Archives for category: California
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Los Angeles Times: What Tony Thurmond’s Charter School Task Force Recommended

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2019 //
17

A few months ago, Governor Gavin Newsom and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond appointed a task force to make recommendations to the State Legislature about the needed reforms of the state charter law. Of the 11 people on the Task Force, several had ties to the charter industry, two work for the California Charter Schools Association, and others are employed by charter schools. I had my doubts. But Superintendent Thurmond read my posts and called me to say, don’t judge me until you see what happens.

When the report was released, it was clear that a majority voted for important reforms of the charter law, while the charter advocates fought against, for example, allowing districts to take into account the fiscal impact of new charters on existing public schools. This was their way of saying, “let us drive public schools into fiscal crisis.” The Task Force did not agree.

Twenty percent of students in LA attend charters. At least 80% of LA charters have vacancies, contrary to phony claims about “long waiting lists.” The UTLA commissioned an audit which concluded that public schools lose $600 million every year to charters.

Howard Blume explained the recommendations of the Task Force report in the Los Angeles Times.

 

Blume writes:

When Los Angeles teachers went on strike in January, a major issue was charter schools: Union leaders talked about halting the growth of these privately operated campuses and exerting more local control over where and how these schools operate.

California took a step in that direction last week with the release of a much-awaited report by a task force set up in the wake of the six-day walkout.

The report supports new restrictions on charters and is expected to shape statewide policy.

One of the most important recommendations was to give a school district more authority when a charter seeks to open within its boundaries. Under current law, a school district must approve the opening of any charter that meets basic requirements.

The idea was to spark competition and give parents high-quality options for their children — and thousands of parents have responded enthusiastically. Charters enroll nearly one in five students in the nation’s second-largest school system.

But one result has been a proliferation of charters in some neighborhoods. Because state funding is based on enrollment, charters as well as district schools have been hard-pressed to attract enough students to remain financially viable, making it difficult to provide a stable academic program.

To address that situation, the task force recommends allowing a school district to forbid the opening of a new charter based on “saturation.” Charter critics say saturation already has become a problem in Boyle Heights and parts of South Los Angeles.

The recommendation on saturation received endorsement from the entire panel, which includes representatives of charter schools.

A smaller bloc, but still a panel majority, would go further. It recommended that school districts be able to deny a proposed charter based on financial harm to the host school district.

The panel did not release details on how individual members voted, but charter groups have vehemently opposed such a restriction. They have argued it could be used to deny any charter petition.

“There are elements that are deeply concerning and require more work ahead,” said Myrna Castrejón, president of the California Charter Schools Assn. “But ultimately, these efforts will play a pivotal role in charting a path forward for California’s students….”

One problem up and down the state has been inconsistent oversight of charters. The panel said California should create one or more entities to develop consistent standards and to train school districts in how to use them.

Some recommendations received majority but not unanimous favor, including limiting when another agency can overrule a local school district’s decision to reject a new charter or close down an existing one.

A majority also wanted to prohibit school districts from authorizing charters located outside district boundaries. Some tiny districts used these faraway charters to generate revenue but provided little to no oversight, as outlined in a Times investigation.

A panel majority also recommended a one-year moratorium on “virtual” charters, which enroll students in an online program. Prosecutors recently indicted 11 people from online charters on criminal charges of conspiracy, personal use of public money without legal authority, grand theft and financial conflict of interest.

 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Equity, Ethics, Los Angeles, Privatization

California: Summit Charter Schools Fire Three Teachers Who Were Union Organizers

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2019 //
14

 

Three teachers at Summit Public Schools (privately managed charter schools calling themselves ”public”) were terminated without cause. The three were trying to organize a union to improve working conditions and had been offered contracts for next year when they were suddenly informed that they were no longer wanted. No teachers other than these three were fired.

The Summit charter schools are funded by the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative and are noted for their infusion of computer instruction into classrooms.

This is the teachers’ website.

This is their petition on Change.org.

In January, teachers at Summit Public Schools, a group of charter schools in the Bay Area, formed a union, Unite Summit, in order to promote teacher retention, improve student support services, and increase teacher voice in important decisions.

On June 7, the last day of the school year, three Summit teachers and union leaders were fired without cause. We believe this action is unlawful, unethical, and harmful to our students.

In each case, employees were not provided any rationale for their termination beyond “business reasons.” The removal of such outstanding teachers from our school communities not only impacts the quality of education provided to our students, it also shows that Summit is not respecting teachers’ democratic decision to form a union.

Unite Summit has worked to promote the retention of high-quality educators who are invested in our students’ success. Educators have the right to speak out about how to improve their schools without fearing retaliation. The California Educational Employment Relations Act, Section 3543.5.a, states that it is unlawful for an employer to “impose or threaten to impose reprisals on employees, to discriminate or threaten to discriminate against employees, or otherwise to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees because of their exercise of rights guaranteed by this chapter.”

We are therefore calling on SPS leadership to respect Summit teachers’ legal rights to unionize, to own their responsibility to refrain from intimidation, harassment, threats or retaliation, and to immediately reinstate the three fired teachers — Aaron Calvert, Evelyn DeFelice, and Andrew Stevenson.

 

Categories California, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Teachers, Unions

West Sacramento’s Charter Schools Have a Segregation Problem

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2019 //
6

 

Bill Raden of Capital & Main writes here about racial segregation in West Sacramento’s charter schools. 

Capital & Main has done an outstanding job covering the charter industry in California.

Raden writes:

Representing the newest form of green line in West Sacramento are charter schools — publicly funded but privately operated academies that are free from many of the regulations governing public schools. Although that freedom was once supposed to encourage innovation, the door it has opened has also made charters the latest flavor of school segregation. For a state like California, which enshrines diversity in a statutory balancing test that requires charter schools to “achieve a racial and ethnic balance among its pupils that is reflective of the general population” of their districts, unregulated school choice can be like putting out a fire with gasoline.

West Sacramento is hardly alone when it comes to racially isolating charter schools. A 2017 Associated Press study was the latest to find rampant self-segregation in the national charter sector, reporting that charters are “vastly overrepresented” among so-called apartheid schools — those with at least 99 percent minority enrollments. Even in majority-minority California, which scores higher on charter school integration than other states, black students have been shown to typically move from a traditional public school that is 39 percent black to a charter that is 51 percent black.

“The problem with charters is their fundamental premise that if something’s not public it’s going to be better,” says Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project (CRP) and a research professor at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education. “We learned in the civil rights period that you had to have requirements on [school] choice if you’re going to get a positive outcome. But a lot of these charter schools are set up in a way that explicitly [segregate]. They don’t reach out for other groups of kids and have no integration policies at all, which raises big constitutional issues…”

The tendency of charters to isolate students by race and class is baked in by what education researchers call selection biases — features that attract certain kinds of families at the expense of others. Because California doesn’t fund transportation for charter schools, for example, simply by being a charter in the Golden State is to select out the most disadvantaged, single-parent families that live the furthest away from the campus. Impose a complicated application process, or require pricey uniforms or “voluntary” parent labor, and that effect is magnified.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Segregation

California Teachers Association on Thurmond’s Charter Task Force Report

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2019 //
3

 

Friends of public schools are pleased with the recommendations of Superintendent Thurmond Charter School Task Force.

Now it is up to the Legislature to act.

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

California: Hot Off the Presses: Charter School Task Force Report

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2019 //
10

 

The Charter School Policy Task Force Report was just released. 

The Task Force was charged with making recommendations to reform the state’s 1992 charter law. A large proportion of the 11 members of the Task Force (either 6 or 7) were connected to the charter industry, including two members who work directly for the California Charter School Association, the industry’s lobbying group.

Two issues were paramount:

Recognizing that the lack of funding in general for public schools in California is exacerbated by the competition for resources between traditional public schools and charter schools, Governor Gavin Newsom in early 2019 appointed the CTF and asked SSPI Tony Thurmond to convene the group to analyze two matters:

(1) the fiscal impact that charter schools have on traditional public schools;

and (2) inconsistencies in how charter schools are authorized throughout the state.

Some recommendations were unanimously approved.

Some were approved by a majority.

Some were defeated.

Please read the 10-page report carefully. Let me know what you think.

These are the recommendations that impress me because they would allow districts to have a greater say over whether charters open in their district; they would eliminate the State Board of Education from the charter authorization process; they would prevent small districts from authorizing charters in distant urban districts, for the sake of making money; they would permit consideration of fiscal impact on existing schools before granting a new charter; and they establish a one-year moratorium on new cyber charters.

E) Enact a one-year moratorium on the establishment of new virtual charter schools

• Supported by the majority


There has been growing concern that virtual charter schools are operated without appropriate academic rigor and oversight, providing a sub-par education for their students (for example, see California Virtual Academy – Bureau of State Audits review1). The temporary one-year freeze on new virtual charter schools will give advocates time to study issues related to the establishment of virtual charter schools, such as their operational practices and performance, and to make further recommendations to ensure students are receiving appropriate full-time instruction, supervised by a certified teacher. Virtual charter schools with a history of providing a demonstrated benefit to students will have the ability to continue to operate during the one-year moratorium.


F) Remove the California State Board of Education from hearing appeals of charter petition denials.

• Supported by the majority


The SBE is an authorizer for applicants whose charter petition was denied by a district or county board of education. Some CTF members expressed growing concern that applicants whose charter petitions were denied by a district and/or County Board of Education appeal to the SBE to grant their charter, thus giving a charter school three chances to be approved. Some believe that for local control and accountability to be preserved, charter schools should only be authorized locally. In addition, authorization at the state level is problematic due to geographic limitations. Almost 65% of the current SBE authorized charter schools are located in Los Angeles or San Diego, which makes it difficult for the Sacramento-based staff to provide the appropriate level of oversight at the local level. As CDE is staff to SBE, the oversight responsibilities fall to CDE; there are currently three staff at the state level to serve the 39 SBE authorized charter schools.


G) Limit the authorization of new charter schools to local districts with an appeals process that takes place at the County Board of Education only when there was an error by the district governing board.

• Supported by the majority


Current law allows for any County Board of Education, or the State Board of Education to
authorize charter petitions when a school district governing board has denied their approval. By only allowing school districts and limited appeals to the county offices to authorize, this proposal allows the local community to make a determination on whether the charter school meets the needs of their students. Applicants would be allowed limited appeals of the local district’s denial to the County Board of Education.


H) Prohibit districts from authorizing charter schools located outside district boundaries

. • Supported by the majority


Current law allows a charter school to open one site outside of the authorizing district only if the charter school has attempted to locate within the authorizer’s boundaries, but an appropriate site was unavailable or the location is temporarily needed during a construction or expansion. A 2017 state audit report found that in fiscal year 2016-2017, 165 charter schools used these exceptions to operate at least 495 locations outside of their authorizers’ boundaries2. Further, many of these charter schools had not provided evidence of the need to locate outside of the authorizing district. Prohibiting districts from authorizing charter schools located outside of district boundaries would allow for greater local control and oversight of charter schools. In addition, such a prohibition would limit the potential for the detrimental practice of using oversight fees as a revenue stream, while incurring only limited expenses associated with authorizing the charter school.3


I) Allow authorizers to consider fiscal impact as part of the authorization process

. • Supported by the majority

Presentations from Oakland Unified School Districts, Los Angeles Unified School Districts, and San Diego Unified School District to the CTF demonstrated significant fiscal impact to school districts due to the cost of charter schools located within district boundaries. In addition to the oft- cited loss of ADA funding, other costs may include, but are not limited to: inability to reduce expenses proportionally without direct harm to student programs and services (utilities, staff, daily maintenance, etc.); obligations to keep schools open and facilities available; increased liability and litigation; disproportionality of special education costs; competition for state, local, and other funds; thorough oversight; and marketing in a newly competitive environment. Allowing authorizers to consider fiscal impacts of a charter petition enables them to evaluate the impact on the entirety of their local educational system. As such, the majority of the CTF recommended that authorizers should be allowed to take fiscal impact into consideration when deciding whether to authorize a new charter school.


J) Establish clear guidelines for use by authorizers and by charter applicants for new charter petitions.


• Supported by the majority

Current law requires charter petitions to include a description of 16 elements. Beyond these elements, there are no standards that provide guidance on the level of detail an applicant should include. As such, applicants submit charter petitions of varying quality; some contain little description of the elements while others contain extensive detail. Clear guidelines, such as rubrics or handbooks, for applicants to follow would standardize the quality of new charter schools.

 

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform

California: About that $50 Million Charter School Heist

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
13

 

As reported earlier today, online charter operators in California with multiple shell corporations have been indicted for embezzling more than $50 million for their charters. 

Also indicted were the leaders of the tiny rural school districts that authorized their charters as a way to collect fat fees for doing nothing. This feature is a serious flaw in the state’s notoriously lax charter law.

A tiny district can authorize a charter in Los Angeles or San Diego, then sit back and collect commissions. Efforts are underway now to fix the law but the California Charter Schools Association has fought all efforts at accountability.

A3 Education recruited small public school districts to sponsor the charter schools in exchange for oversight fees. Prosecutors say A3 enrolled about 40,000 students throughout the state, none of whom received any services.

The company that operated a network of 19 online-only schools is accused of paying sports leagues as little as $25 a student for information used for enrollment. School districts are funded by the state based on the number of students.

The students didn’t know how their names were being used, said San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan, calling them victims…

The Dehesa Elementary School District, which has only about 150 students east of San Diego, authorized several charter schools with oversight for 20,000 students, Stephan said. The $2 million in oversight fees collected one year was more than the district’s annual payroll.

Nancy Hauer, Dehesa’s superintendent, was among 11 people charged in the case. Other defendants were employed by A3 and its charter schools.

The Dehesa school board said it couldn’t comment on the charges and vowed to fully cooperate with investigators. Hauer was not available to comment.

“The Board of Education was stunned to learn about the charges, and we have engaged legal counsel to review this matter and any possible implications for district operations,” the Dehesa district said.

The grand jury returned its indictment May 17 after hearing six weeks of testimony from more than 70 witnesses.

A spokesperson for the charter lobby insisted that it did not approve of “bad actors” but has used its vast resources to kill every legislative effort to amend the law.

The California Charter Schools Association said it raised concerns about A3 more than a year ago with the state education department and urged an investigation.

“To be clear, there is no room for bad actors and irresponsible authorizers in California’s charter public school movement,” said Myrna Castrejón, the group’s president.

As we say in Brooklyn, if you believe the lobbyists who have defeated all efforts to stop self-dealing, I have a bridge to sell you.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Privatization

California: Teachers in New Haven District on Strike

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
5

 

Teachers in New Haven, California, have been on strike since May 20. The superintendent is intransigent.

The strike has lasted longer than the Los Angeles or Oakland teachers’ strikes.

For more than two weeks, 585 brave New Haven teachers have been standing united for the schools their students deserve, on strike for as long as it takes to get a fair, student-centered agreement.

Since New Haven Teachers Association (NHTA) first walked off the job and onto picket lines on May 20, New Haven Unified School District’s (NHUSD) superintendent and managers have stomped out of negotiations numerous times and the New Haven School Board even walked out of a board meeting while a student was speaking.

In addition to this disrespectful and downright boorish behavior, NHUSD Superintendent Arlando Smith has refused to listen to reason and work toward a fair, student-centered settlement. Smith even suggested that Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond was not welcome in New Haven in his attempt to mediate an agreement between the two sides.

 

Categories California, Education Reform, Resistance, Teachers, Unions

California: Online Charter Scam Cost Taxpayers More Than $50 Million, Says Indictment

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2019 //
16

 

With the encouragement of the super lobbyists of the California CharterSchoolAssociation, the California Legislature continues to block any meaningful reform of its lax charter law, even as the news breaks that online charter operators were charged with scamming more than $50 million from taxpayers.

Peter Greene calls this one “a spectacular charter scam.” He is right. We have seen plenty of garden-variety scams and multi-Million dollar charter frauds, but this one is the biggest yet!

Morgan Cook and Kristin Taketa report in the San Diego Union-Tribune (a newspaper that supports charters):

Using in-depth knowledge of California education funding, charter school regulations and deceptive business disclosures, an Australian citizen and his partner in Long Beach orchestrated a multi-year conspiracy to fleece taxpayers out of more than $50 million, prosecutors say.

Sean McManus, 46, an Australian who operated charter schools in California, and another charter school operator, Jason Schrock, 44, and nine others were named as defendants in a 67-count indictment announced this past week by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors say McManus, Schrock and others enrolled thousands of students into online charter schools, often without their knowledge, and collected millions in state funds using student information obtained from private schools and youth athletic groups.

This criminal enterprise funneled millions of taxpayer dollars into private bank accounts of the defendants,” said District Attorney Summer Stephan.

Eight of the 11 co-defendants have pleaded not guilty and denied the allegations. Two more are expected to be arraigned June 6….McManus is at large, possibly in Australia, prosecutors said. A San Diego Superior Court judge issued a $5-million bench warrant for his arrest and froze the accounts of charter schools, related companies and individuals related to the alleged conspiracy.

A reader who calls himself “Francisco” has commented recently that there are just as many frauds in public schools as in charter schools. Hey, Francisco, can you top this?

Peter Greene responds:

The twitterverse rebuttal has been, “Oh, yeah. You’re just focusing on charters. I’ll bet we could public school scams just as bad.” Maybe. But the oversight provided by a locally-elected board and mandated transparency of financial dealings would make it pretty damn hard. To pull off a scam of this magnitude, you need to wide-open barely-regulated low-oversight world of charters.

As Greene points out, in what world is it possible to buy and sell schools like franchises other than Charter World?

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Virtual Charter Schools

Steve Lopez: Why Measure EE Lost and What It Means for the City’s Future—And America’s Future

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2019 //
16

 

Steve Lopez, a columnist for the L.A. Times, is outraged by the low and negative vote on Measure EE. He wrote that city gave a collective shrug.

On this, the last week of school before summer break in the Los Angeles Unified School District, voters have sent a loud and clear message to roughly 600,000 students:

Your schools may be crumbling, your libraries may be closed, your class sizes may be unmanageably large, about 90% of you live in poverty and thousands of you are homeless, but who cares?

The Measure EE parcel tax on Tuesday’s ballot needed two-thirds approval and didn’t even get 50%. It would have cost the average homeowner about 75 cents a day. As supporters pointed out, California is in the bottom tier of funding per pupil nationally, and New York City schools spend about $8,000 more per student than L.A. Unified spends.

The response from Los Angeles was a shrug…

As hopes for EE’s passage faded Tuesday night, an East L.A. grandmother told me she had voted yes, partly because she wants a nurse at her granddaughter’s school more than just once a week.

“This is a crisis,” said Maria Leon.

The principal of Telfair Elementary School in Pacoima, where nearly a quarter of the students were recently classified as homeless, told me he tried his best to counter social media attacks on Measure EE.

“Do I want to see my taxes go up? No,” said Jose Razo. “But I want to invest in the future of our kids, and $220 for me is a small price to pay to make class sizes smaller and bring back the things we so desperately need. I get it. It’s supposed to be the state that takes care of us. But until they get their act together, we have to do what we can for our kids.”

Glenn Sacks, a social studies teacher at James Monroe High School in North Hills, expressed his frustrated exhaustion as he watched the election news Tuesday night.

“I think as LAUSD has become so heavily minority, so heavily poor … the public feels it doesn’t have a stake in public education anymore, and they’re willing to let conditions deteriorate,” said Sacks, whose class sizes are as high as 41 students.

“People say don’t complain about class sizes, deport the illegals, you’re lousy teachers turning out a lousy product, and a lot of this is just nonsense. The kids I teach, I love them, and they learn, and I wouldn’t want to teach anyone else. But they start out so far behind the white middle-class kids they’re being compared to, inevitably they’re going to look like they’re not succeeding and we’re not succeeding, and I’m amazed that people can’t see through that.”

Sacks is framing the dark narrative here, the one that says a great deal about race and class in Los Angeles, and about practical and psychic distance between haves and have-nots. Most voters don’t send their kids to L.A. Unified schools, don’t venture into neighborhoods where the challenge for educators is greatest and never see firsthand the promise and possibility in the faces of those 600,000 children, 90% of whom are minorities.

Absent that connection, cynicism comes easily, and it’s more convenient to complain about the wording or burden of a ballot measure than to stand with children who could use a little more help.

It’s easier to shrug, to vote no, to skip the election altogether and say sorry, kids, have a nice summer.

My friends, we see the same phenomenon in district after district, state after state. The kids are black and brown, the legislators are white. They don’t want to pay to educate those kids.

Guess what? They are our kids. They are our future.

 

Categories California, Funding, Los Angeles

California: Two of Four Charter Reform Bills Remain Alive; Will Charter Lobbyists Block Them?

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2019 //
17

While the charter lobbyists (who call themselves “families”) managed to knock out two bills to harness their unrestricted expansion, two others remain alive, thanks in part to the vigorous efforts of the California NAACP, whose education leader is charter expert Julian Vasquez Heilig. 

The two that remain viable are AB 1505 and 1507, which establish local control and oversight of charters.

● AB 1505 – The bill gives local school districts sole authority to approve new charter schools and to consider how new schools would impact the district’s budget in the approval process. Since new charter schools typically attract students – and their per pupil funding – away from traditional public schools, many expect that this measure would make it much more difficult for new charter schools to be approved. AB 1505 passed May 22 and will now go to the state Senate.

● AB 1507 – This bill closes a loophole in state law that has let some districts boost their budgets by approving charter schools outside their boundaries. AB 1507 would require all charter schools approved by a district to be located within it. It passed on May 13 in the state Assembly and is also now headed to the Senate.

If these two bills pass, charters will be authorized only by the district in which they are located. Rural districts in need of cash will not be able to cannibalize urban districts hundreds of miles away by authorizing a charter that they can’t oversee.

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »