In the face of widespread pockets of resistance around the state, the California Charter Schools Association has embarked on a new expansion campaign, aiming to serve 1 million students in charter schools across the state by 2022.
If the goal is reached, it would almost double the 581,100 students now attending state charters, bringing to about 18 percent the number of public school students who would be enrolled in them. Currently, it’s about 9 percent.
“We have to stay focused on our core mission of expanding high-quality charter schools as quickly as we can,” Jed Wallace, the association’s president and chief executive officer, said during a break at the group’s 23rd annual conference in Long Beach this week. “We definitely want growth, but we do not want growth if it’s at the expense of quality.”
The theme of the conference this year is “March to One Million.”
Yet the “march” is playing out across a rocky landscape, with various efforts aimed at stunting the growth that has made California the nation’s leading host of charter schools, with 1,230 in operation. In 2013-14, the latest year for which data is available from the National Alliance For Public Charter Schools, 6,440 charters were operating around the country.
In California, no opposition to charter growth has been more strident than efforts in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where the school board recently passed a resolution condemning “external initiatives that seek to reduce public education in Los Angeles to an educational marketplace.”
It was a direct response to a plan announced last year by the philanthropist Eli Broad to expand the number of charters in the district, which is already home to more of them (nearly 230) than any other school district in the country. The plan has morphed into a group called Greater Public Schools Now, which has widened the mission beyond charter creation to include replicating all manner of schools that can provide high quality education, including magnets, pilots and traditional public schools.
This week the charter school association named Broad and his wife Edythe as charter schools’ “supporter of the year.”
Whatever the form of the plan, it has engendered widespread opposition, particularly from the L.A. teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, which has held rallies around the city to accuse Broad and other reformers of undermining public education. The teachers’ effort has been joined by other unions affiliated with the district.
Other anti-charter efforts have surfaced elsewhere in the state.
“With more than 150,000 kids on waiting lists, it’s clear that people want more charter schools,” said Jed Wallace, president and chief executive of the California Charter Schools Association.
In Orange County, the Anaheim Union High School District board and superintendent have urged state lawmakers to place a moratorium on all new charters, asserting that “wealthy and disconnected elites – the ‘1 percent’ – have successfully lobbied elected officials to pass overly permissive laws allowing ‘charter’ schools, many of which operate on a business model whose main goal is to make money,” as they wrote in a commentary for the “Voice of OC” website.
They accused charter operators of “continuing to hide their funding, ownership and financial relationships.”
So far, said Anaheim Union High School District Superintendent Michael Matsuda, no one in the Legislature has introduced a measure that reflects their concerns. “Our role as educational leaders is to raise awareness for the community,” Matsuda said. “Their job is to address the problem or not.”
In San Diego, at least three lawsuits are underway, pitting one school district against another in cases that involve resource centers and learning centers affiliated with charter schools operating in districts other than those that authorized them.
While Wallace and other charter school officials say the intent is to discourage charter expansion, Music Watson, a spokeswoman for the San Diego County Office of Education, said the lawsuits have arisen because state education code provides no prohibition against opening such centers in adjoining school districts.
“Over the last few years, as the suits have increased, districts involved now sense a need to clarify the issue,” she said, insisting that the legal actions are not meant as deterrents to charter growth. In fact, the number of charters in San Diego County has increased, to 123 for the 2014-15 school year, from 92 five years earlier.
A statewide ballot initiative for November that would eliminate charter schools altogether is now in the signature-gathering phase. It needs 365,880 signatures by Aug. 8 but has not yet reached the goal, according to the California Secretary of State.
If approved by voters, it would eliminate the state charter law, giving existing charters the option of closing or reverting to traditional schools. It also says passage would mean $5 billion of state funding would shift from charters to school districts.
These efforts aside, charter schools have enjoyed steady growth across California for more than a decade, increasing by an average of 61 a year since 1998-99, when the association started tracking them. Most are independent charters, which means they are privately run, using public money.
By the 2014-15 school year, the last year for which it has data, the charter school association said 158,000 students remained on charter school waiting lists.
“The backlash is a function of our succeeding,” Wallace said. “It’s generally coming from those interested in protecting the status quo, but the general public strongly supports charter schools.”
National polls conducted last year show that public opinion generally favors charter school as a choice for parents. A poll by Education Next found that 51 percent “support the formation of charter schools” while another poll, by Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup, found that 64 percent “favor the idea of charter schools.”
“We’re just going to stay focused on what we’re doing,” Wallace said. “With more than 150,000 kids on waiting lists, it’s clear that people want more charter schools. Those who resist, and those who resist with greater intensity, I hope they can find new ways to tone it down.”
To get more reports like this one, click here to sign up for EdSource’s no-cost daily email on latest developments in education.
Comments (2)
Comments Policy
We welcome your comments. All comments are moderated for civility, relevance and other considerations. Click here for EdSource's Comments Policy.
Megan Curtis 7 years ago7 years ago
Charters were started as a pilot program to determine if schools could achieve greater success if they were relieve of many of the state regulations and red tape. That was in the early 1990's. Since it appears that they can succeed with fewer rules and more latitude why has the state not provided the same approach to ALL public schools???? Why damage or destroy the entire public school system by favoring charter … Read More
Charters were started as a pilot program to determine if schools could achieve greater success if they were relieve of many of the state regulations and red tape. That was in the early 1990’s. Since it appears that they can succeed with fewer rules and more latitude why has the state not provided the same approach to ALL public schools???? Why damage or destroy the entire public school system by favoring charter schools if you can help all schools succeed by relieving them of the onerous regulations and red tape like charters have enjoyed?
Jim Mordecai 7 years ago7 years ago
Charter schools are not public school but they are funded by the public. This report acts to further the California Charter School Association propaganda that the public wants more charter schools and less public schools. The California Charter Schools Association claims that a large waiting list for charters demonstrates public support for charters in California. Such a figure is likely to be overstated because families applying may have found a better choice at a … Read More
Charter schools are not public school but they are funded by the public. This report acts to further the California Charter School Association propaganda that the public wants more charter schools and less public schools.
The California Charter Schools Association claims that a large waiting list for charters demonstrates public support for charters in California. Such a figure is likely to be overstated because families applying may have found a better choice at a local popular public school but didn’t make a popular charter school’s lottery and decided that the public school their child is attending is satisfactory after all.
The growing backlash against charter schools may be due to California charter laws that provide an exemption from the oversight of most of California’s education laws and account in part for the diversion of taxpayers’ education dollars into bank accounts of corrupt charters.
Proposition 39, lobbied by the California Charter School Association and little understood by the public, resulted in the right for charter schools to demand co-location on public school campuses. Exercising that right has caused disruption of programs at public schools and tensions with public and privately managed charters crowded into the same space.
Now the California Charter School Association is suing Oakland Public Schools to try and force the District to move students out of their neighborhood schools and/or close Oakland neighborhood schools to accommodate charters seeking low cost rent in a city with rental costs skyrocketing.
The suppose aim of charters was for private management to compete with public schools on performance of students on standardized test scores. But low scores on student test scores is seldom why charters are closed. It is politically difficult for politicians to close schools both charters and public schools.
Without adequate oversight financing and without having to follow the Education Code of California, authorizing school districts lack legal backing and financing to properly address the high cost of dealing with corruption and its prosecution. And corrupt charter school operators take advantage to enrich themselves. This situation is a major part of the blow-back against charters.