, and are therefore constantly bombarded in meetings with sales pitches from vendors selling shiny things and promising miracles like The Music Man. They almost approved a new school building recently because it would be three stories instead of two and have grass on the roof. Cool.
They’re not doing any planning at all.
LikeLike
The Eli and Edith Broad Foundation continues to meddle in LAUSD affairs. Their latest thing is providing startup funding — not permanent but startup — for after school tutoring by private, nonunion vendors, taking funding from lower class sizes and decently paid UTLA and SEIU members. Los Angeles remains firmly in the grip of Eli Broad. He is undead. Then of course, there are also all the other right wing billionaires still alive and pouring money into privatization.
LikeLike
Eli the Undead. Now there’s a chilling thought.
LikeLike
Charter zombies are everywhere in Los Angeles, groaning and eating brains. Eli is the ground zero case.
LikeLike
I’m watching the June 8 LAUSD Bond Oversight Committee Meeting. The retiring chief facilities officer said that he oversaw during the last twenty years the building of 131 new schools, spent $23 billion on construction, and currently has $6.6 billion in school construction projects underway. Some of that money is going to upgrading current facilities, but it appears the vast majority of funds went to new schools. He said we need to stop building “shiny new schools” when we don’t set aside money to fix the air conditioning when it inevitably breaks or fix the pavement when people trip over it. We have 100,000 empty seats. We need to focus on renovation, not innovation. It’s irresponsible to close schools when we have the money to prevent it from happening.
LikeLike
Couldn’t the additional space be used to lower class size — which is still very high in most LAUSD schools? The whole notion of empty seats is a mathematical construct based upon assuming excessive class sizes.
LikeLike
Yes. We went on strike in 2019 to get firm class size caps. That took my English classes from 42 students to 27. We went on strike again this year and got a reduction of class size by two students per class, 25 soon. The district makes the teachers union claw every reduction. They could afford to reduce class sizes even further, maybe another 5, if they made it their focus. The district is breaking California law with too many administrators and coaches, but we keep paying for more administrators and coaches by dividing the district into “local districts” with their own superintendents and administrators focused on test prep. The focus is on testing and tech, not education.
LikeLike
There’s a teacher shortage….so that’s another challenge that has not yet been dealt with.
LikeLike
A twenty percent raise recently won by striking should help. What would really help would be an and of the anti-education media blitzkrieg, an assurance that public education will be funded through enrollment inclines and declines, that educator is a stable profession not a walk on thin ice.
LikeLike
There’s a resolution on this Tuesday’s LAUSD board meeting to revise Prop 39 policy. This will be interesting. As for the salary raises, it’s possible that charter teaching staff will see this as an opportunity to apply to the district. If this does happen, charter schools will have to raise their salaries too. There are already a ton of charter ads attempting to attract teachers with an added bonus, etc.
LikeLike
Repeal Prop 39.
LikeLike
Is there really an agenda item about revising Prop 39? Wow! That’s a fantastic step in the right direction. It’s long past time to escape the traps set by Reed Hastings. Thank you.
LikeLike
Are the class size limits really 25 in HS now? What are they in the other grades?
LikeLike