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Pennsylvania: Finance Experts Warn that Charter Costs May Bankrupt 500 School Districts

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2019 //
12

Finance experts in Pennsylvania warned that the costs of charter schools and cyber charters threaten to bankrupt as many as 500 school districts. 

Finance experts with the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO) said lawmakers must change the way charter costs are assessed to local school districts or accept that some school districts are not going to be able to continue to bear the cost of paying hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions, of dollars in charter school tuition.

The call for change comes as the General Assembly weighs a variety of bills aimed at altering the way the state regulates and finances charter and cyber charter schools that now enroll about 140,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Hannah Barrick, of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officers, said charter school costs, which are borne almost entirely by local school districts, totaled $1.8 billion last year and accounted for 37 cents of every new dollar raised in local property taxes.

In some school districts, the costs are even higher.

Enrollment in Pennsylvania’s charter schools grew dramatically over the last decade, increasing from about 78,000 students in 2009-10 to 140,000 this year.

Along with that growth, school districts have seen the bill for charter school tuition grow by double digits five out of the past eight years.

Charter schools, promoted as a free option for public school students whose families wish to look outside their districts, are funded by the students’ local school districts. Tuition is calculated using a complex formula that requires each district to pay charter school fees based on the local district’s cost per student per year. Across the state, those figures ranged from $7,600 to $18,500 per mainstream student to $15,100 to $48,000 per special education student.

Pennsylvania has about 1.7 million students. Supplying choices for 140,000 students (8%) in schools that are of mixed quality threatens to bankrupt the state’s school finance system.

Has it occurred to the lawmakers in Pennsylvania that running a dual school system, both publicly funded, is an insane idea?

 

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

Pastors for Texas Children: Great News for Public Schools in the Lone Star State!

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2019 //
8

Our good friends who lead Pastors for Texas Children—the Revs. Charles Foster Johnson and Charles Luke—have great news to report from the Lone Star State. It was a bipartisan victory for five million children, their teachers, and their public schools!
       The 86th Session of the Texas Legislature, just completed on Monday, May 27, was the most productive on behalf of our 5.4 million schoolchildren in recent memory. Certainly, it was the finest session in the six years Pastors for Texas Children has been in existence.

The signature policy achievement of this legislature was House Bill 3, which secured over $5 billion dollars in new funding for our 8500 Texas public schools, enacted a significant teacher pay raise, implemented full-day, high quality Pre-Kindergarten instruction—and did all of this without any standardized test contingency and without any substantive push for a private school voucher. While some regressive forces in state government wished to use our surplus of $10 billion plus dollars to “buy down” rising property taxes, more generous and aspirational voices prevailed to allocate this bounty for investment in the public education of our children. While the return on that investment is delayed until the child reaches adulthood, there is no better investment in the future prosperity of our great state than good public schools.

Furthermore, our message that public schoolteachers are the messengers of God’s Love and the keepers of God’s Common Good, joining Christian pastors and church leaders in this high and holy calling, resonated more harmoniously with policymakers than ever before.

Clearly, the voices of faith leaders and faith communities played a key role in this huge step forward of the enactment of HB3. Quality public education for all of God’s children is protected by the biblical mandate for justice as well as by the Texas State Constitution. It is a moral imperative embraced by civil society.

We were in the capitol every day making visits, holding significant conversations, praying with House and Senate members– but we were also in the Texas communities urging pastors and church leaders to do the same with their own legislators!  It is this dual approach that is so effective. It was our privilege to carry that message every day of this session to our 181 House and Senate members.

This historic legislation is not perfect. There are fixes and corrections that need to be made in it in the 2021 session. But, as an old preacher said years ago, “Something doesn’t have to be perfect in order to be good.” Clearly, HB3 is a huge first step in the right direction in correcting funding lapses of the past decade, and in restoring Texas to its rightful place of leadership among our United States in per pupil spending on our children.

The work is not finished. Now that the Session is over, we can focus exclusively on the great work to mobilize churches and pastors for local school assistance. This is the fun part! We love taking this powerful message to our Texas communities!

  None of this could have been done without you. Your moral witness and direct advocacy on behalf of God’s “least of these”—our precious children—advanced healthy education policy this session. It also helped produce the kind of legislature that supports public education as a provision of social justice and opposes its privatization for personal financial gain. “Well done, good and faithful servants.” We thank God for you!

Stay Involved with PTC at the June 18 Benefit!

The end of the session is just the beginning of our year-round ministry to Texas’ public schools, and we have a great way for your organization to support our important work!

PTC’s  Benefit Luncheon, honoring rural education hero Dr. Don Rogers, is on Tuesday, June 18, and we still have plenty of tables available for your congregation, company, or organization to sponsor!  Check out our website and contact Brandon Grebe to make your reservation today!
Support Our Ministry: Give a Gift to PTC
Our mailing address is:

Pastors for Texas Children

PO Box 100502

Fort Worth, Tx 76185

 

Categories Funding, Supporting public schools, Texas

Los Angeles: Turn Out and Vote for Measure EE on Tuesday, June 4!

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2019 //
2

Thousands of public school teachers in Los Angeles went on strike in February, demanding basic services for their students: smaller class sizes (many classes have more than 40 students), classes in the arts and music, a librarian and nurse and other support staff in every school. The strike won broad public support. The teachers won an agreement from the school board.

Now comes the hard part: Paying for the agreement.

On Tuesday June 4, voters in Los Angeles will go to the polls and vote on Measure EE.

It is a parcel tax that would raise $500 million additional dollars every year for the public schools for the next twelve years.

Please show up and vote for Measure EE.

The money is desperately needed to provide the students of Los Angeles the schools they need and deserve. Why should they attend schools that are deteriorating, where the library is open only on occasion or not at all, where a nurse is available once a week, a guidance counselor has hundreds of students, and a school psychologist is available never?

Please show up and vote for Measure EE.

California is one of the richest states in the nation, with a roaring and dynamic economy.

But California spends less on education than most other states. Shockingly, it is on par with Kansas, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

Los Angeles spends far less than other big cities on its students.

Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez met with Superintendent Austin Beutner and UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl at an elementary school in the school library, which is closed two or three days a week.

He wrote:

“The two most powerful people in Los Angeles public education are like a tag team now, practically completing each other’s sentences.”

California, he wrote, “ranks at the top in wealth and near the bottom in funding per pupil.”

What would EE cost the taxpayer? The owner of a 1,500 square foot home would  pay an additional $240, twice as much for a house twice as large. About 82% of the revenue would come from commercial, industrial and apartment building owners, while senior homeowners (over 65) and disabled homeowners are exempted from the tax.

Who is fighting EE? The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, which opposes taxes and apparently opts for an undereducated workforce; the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is also opposed, that being the organization responsible for Proposition 13, which undermined school funding in 1978 by setting strict limits on property taxes. The Chamber prefers a regressive flat tax, one that is the same for the owner of a small house and the owner of a skyscraper.

Beutner and Caputo-Pearl pointed to business leaders who understand that the future success of Los Angeles depends on the success today of the students in the city’s public schools and who support EE.

Measure EE includes strict accountability requirements, meaning an independent financial audit to assure that every dollar goes to the schools for the intended purposes of reducing class size and providing needed services, such as nurses, counselors, and librarians.

Measure EE needs a two-thirds majority to pass, and that’s a high bar, but other cities in California have met it. Beutner listed them: Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Monica, and Torrance.

The people of Los Angeles cheered the teachers when they struck and marched in the rain. They honked their horns and gave them thumbs-up because they were doing what was best for their students.

Now comes the voters’ turn.

Will they too stand up for the children who are the future of Los Angeles?

Will they agree that every school should have a working library, a school nurse, a psychologist, and reasonable class sizes?

Will they agree that all children deserve equality of educational opportunity?

Tuesday June 4 will be a decisive day for the children of Los Angeles.

They are OUR children.

If you live in Los Angeles, please vote and urge your friends, family, and neighbors to vote.

Vote as if your future depends upon it.

It does.

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, California, Democracy, Funding, Los Angeles

Joe Biden’s Education Plan

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2019 //
45

 

Former Vice President Joe Biden released his education plan yesterday. 

He pledges a dramatic increase in federal funding for education.

The plan is notable for what it does not say.

It does not say anything about the failed strategies of Race to the Top.

It does not say anything about charter schools, which was a major focus for the Obama-Duncan program. Will he repeal the failed federal Charter Schools Program or will he give his approval to continue funding corporate charter chains like KIPP, IDEA, and Success Academy?

It does not say anything about testing, nor does it say anything about revising the federal “Every Student Succeeds Act,” which mandates annual testing. Will Biden support the continuation of the ESSA law?

It does not say anything about evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students, which was a favorite Duncan policy. States bidding for Race to the Top billions changed their laws to adopt this punitive and wrong-headed policy. Will he oppose this practice or let it slide?

It makes no reference to the Common Core, which had the enthusiastic support of the Obama administration, which was legally prohibited from funding it, but which supplied $360 million to create two Common Core testing programs, PARCC and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Is Biden for or against it.

In sum, I like everything he said. But I wonder about what he didn’t say. He ducked all the tough issues, most of which are the legacy of the Bush-Obama era, of which he was a part.

Biden clearly prefers to duck the contentious issues. I hope that they will be posed to him in town halls.

We need to know where he stands on all the issues that matter to students, parents, teachers, and schools.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization, Testing

Julian Vasquez Heilig: “Did You See the Numbers?” “Yes, I Did.”

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2019 //
5

Julian Vasquez Heilig is a leading authority on the subjects of equity and social justice. His blog is one of the brightest spots on the Internet because of his scholarship and creative use of graphics. He has been a prominent member in the California chapter of the NAACP.

In this post, he refutes the claim that charter schools in California produce results better than public schools. Despite their advantages, their academic results are about the same as public schools. The hype for them comes from their well-funded propaganda and lobbying operation.

He writes:

Even with the limited (and selection biased?) sample of comparison neighborhood public schools, charter school students nearly perform statistically the same as neighborhood school students. The differences are in the hundredths of a standard deviation in Central California and Southern California and tenths of a standard deviation in Bay Area and South Bay. By comparison, other education policies such as class size reduction and high quality Pre-K show 400% more overall impact on student success than charter schools.[5]Considering the data, charter schools are not having the instant impact that proponents purport….

The education policy discourse in the Trump and Obama eras has been focused on empowering schools choice while remaining silent about the purposeful inequality in financial resources that plague low-income schools in the United States. The latest research has identified the inequality and shown the positive impacts of properly funding schools. The problem is that the wealthy have improperly influenced the equalization mechanisms in each state and have stacked the deck against low-income districts, schools and students. We must substantially change the political conservation about education policy away from school choice to resource inequality if we are to offer a quality education to every student in the United States.

 

Categories Budget Cuts, California, Charter Schools, Class size, Education Reform, Equity, Funding, Justice

Texas: Good News on School Funding!

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2019 //
8

Our friends, Pastors for Texas Children, have been strong allies in the fight to improve public schools.

They daily remind us that support for good public schools is bipartisan. Both chambers of the Texas Legislature are controlled by Republicans, and many of them support their community public schools. Working with members of both parties, PTC and many parent groups repeatedly defeated vouchers in Texas. 

Now Charles Foster Johnson brings good news about school funding. 

We are gratified to report that the stalemate has ended on House Bill 3, the historic public school funding bill passed with virtually unanimous approval by the House of Representatives earlier this session. The bill has been held up for weeks over intense debate about certain measures attached to the bill by the Senate, mainly around property tax relief policy. 

While we are waiting for the actual bill language, it is clear that our neighborhood and community Texas public schools will get several billion new dollars in funding, that this support will not be contingent on our children’s performance on any standardized test, that teachers will receive a desperately needed pay increase, and that full-day, high-quality Pre-Kindergarten instruction will finally be implemented.

This is a new major development in the growing pro-public education wave sweeping our state and nation. It comes as the result of your incredible work and witness. HB 3 is a significant step in the ongoing journey to provide our children the education they deserve, God demands, and Texans desire. 

Our pastors and church leaders were in the Capitol every day of this 86th Legislative Session, building relationships with House and Senate members and staff, praying with these legislators, influencing them about the moral mandate to create school policy that will advance God’s Common Good. 

Modernizing school finance while offering tax relief is a complicated endeavor. The Legislature has heard our voice and received our witness about the moral imperative to fund our schools, fairly compensate our teachers, and give our youngest and poorest children the head-start they need in their education. Without your persistence and participation through phone calls, emails, sermons, messages, and visits– and those of countless tens of thousands of other fellow public education advocates doing likewise– this simply would not have happened. Well done, good and faithful servants!

As we end this legislative session next Tuesday, we look forward to getting back to our main work of helping local schools– and building community support for public education as the key institution of stable and civil society. We thank God for the privilege of doing this work, and doing it with dedicated leaders like you.

Categories Funding, Texas

Pennsylvania: Those Disgraceful, Failing CyberCharters

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2019 //
13

I recommend that you get on the email list of the Keystone State Education Coalition if you want to know what is happening in Pennsylvania. Lawrence Feinberg posts informative articles about the schools of that state. You can contact him at lawrenceafeinberg@gmail.com.

One ongoing scandal in Pennsylvania is the story of cyber charters. Pennsylvania has 14 cyber charter schools, and 13 of them are on the state’s list of the lowest performing schools in the state. Cyber charters have low graduation rates, high attrition, and low scores. While Pennsylvania has many underfunded districts, the state is very generous with its failing cyber charters. From the years 2013-2016–four years–the state paid $1.6 Billion to these “schools.” In 2016 alone, the state handed out $454.7 million to cyber charters. All of that money is extracted from the budgets of public schools because the money follows the student, from good public schools to low-performing cyber charters. Most cyber charters are operated for profit. And they are very profitable! But not for their students.

Understand that the cyber charters receive full tuition for every student they enroll, even though they have none of the expenses of brick-and-mortar schools. No maintenance of grounds, no heating or cooling, no nurses, no library, no gym, no lunch room, no meals, etc. Yet they collect the same tuition as real schools. Their owners are rolling in dough. The creator of the first cyber charter, The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, is  now in prison, after having been convicted of tax evasion on $8 million that he diverted from the school. Think of it. Ten thousand students were enrolled, bringing in tuition of $10,000-11,000 (more if they were special education) each. That is a minimum of $100 million to run a online program that offers nothing but computers, textbooks, and online lessons. What a profitable business! Trombetta was not convicted of theft or embezzlement, but of tax evasion. Curious.

There is one hopeful piece of legislation under consideration. Senate Bill 34 and House Bill 526 would end public school district payments to cyber charters if the school district offered online schooling for free. The State College District supports these bills because it is currently paying $14,000 for each student in its district who enrolls in a cyber charter and $29,000 per year for each student with special needs. The irony is that the cyber charter does nothing additional for students with special needs and is not required to spend the additional money it receives on them.

School districts across the state are facing higher taxes and underfunded schools, while the failing cyber charters are flooded with cash. Will the Republican-dominated legislature take action to save public schools or will they devote their time to adding new money to the state’s charters and its voucher program?

Categories Funding, Pennsylvania, Virtual Charter Schools

In the Public Interest: The Real Cost of Charters=Budget Cuts for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 24, 2019 //
13

Last year, In the Public Interest, a nonpartisan advocacy group in California published Professor Gordon Lafer’s seminal study of the fiscal impact of charters on three school districts in California. Oakland alone lost $67 million in “stranded costs” because of the flooding of the district with charter schools. Stranded costs are the costs beyond the per-pupil tuition that leaves the district, like heating, cooling, transportation, and other fixed costs.

ITPI has released a new report that demonstrates the fiscal impact of charters in one other district. The report is timely, since the Legislature is currently considering four bills to regulate charters so that they stop damaging the public schools that enroll the most students.

Jeremy Mohler of In the Public Interest writes:

 

Been wondering what’s causing all the hoopla about charter schools? You’re not alone — it’s a complicated issue.

I’m going to explain one aspect of the issue, in as simple terms as possible, to try to convince you that charter schools are worth paying attention to.

This morning, we released a new report on the cost that charter schools create for just one school district, West Contra Costa Unified (WCCUSD) in California’s Bay Area.

What do I mean by “cost?” I mean that, because some students that would’ve otherwise attended WCCUSD’s traditional public schools instead attend charter schools in the area, the district has $27.9 million less in funding to work with each year. That comes out to $978 less for each traditional public school student the district serves.

Here’s why. When a student transfers to a charter school, public funding for their education follows — but costs remain. Because charter schools pull students from multiple schools and grade levels, it’s rare that individual traditional public schools can reduce expenses enough to make up for the lost revenue.

Say a district loses 14 percent of its students to charter schools in the area. Its schools can‘t adjust expenses by, for example, cutting 14 percent of their principal, heating bill, parking lot paving, internet service, or building maintenance. The district also can’t proportionately cut administrative tasks such as bus route planning, teacher training, grant writing, and budget development.

This forces districts to cut services provided to traditional public school students.

WCCUSD recently did just that. Faced with a budget deficit, its board approved $12.5 million in budget cuts in December 2018 eliminating 82 positions, closing an academic tutoring program, and cutting services for English learners.

We found the same dynamic last year when we studied districts in Oakland, San Diego, and San Jose.

Keep in mind, we’re making conservative estimates here. Our totals don’t even include the often inequitable proportion of state funding districts receive for educating high-needs students.

Long story short: California’s traditional public school students are bearing the cost of the state allowing charter schools to grow in number at a rapid clip.

Of course, charter schools aren’t the only financial pressure that districts are facing. Regressive taxation, declining birth rates, and other forces are impacting districts from Los Angeles to Sacramento.

But, so far, the cost of charter schools has gone unmeasured and ignored in California educational planning. That can’t go on — students are paying the price.
Can anyone explain the rationale of public funding of two different school systems? Seventy years ago, we had public funding of two different systems in 17 states. That was called a dual school system, one for whites, one for blacks. What’s the rationale now for a dual system?

 

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, California, Charter Schools, Funding

Journey For Justice Had a Busy Day

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2019 //
18

Don’t believe the right wingers who claim that  charter schools are supported by Black and Brown people.

Not only did the NAACP, the nation’s most venerable civil rights group, call for a moratorium on charter schools but so did Black Lives Matter.

The Journey for Justice Alliance is a true grassroots civil rights organization. It led demonstrations across the nation today. One of its demands: No more public funds for charter schools, which are a tool of gentrification. J4J knows what matters most: full funding of Title 1 and special education, not privatization and charter schools.

 

May 22 PRESS RELEASE FOR NATIONAL ACTIONS:
We Choose Equity So Fund Our Future! National Day of Action
May 22, 2019

Thousands rally nationwide for education justice on May 22, 2019!

On May 22nd coalitions from 20 cities are uniting forces to hold 11 powerful actions to demand equity and end racial injustice in schools nationwide. As we commemorate the landmark Brown V. Board Decision we will renew our call for an end to the egregious disparities in resources allocated schools serving Black and Brown youth. We will also demand for full funding of Title I and IDEA. The Journey for Justice Alliance will also hold Equity Bus Tours and Forums throughout the country. Many city and statewide coalitions are organizing large rallies with bold actions connected to their local demands for fair funding, sustainable community schools and progressive revenue. Our May 22nd Day of Action will galvanize our communities as we create the momentum to make education a pivotal issue in the 2020 Presidential elections.

May 22nd Calendar

WASHINGTON DC Coalitions: Journey for Justice Alliance (New York, Baltimore, Newark, Camden, Patterson and Pittsburgh), the Alliance for Educational Justice, and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools

• Actions:

1) Rally at Supreme Court with parents and youth from 6 cities, President Randi Weingarten (AFT) and Sen Chris Van Hollen to commemorate Brown V. Board and a renewed demand for equity
2) Equity Bus Tour in DC’s Wards 7 and 8 to highlight resource disparities in local schools
3) Press Conference at Hart Middle School with US Rep. Susie Lee, Liz Davis and President of the Washington Teachers Union

BIRMINGHAM. Coalition/Organization Name: Citizens for Better Schools and Sustainable Communities
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour
• Demand: Fully Fund, IDEA, Title I and call on federal legislations to implement policies that honor mandate of Brown v. Board

CINCINNATI. Coalition: Cincinnati Educational Justice Coalition
• Action: Protest/Rally in front of campus of new charter school “Regeneration Schools” set to open in August, 2019 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Demand: No more public $$ to charter schools. Demand for equity in school funding, including local campaign demands for tax abatement policy changes. ( The proposed charter school is pushed by local deep pockets organized as the Cincinnati Accelerator started as an offshoot of MindTrust in Indianapolis. These people talk about high-quality seats–a dead give away thet the are using test scores and the absurd Ohio report card as a reason to push for a charter. Key players here are a retired banker and the family that owns CINTAS.)

CHICAGO. Coalition: The Grassroots Education Movement and Chicago Teachers Union
• Action: Fair Contract Rally–Keep the Promise: Equity & Funding for our Schools, Students & Community Thompson Center (110 W. Randolph, downtown Chicago)
• Demand: Call for new mayor to agree to a fair contract that improves educator pay & benefits, reduces class sizes and increasing critical staffing needs (ELL and SPED teachers, paraprofessionals, librarians, nurses, counselors, social workers, restorative justice coordinators) Demands include expanding sustainable community schools and increasing affordable housing.

DENVER. Coalition/Organization Name: Breaking Our Chains
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour
• Demand: Fully Fund, IDEA, Title I and call on federal legislations to implement policies that honor mandate of Brown v. Board

DALLAS. Coalition/Organization Name: Texas Organizing Project
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour
• Demand: Fully Fund, IDEA, Title I and call on federal legislations to implement policies that honor mandate of Brown v. Board

BATON ROUGE. Coalition/Organization Name: Step Up Louisiana, LAE
• Action: Rally and Press Conference regarding harm done by charters and their lack of accountability (due to ‘autonomy’ given by state laws)
• Demands: Stop the proliferation of charters and a fair plan to address budget deficit

HOUSTON. Coalition/Organization Name: Save Our School Houston and Texas Organizing Project
• Action: Rally and Protest
• Demand: End Punitive dress code policies that police parents of color and prevent their engagement in school activities

JACKSON. Coalition/Organization Name: IDEA and One Voice
• Action: Forum on School to Prison Pipeline and Education Equity
• Demand: End Punitive tactics to police our children

PEORIA. Coalition: Peoria’s People Project
• Action: Organizing for Racial Equity in Education Training co-sponsored by the NAACP
• Demand: Full funding of Title I and IDEA

SACRAMENTO + (Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and Sacramento) Coalitions: Oakland Public Education Network, Reclaim Our Schools LA, Close the Gap, Oakland Education Association, UTLA, United Educators of San Francisco, San Francisco Families Union, Coleman Advocates, California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers
• Action: We Choose Equity Bus Tour & Coalitions will unite at a rally of 1,000 people in Sacramento (Rotunda of State Capitol)
• Demand: The statewide coalition is calling on legislators to support legislation for fair school funding and bills aimed at ending school privatization. They are also demanding full funding of Title I and IDEA and the fulfillment of the mandate to honor Brown V. Board decision.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization, Resistance

Los Angeles: At First Meeting, Jackie Goldberg Changes Board Dynamics by Challenging Co-Location of Charters

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2019 //
16

 

Jackie Goldberg was sworn in to her new office as representative for District 5 on the Los Angeles school board, and she hit the ground running. 

She criticized co-locations, when charters take space in an existing public school, especially when charters are given preferential treatment.

Goldberg’s concerns arose minutes after the board began moving through its agenda. The item was $16 million to prepare space for charters operating on up to 79 district campuses. In all, about 11% of campuses host charters, according to the California Charter Schools Assn. Charters enroll nearly one in five district students.

Goldberg noticed that some of the money would pay for computers and wanted to know if the host school would have comparable technology.

“I have a school that lost its computer lab and the charter school went in there and put in a computer lab,” which it used to recruit students, Goldberg said during the meeting. “That’s crazy.”

Goldberg declined to name the school.

Another board member, George McKenna, raised similar points. And board member Richard Vladovic asserted that this sharing of campuses is “real bad for kids.”

More surprising were comments from two board members elected with substantial support from charter backers.

Nick Melvoin said it was difficult for staff and families at a district-run school to see a charter move in with fresh paint and new furniture on only the charter portion of the campus. He suggested that both parts of the campus should get upgrades…

Goldberg also raised questions about district bond funds being used to help build new facilities for charter schools when declining enrollment was already resulting in empty seats at both traditional and charter schools…

Even before Goldberg could get to it, staff withdrew a third charter school grant from consideration — at least for Tuesday.

Her supporters were thrilled.

“OMG,” texted parent activist Sara Roos. “It’s electric in here.”

The public schools, which enroll 80% of the district’s children, have a forceful advocate on the board.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Los Angeles, Privatization
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