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California: Newsom Signs Bill Requiring Charter Accountability, Transparency

By dianeravitch
March 7, 2019 //
23

 

The California Legislature fast tracked a bill requiring charter school transparency and accountability and prohibiting conflicts of interest. The charter lobby had fought this legislation for years and Governor Brown had twice vetoed similar legislation.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill surrounded by well-wishers, even the California Charter School Association, which pretended to be  thrilled by the new requirements.

Gov. Newsom signs legislation requiring charter school transparency in California

Governor Newsom stressed his support for high-quality charter schools but made clear that the well-heeled industry doesn’t own him.

The days of wine and roses are over.

 

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

Oakland: OEA Members Vote to End Strike

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2019 //
8

It seems as if the only way for teachers and students to win gains from the boards that allegedly protect and serve them is to strike.

 

BREAKING BAY AREA NEWS: Oakland Education Association members have voted to ratify their new contract and end their seven-day strike, the union announced tonight. Educators will return to their classrooms Monday. See the news release below….

 

Mike Myslinski

Headquarters Communications

California Teachers Association

1705 Murchison Drive

Burlingame, CA 94010

650-552-5324

408-921-5769 (cell)

www.cta.org

 

NEWS RELEASE

March 3, 2019

 

Oakland Education Association

272 East 12th Street

Oakland, CA 94606

510-763-4020

www.oaklandea.org

 

Contact:

–Mike Myslinski with CTA on cell at 408-921-5769, mmyslinski@cta.org

 

On Twitter: @oaklandea, #Unite4OaklandKids, #WeAreOEA, #RedForEd, #WeAreCTA

OEA on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTRACT APPROVED BY OEA MEMBERS

Strike Ends, But Fight for Public Schools Will Continue

  

OAKLAND – Members of the Oakland Education Association voted today to approve a new contract and end their seven-day strike. Educators will be back in their classrooms Monday, knowing that students will benefit from the gains won in smaller class sizes, more student supports, and living wages that will help halt the teacher retention crisis in Oakland.

 

While applauding the gains made with the agreement, educators vowed to continue their fight for fully-funded classrooms, an end to school closures in Oakland’s Black and Latinx communities, and a moratorium on charter schools that are draining the school district of resources.

 

“We look forward to being in our classrooms again after having to strike to bring our Oakland students some of the resources and supports they should have had in the first place,” said Oakland Education Association (OEA) President Keith Brown. “This victory, accomplished through our collective strength on the picket lines with Oakland parents and students, sends the message that educators will no longer let this school district starve our neighborhood schools of resources. Our fight is not over, though. Oakland educators spoke clearly today at our ratification vote that this agreement will not be the end of our struggle, and we will continue to fight in Oakland and Sacramento for the schools our students deserve.”

 

A summary of the significant gains made by striking, and the full agreement, are on the OEA website: www.oaklandea.org. The Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) school board must now ratify the agreement.

 

OEA members met at the Paramount Theater downtown today and voted to approve the two tentative agreements that comprise the new contract. The first tentative agreement, which deals mostly with the 3 percent retroactive bonus for 2017-18, was approved by a vote of 64 percent yes, 36 percent no, or 1,269 to 701. There were five abstentions.

 

The second tentative agreement was for the rest of the contract, including salary increases, for the  2018-19 and 2020-21 school years. It was approved by 58 percent yes votes to 42 percent no, or 1,141 to 832. There were four abstentions. Only a simple majority vote was needed to approve each of the two sections of the overall contract agreement.

 

The strike brought gains on every one of OEA’s demands:

 

LIVING WAGES: Already among the lowest-paid educators in the Bay Area, and facing an exodus of more than 500 educators per year, Oakland members made salary a key battleground to stabilize classrooms for students. It took a strike to force the district to invest in teachers. For the four-year contract, the 11 percent salary increase the union won, plus a 3 percent bonus, is considerably more than what the school district was offering pre-strike — only 7 percent over four years, and a 1.5 percent bonus – and leaps and bounds more than a take-away offer of no raise and one furlough day made by the district one year ago.

 

LOWER CLASS SIZE: The OUSD had pushed back against lowering class sizes, but OEA won a reduction in class size next school year by 1 in the district’s highest-needs schools, followed by a reduction in class size by 1 in 2021 at all schools. Educators know that lower class sizes improve student learning conditions and improve teacher retention.

 

MORE STUDENT SUPPORTS: The OEA strike won a phased-in reduction in caseloads for counselors from a ratio of 600 students to one counselor to down to 500:1 by 2020-21 school year. Caseloads for speech therapists, psychologists and resource specialists will also be reduced. A new nurse salary schedule in 2021 to help recruit and retain nurses will include the contract’s negotiated salary increase plus 9 percent. In addition, nurses will receive a $10,000 bonus twice, in May of 2020 and 2021.

 

SCHOOL CLOSURE PAUSE: During the strike and well before, Oakland teachers blasted the district and school board for proceeding with a plan to close up to 24 of the 86 schools, mostly in African American and Latinx neighborhoods. After refusing to bargain over this issue for months, the strike forced Board of Education President Aimee Eng to commit to introduce a resolution calling for a five-month pause on school closures and consolidations, and more community input into the process.

 

This pause against closures is far from enough, said OEA President Brown. “This resolution is a direct result of the strike and OEA members lifting up the issue of school closures in Oakland and putting pressure on the school board. However, the OEA will continue to oppose any closures of neighborhood schools in our Black and Latinx communities. Oakland educators will continue to fight against school closures that hurt working-class neighborhoods in Oakland.”

 

CHARTER MORATORIUM: The proliferation of unregulated charters – many housed at neighborhood schools that were shut down by the school board over the last two decades – continues to disrupt Oakland. Because of the strike, the school board will vote on a resolution calling on the state to stop charter growth in OUSD. Charter schools drain the district of about $57 million a year, one key study found.

 

The strike drew national media attention for how billionaires and outside interests influenced the Oakland school board members who supported more privately-managed, publicly-funded charters, and for how educators are being priced out of gentrifying Oakland by its soaring housing costs.

 

Teacher and community solidarity grew each day of the seven-day strike. Tens of thousands of parents and allies walked picket lines and attended rallies and marches at City Hall. About 95 percent of OEA members remained on strike each day of the showdown, and student attendance plummeted to about 2 percent by the union’s estimate as parents kept their children home.

 

The strike erupted after two years of frustrating negotiations – the teachers’ contract expired in July 2017. The extraordinary documentation of the strike is on the OEA Facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/OaklandEA/

 

President Brown thanked the community, all educators and allies for their strong support. “We built power. We united the community during the seven days of the strike and we have won because of the power of parents, students uniting with the community and labor,” Brown said. “Through this powerful strike, the people of Oakland have spoken.”

 

Brown also thanked State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and Assembly Member Rob Bonta for their support and participation during negotiations.

 

OEA co-sponsored the Bread For Ed campaign that raised more than $171,000 to feed Oakland students in solidarity schools held at churches and city recreation centers during the strike in a district where an overwhelming number of children are low-income and depend on free or reduced-price meals during school. The OEA Membership Assistance Fund raised more than $85,000 through a Go Fund Me drive.

###

The Oakland Education Association represents 3,000 OUSD educators, including teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatric social workers, therapists, substitutes, and early childhood and adult teachers. OEA is affiliated with the 325,000-member California Teachers Association and the 3 million-member National Education Association.

 

 

Categories California, Charter Schools, Class size, Closing schools

California: Legislature Passes Historic Charter Accountability Bill

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2019 //
9

 

During Governor Jerry Brown’s tenure in office, he vetoed all efforts to hold charter schools accountable, to consider their fiscal impact, or to limit their numbers. Those days are over under Governor Gavin Newsom. 

Edsource reports:

“The chairman of the Assembly Education Committee and several Democratic colleagues introduced a package of bills Monday that would impose severe restrictions on the growth of charter schools.

“Three of the bills would eliminate the ability of charter schools to appeal rejected applications to the county and state, place an unspecified cap on charter school growth and enable school districts to consider the financial impact of charter schools when deciding whether to approve them. A fourth bill would abolish the right of a charter school that can’t find a facility in its authorizing district to locate a school in an adjoining district.

“Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, who chairs the Education Committee, said the bills collectively would enable school districts “to make responsible and informed decisions” that are “critical for student success and taxpayer accountability.” Eric Premack, a veteran charter school adviser and advocate, called the legislation a “full-frontal” assault and “scorched earth” approach to charter schools.”

”Scorched earth”=accountability, ethics, transparency.

At the heart of the strikes in Los Angeles and Oakland was the fiscal drain caused by runaway charter schools, which have operated and proliferated in the state without accountability for years.

The power of the charters was guaranteed by their lobby, the California Charter School Association, which spends $20 million a year to defeat accountability measures.

It’s a new day in California!

Elections have consequences. The charter lobby backed Antonio Villaraigosa for governor and Marshall Tuck for State Superintendent.Both lost.

Both houses of the legislature swiftly approved a bill to impose accountability and transparency on charter schools and Governor Gavin Newsom has promised to sign it. 

In the future, charters will be subject to the same open meetings laws and conflicts of interest laws as public schools.

More stringent regulation may be on the way, for example, one bill would no longer allow charter operators who were rejected by their district to appeal to the county, and if rejected by the county, appeal to the state board.

At present, charters may open without consideration of their fiscal impact on the public schools.

Also, a charter may be authorized by a district to operate in another district hundreds of miles away.

John Fensterwald writes in Edsource:

“Capitalizing on the momentum, this week O’Donnell and three other legislators announced four more bills that would restrict charter schools. They would eliminate the right of appeals to the county and the state, cap the number of schools to what’s operating now, let school districts reject charter schools based on their financial impact and prevent charter schools approved in one district from setting up in another.

“This week, the West Contra Costa Unified School District board followed the lead of boards in Los Angeles and Oakland to endorse some form of a moratorium on charter schools. Newsom has not indicated his position on the latest bills or on a moratorium, now that the bill on transparency has passed.”

Are the “days of wine and roses” coming to an end for the richly funded charter lobby?

This NPE report explains why charters in California need regulation and accountability.

Click to access NPE-Report-Charters-and-Consequences.pdf

Imagine a charter school in a shopping mall where students see a teacher once every 21 days. Imagine charter schools with graduation rates of 10% or less.

Imagine rampant fraud that goes unchecked for years.

Could these excesses finally be subject to oversight?

 

 

 

 

 

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

Jan Resseger: How Charter Schools Have Plunged Oakland into a Fiscal Crisis

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2019 //
21

Jan Resseger writes here about the cause of Oakland’s fiscal crisis: the expansion and encroachment of charter schools.

This context is important as background to understand the teachers’ strike.

She writes:

Like Los Angeles, Oakland’s financial crisis is related to California’s embrace of charter schools and the school district’s adoption of a portfolio school reform governance plan by which the district manages traditional public and charter schools as though they are investments in a stock portfolio. The idea is to establish competition—launching new schools all the time and closing low scoring schools and schools that become under-enrolled.  It is imagined that competition will drive school improvement, but that has not been the result anyplace where this scheme has been tried.

To better understand the issues underlying why Oakland’s teachers are on strike, it is worth examining Lafer’s in-depth profile of the Oakland Unified School District.

Lafer’s report explores the Oakland Unified School District as an exemplar of a California-wide and nationwide problem: Uncontrolled charter school expansion undermines the financial viability of the surrounding public schools. “In every case, the revenue that school districts have lost is far greater than the expenses saved by students transferring to charter schools.  The difference—the net loss of revenues that cannot be made up by cutting expenses associated with those students—totals tens of millions of dollars each year, in every district.” “California boasts the largest charter school sector in the United States, with nearly 1,300 charter schools serving 620,000 students, or 10 percent of the state’s total student body.”

“(W)ith a combined district and charter student population of over 52,000 in 2016-17—(Oakland) boasts the highest concentration of charter schools in the state, with 30 percent of pupils attending charter schools.” “By 2016-17, charter schools were costing OUSD a total of $57.3 million per year—a sum several times larger than the entire deficit that shook the system in the fall of 2017.  Put another way, the expansion of charter schools meant that there was $1,500 less funding available per year for each child in a traditional Oakland public school.”

Lafer identifies two problems at the heart of California’s enabling legislation for charter schools. First, a local school board has no control over whether charters can expand in the district: “Even when districts determine that there are already enough schools for all students in the community—or even if a charter operator petitions to open up next door to an existing neighborhood school—it is illegal for the district to deny that school’s application on the grounds that it constitutes a waste of public dollars. By law, as long as charter operators submit the required number of signatures, assurances against discrimination, and descriptions of their plans and program, school districts may only deny charter petitions for one of two substantive reasons: if ‘the charter school presents an unsound educational program,’ or ‘the petitioners are demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in the petition’”

The second problem, Lafer explains, is particularly serious as it impacts Oakland Unified School District: “While charter schools are required by law to accept any student who applies, in reality they exercise recruitment, admission, and expulsion policies that often screen out the students who would be the neediest and most expensive to serve—who then turn to district schools.  As a result, traditional public schools end up with the highest-need students but without the resources to serve them.  In Oakland, this can be seen in the distribution of both special education students and unaccompanied minor children who arrive in the district after entering the U.S. without their families.”

The problem is made worse because California does not allocate state funding based on the number of disabled students who require special services: “Special education funding is apportioned in equal shares for every student attending school, irrespective of the number of enrolled students with disabilities. Even in districts without charter schools, special education is an underfunded mandate, in that the dedicated funding for this purpose is insufficient to meet the needs that school systems are legally required to serve.”

Lafer reports that in 2015-16, Oakland’s charter schools served merely 19 percent of Oakland Unified School District’s students with special education needs: “The imbalance is yet more extreme in the most serious categories of special need.  Of the total number of emotionally disturbed students attending either charter or traditional public schools in Oakland, charter schools served only 15 percent.  They served only eight percent of all autistic students, and just two percent of students with multiple disabilities… Thus, charter schools are funded for a presumed level of need which is higher than the number of students with disabilities they actually enroll, while the district serves the highest-need students without the funding they require.”

The bottom line is that it is wasteful and inefficient to run two separate school systems, both funded by the public.

It is especially sad that Governor Jerry Brown, a progressive in so many ways, was blind to the depredations of the charter industry. He opened two charter schools where he was mayor of Oakland and never admitted that he was wrong.

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Oakland, Privatization, Teachers

Sign a Petition to Change the Charter Law in California

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2019 //
1

Allies who met at the Oakland conference of the Network for Public Educare are petitioning to regulate charter schools so they don’t harm public schools.

 

Dear Friend of Public Education:

On behalf of Educators for Democratic Schools, and Wellstone Democratic Club Education Committee (both active in Oakland) we are writing again to those who participated in the California Caucus of the NPE conference and others interested in Charter School reform to enlist your support for reform of the Charter School Act. We are about to launch a statewide petition for the following specific changes to the Act:

 

  1. Add adverse fiscal impact as a basis on which districts may reject charter applications.

 

  1. Give locally elected school boards the sole authority to approve and renew charter school petitions.

 

  1. Require charter schools to enroll students with disabilities, including those with the most severe disabilities, English Language Learners, and newcomers, in equal proportion to the enrollment of these groups of students in the district in which the charter operates.

 

  1. Apply to charter school board members the same prohibition of conflicts of interest as apply to public school boards.

 

  1. Require charter schools to be more accountable and transparent and not force school districts to have to cede control of their facilities to charter schools.

 

You can sign the petition today by going to CharterLawReform.com.

 

We also created a suggested cover email for you here but if you want to create your own personal cover even better: Open in Docs

 

We are hoping that tomorrow each of you will join each of us and many other organizers throughout the state to send the petition out to all your friends, families, networks and organizations and ask them to sign as well.  Once someone signs and inserts their address it will automatically be directed to their state Senator and Assembly member as well as every member of the Education Committees of both bodies and the Governor.

 

Thank you in advance for your help and support!

 

David Weintraub, on behalf of

Educators for Democratic Schools

Wellstone Democratic Club Education Committee

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

California Pension Funds Are Major Investors in National Enquirer, Trump’s Ally

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2019 //
6

 

The Los Angeles Times reports that CalPERS, the state’s biggest pension fund, holding the pensions of state workers and taxpayers, was a major investor in the National Enquirer.

“The National Enquirer has been one of President Trump’s most controversial allies, delivering scathing coverage of his opponents to supermarket checkout lines and funneling $150,000 to one of his alleged mistresses to buy her silence.

“So it will probably come as a surprise to many California state employees and taxpayers to learn they were helping fund those efforts.

”During the 2016 presidential campaign, California’s massive public pension fund, CalPERS, was one of the biggest investors in the debt-laden owner of the National Enquirer, according to public records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

“Through an investment managed by a New Jersey hedge fund, California’s public pension fund appears to have owned as much as one-third of American Media Inc., the National Enquirer’s parent company, in 2016. It is not clear whether CalPERS continues to hold a major stake in the tabloid publisher.

”Fewer than a third of California voters cast their ballots for Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in the state.

”Informed of the investment, Jeremy Bulow, a professor of economics at Stanford University, laughed in disbelief.

“I’m sure lots of CalPERS [plan holders] will be happy to know they were paying hush money to help get Trump elected,” he said. “That’s going to make them feel real good about their pension fund managers!”

”The news organization Maplight reported last year that California was one of three states whose pension funds had invested in the privately held publisher, although it did not detail how much of the company the state fund controlled.

”California’s pension fund, the largest in the nation, runs on contributions from taxpayer-funded state agencies and their employees. It has long drawn scrutiny over whether its mandate of seeking strong returns meshes with liberal Californians’ expectations of ethical investment. Some of its investments drawing recent scrutiny have included oil pipelines, retailers that sell semiautomatic rifles, Russian sovereign debt and coal-producing companies.”

Categories California, Education Reform, Pensions

Red Queen in LA: Meet Billionaire Bill Bloomfield, Conservative Supporter of Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
February 19, 2019 //
9

 

When people think of Los Angeles billionaires who want to take control of the schools , they tend to think of Eli Broad and Reed Hastings.

Sara Roos, who blogs as Red Queen in LA, has done a deep dive into the political contributions of billionaire Bill Bloomfield, who gives generously to rightwing politicians and school privatization.

Mr. Bloomfield and his wife have spent $36 million since 2005 to advance their conservative Republican agenda.

This is an impressive investigation of the usesof Big Money to undercut democracy.

When billionaires call, politicians pick up the phone.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, California, Los Angeles

Denver Teachers End Strike; Oakland Teachers Likely to Strike Next

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2019 //
9

 

Denver teachers ended their strike and settled with the district for a substantial pay raise, CNN reports:

“Denver educators have been promised pay raises as part of a tentative deal they reached with their school district after three days on strike.

“Under the tentative agreement between Denver Public Schools and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, educators would see between 7% and 11% increases to their base salaries and a 20-step salary schedule, the union said in a statement Thursday.
“Teachers went on strike to demand higher, stable salaries, because the district uses unpredictable bonuses to compensate for low base pay.
“They also hoped higher salaries would keep more educators from leaving the city, where the cost of living has skyrocketed in recent years, one teacher told CNN.
The agreement would also put an end to “exorbitant five-figure bonuses” for senior administrators, the union’s statement said.
“This agreement is a win, plain and simple: for our students, for our educators, and for our communities,” union President Henry Roman said.”

Meanwhile, Oakland teachers authorized a strike and will do so if necessary.

This historic wave of teacher militancy seems to have a multiplier effect.

Teachers in most states are underpaid and finally have the public support they need as media coverage accurately portrays the national underinvestment in education over the past decade amp longer.

Back to Oakland.

Poor Oakland has been a Petri dish for Reform. State takeovers. Near bankruptcy. A series of Broadie Superintendents who opened multiple charters, stripping the district of resources.

No wonder teachers are talking Strike.

As teachers in Oakland prepare for a possible strike, the district office is trying to hire substitutes (scabs) to replace the teachers, offering double what subs usually earn. The Oakland teachers will have none of it.

https://eastbaymajority.com/oakland-unified-school-district-treats-scabs-better-than-teachers/?fbclid=IwAR1jZyKck5lrmS18PMFrfyfJX8HbqEGlDyVRjC4Uz4SC6njV6clETbg0jUY

Oakland teachers, you have the support of your allies across the nation!

Save public education in Oakland!

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, California, Charter Schools, Denver, Oakland, Privatization, Teachers

California: Charter School Threatens to Drive District into Bankruptcy

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2019 //
7

 

A school district in Santa Barbara County may go bankrupt because of the charter chain absorbing revenues from its schools.

https://ksby.com/news/local-news/2019/02/11/syvuhsd-says-charter-school-funding-could-bankrupt-the-district?fbclid=IwAR0V9u7V4jluBv5yN7vbzFuOc905hAhxnS0hJHorW-7tuia6DctW-nbgN20

“One Santa Barbara County school district says keeping a local charter school open could cause them to go bankrupt.

“California’s Department of Education recently decided the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District has to help fund Olive Grove Charter School, a public school with six different locations.

“Olive Grove Charter Schools have been in Santa Barbara County since 2000, originally chartered by the Los Olivos School District. In 2014, Los Olivos decided it no longer wanted to oversee the schools.

“The only district willing to speak with us was New Cuyama so we did get authorized with the state board and New Cuyama paid us in-lieu funds at that point,” explained Laura Mudge, Executive Director of Olive Grover Charter School.

“Then the laws changed, and they were back at the drawing board.

“So the California Department of Education was hoping everyone would be able to get to an agreement, especially since Olive Grove had been authorized and in the county since 2000. It didn’t go that way, so we went back to the districts, back to the county and back to the state and then got authorized,” Mudge said.

“Now, the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District is stuck footing the bill – one that’s so high, they say it could lead to bankruptcy.

“We received notification from the Department of Education in December that we’re going to owe $696,000 to help fund Olive Grove Charter. That was just based off the beginning of the year attendance. If you listen to projections coming from the executive director of Olive Grove, that number will be closer to $1-1.2 million come the end of this school year,” said Scott Corey, superintendent of the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School District.”

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

California: Public Advocates Asks Whether GoV. Newsom Will Deliver On Equity, Funding, and Accountability

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2019 //
7

 

 

Statement by John Affeldt on Governor Newsom’s State of the State Education Priorities

 

On the occasion of Governor Gavin Newsom’s first State of the State address, Public Advocates is issuing the following statement commenting on the Governor’s remarks on public education. Quotes from the statement are to be attributed to John Affeldt, Public Advocates Managing Attorney for Education.

On funding for California’s public schools:

We are thrilled to have a governor finally willing to have the long overdue conversation about sufficient funding for our public schools. The Local Control Funding Formula has made school funding much more equitable but did not address funding adequacy. Despite being the world’s fifth largest economy, California drags along the bottom of states in per pupil expenditures and has fewer adults per student ratios than all but two other states. From Los Angeles to Oakland to Sacramento, our schools are having to choose unfairly between paying teachers living wages, or delivering core services like reasonable class sizes, nurses, counselors and librarians or paying extra attention to students with the greatest needs. These are necessities our public schools must provide to close persistent opportunity and achievement gaps, and which can be met by using the resources our wealthy state possesses. We have offered thoughts for reaching funding adequacy over the years, most recently in an October EdSource op-ed, and we look forward to being part of the urgent conversation on how to fully and fairly fund our schools.

 

On the appointment of Linda Darling-Hammond to the State Board of Education:

Governor Newsom could not have made a better appointment to the State Board of Education than Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond. Dr. Darling-Hammond is the foremost authority on equity and teacher quality in our public schools in the country. More than a brilliant academic she also has shown herself an astute policymaker and public administrator in her time advising the Obama Campaign, Governor Brown and serving as Chair of the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing for the past six years. We look forward to working with Dr. Darling-Hammond on the State Board and to seeing her influence that body to make even greater strides to improve the educational system for all California students.

 

On plans to increase accountability and transparency in public education, including charter schools:

We also applaud Governor Newsom’s proposal to increase accountability and transparency in public education. For starters, we need a much clearer picture of how $6 billion in supplemental and concentration dollars for high-need students are being spent by districts and schools. Murkiness in charter spending is even worse. In August 2018, Public Advocates published the first study of how well charter schools are performing in terms of being transparent and accountable for public dollars in their required Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAP). We found a shocking lack of public accountability for hundreds of millions of dollars reviewed in the sample. A third of charters failed to even present an LCAP at all. Of those that did, only $15.8 million out of $48.6 million dollars supposed to be dedicated to low-income, English learner and foster students were identified as having been expended and none of those dollars were actually properly justified as having been lawfully spent to serve high need students. We look forward to working with the Administration to further strengthen charter school accountability.

 

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Public Advocates Inc. is a nonprofit law firm and advocacy organization that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and racial discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy and achieving tangible legal victories advancing education, housing, transportation equity, and climate justice. www.publicadvocates.org 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Equity, Funding
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