Credit: John Fensterwald / EdSource
Credit: John Fensterwald / EdSourceThe school board of the East Side Union High School District in San Jose defied state law last year when it cited financial impact in rejecting a proposal for a second charter high school from San Francisco-based KIPP Public Schools. Now district officials want the Legislature to change the state’s charter school statute so other districts can make the same decision they did without breaking the law.
California law lists more than a dozen elements in a charter petition that authorizing bodies must evaluate when deciding whether to approve a charter school. Not one of them is a charter school’s potential financial impact on a district, chiefly a loss in state revenue from a decline in a district’s student enrollment.
Charter school leaders have long suspected that school boards consider potential loss of per-student revenue when deciding on a charter application, then cite some other rationale in denying a charter school. The East Side Union board was upfront about it in voting 3-2 to deny KIPP Navigate College Prep’s charter application.
And East Side Union Superintendent Chris Funk was equally upfront this past March, when, to no avail, he asked the State Board of Education to recognize the district’s financial plight and reject KIPP’s appeal of the district’s decision. “We are not asking you to change law but to take a stand: Enough is enough,” he said.
East Side Union board members voted against the charter school because they felt the district reached “the tipping point,” he said. At the same time they voted down KIPP’s charter, he added, the board approved a budget that will keep the district solvent over the next three years by laying off 140 employees, including classroom teachers, counselors and advisers.
“How could they meet their fiduciary responsibility to the community to lay off employees and then approve a charter for another 500 students? They could not do that,” Funk told the state board.
“Opening a new school would be imprudent and be an injustice to 23,000 students in district schools,” Pattie Cortese, East Side Union board vice-president, testified.
KIPP is a nationally respected charter organization and the charter proposal was sound. “We are limited to what we can do here,” said board Vice President Ilene Straus. “We do not have power to change legislation or to determine Prop. 39 space. The role of the state board is in the appeals process.”
Based on the merits of KIPP’s charter petition, the state board approved it 6-1.
East Side Union is not the only district under financial pressure. For Funk, the solution to averting the fiscal drain charter schools pose is to amend California’s 26-year-old charter school law. He worked with Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, to craft SB 1362, which would allow fiscally strapped districts like East Side Union to reject a charter school that would further weaken their revenues. Funk suggested limited, “straightforward” conditions before a district could cite financial impact as a factor. It must have three years of declining enrollment and be planning a staff layoff to achieve a balanced multiyear budget The district also would have to be operating a number of charter schools already.
SB 1362 died in the Senate Education Committee over disagreements on how much discretion to give school boards in determining a negative impact on a district, financial or otherwise. Another version will be back next year and it is expected to be a top priority of districts and teachers unions.
More charter than district schools
A dozen charter schools enrolling 3,854 students operated in East Side Union last year and about 80 percent of those students could have attended district schools, according to district data. In terms of schools, there are more charter than district schools. There are 13 charter schools, including the new KIPP Navigate, but only 11 district high schools. East Side Union’s school board approved all but three of the charter petitions, with the Santa Clara County Office of Education approving two and the state board, with KIPP Navigate, approving one.
“We are the poster child for complying with the charter law,” Funk said.
The district has accommodated charter schools’ classroom space needs, going beyond the requirements of Proposition 39, the 2000 initiative that voters approved requiring that districts provide classrooms and other space needs that are “reasonably equivalent” to the district’s facilities. Prop. 39 requires 1-year leases, but Funk said that East Side Union grants 5-year leases in wings and portables to avoid the “Prop. 39 dance” of moving charter schools year after year. Charter schools would have shared the proceeds of the district’s first parcel tax, had voters not narrowly defeated it last year.
The district’s objections to a new charter school are not specific to KIPP, Funk said. Before negotiations broke down when KIPP sought a second school, the district had offered land for KIPP to house its first school.
But additional charter schools will further strain the district’s budget, eroding the quality of education it can provide, he said. With the high cost of housing driving out families, East Side Union is projected to drop from 23,000 to 18,000 students in five or six years, he said.
In a letter to the state board, Funk calculated that loss of state revenue because of students attending charter schools instead of district schools at nearly $30 million.** The net loss, after income from rent, oversight fees and savings in fewer district teachers, would be $15.4 million, according to the district.
Disproportionate costs of special education are another source of contention. Students with disabilities, who make up about 11 percent of students in California, cost more to educate and charter schools enroll fewer of those students than the state average for district-run schools. That’s not the case in East Side Union, where students with disabilities comprise 15 percent of charter students, compared with 10.6 percent in the district.
However, nearly all special education students in East Side Union charter schools have mild disabilities; the district enrolls a disproportionate share of students with autism and more severe disabilities that require more expensive services, including the 83 students who attend out-of-district residential schools. East Side Union will spend $71 million out of its general budget next year on special education, the district projects.
But districts that are complaining about charter impacts are facing other costs — like rising pension costs — that are pinching their finances. East Side Union is one of a handful of districts in the state that continues to pay 100 percent of medical costs for spouses and dependents — a large and rising expense. Charter operators worry they’ll be singled out among many causes for districts’ financial struggles.
For all the talk of money, KIPP urged the state board not to lose sight of its families’ needs. KIPP now operates three middle schools in elementary districts that feed East Side Union. It will take a second high school to accommodate those students, KIPP said, and several KIPP parents implored the state board to honor their school choice.
Meeting Prop. 39 space requests also has created friction and student resentment in some East Side Union schools, as it has in Los Angeles Unified and elsewhere. Two dozen students from Independence High went to the state board hearing to complain about having three charter schools located on their campus. The school was built in the 1970s with clusters of buildings to serve more than 4,000 students. Today, about 1,100 charter students and now 2,900 district students vie for rehearsal and athletic space. Scheduling practices for 13 basketball teams in two gyms and 16 soccer teams on three fields frustrates everyone. Some days students get home as late as 10 p.m., they said.
Greg Lippman, founder and executive director of ACE Charter Schools, where one-fifth of the enrollment is made up of special education students, said in an interview, “I can make a very good case that ACE students deserve to practice but not at 10 p.m. I can make an equally strong case that Independence kids should get first dibs. They are all district kids.”
If the charter school law were changed to allow districts to reject charter applications based on financial impact, charter school operators would fear the worst.
Lippman, who suspects that school boards already are denying charter schools based on perceptions of financial impact, surmises what would occur if “what has been implicit now becomes explicit.”
“If that happened, charter growth would cease immediately,” and districts would start closing charter schools up for renewal, he said. “That would be the next battlefield.”
** Correction: An earlier version incorrectly cited $30 million as the estimated loss of revenue once KIPP Navigate is at full enrollment. The figure is the district’s estimate of loss of revenue from all students choosing charter schools in East Side Union.
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 (10)
Comments Policy
We welcome your comments. All comments are moderated for civility, relevance and other considerations. Click here for EdSource's Comments Policy.
Sheila Jordan 4 years ago4 years ago
This is an excellent and helpful summary with which the issues our (mainly urban) districts struggle. I think it would be extremely helpful if you could report on the various state and Federal incentives to charters for expansion vs strengthening their current schools. Thanks for you attention.
Kareem Weaver 5 years ago5 years ago
Tough issue, but you have to respect ESUHSD for being straight-up about their position. Instead of being punished for the honesty, hopefully Supt Funk can start an important conversation in Sacramento.
Leilani 5 years ago5 years ago
Teachers are not the ones draining the public school system of their funds. I've worked in both charter schools and public schools. As a whole, teachers at public schools are a much more skilled group of educators than teachers at charter schools because public school teachers have to educate any and every student who walk through their door regardless of whether or not the district has the resources to provide that student the services they … Read More
Teachers are not the ones draining the public school system of their funds. I’ve worked in both charter schools and public schools. As a whole, teachers at public schools are a much more skilled group of educators than teachers at charter schools because public school teachers have to educate any and every student who walk through their door regardless of whether or not the district has the resources to provide that student the services they need to be successful. Therefore, teachers in public schools have become adept at classroom management, motivating students, and differentiating instruction to reach a wide range of skills and abilities.
Charter schools often “counsel kids out” of their schools if they present a challenge to the school environment. That is illegal in public schools. Furthermore, the biggest misuse of money is not on teachers salaries and pensions, it’s on the amount of money we spend on state testing every year and new curriculum every few years. The real drain on the public school system is the amount of money we give to publishing companies and on testing materials. We waste 4 weeks every school year administering state testing to every grade level. That’s valuable time we could be teaching instead of testing. That’s also valuable money going into the pockets of private companies rather than our children’s classrooms. The real problem is that the public school system is one big money grab for private corporations. People are getting rich off of our kids! ….and it’s not teachers.
Oakland_mom 5 years ago5 years ago
There are two themes that are emerging in this discussion: charters are a better choice, and they spend less money. Let’s take a look at both of those perceptions. How does a charter that has just opened claim that it is better? Is the building new? Maybe that’s what makes it better. Charters are a business, and businesses are very good at spending our taxpayer dollars marketing their schools to make them “better.” Inflating grad … Read More
There are two themes that are emerging in this discussion: charters are a better choice, and they spend less money. Let’s take a look at both of those perceptions. How does a charter that has just opened claim that it is better? Is the building new? Maybe that’s what makes it better. Charters are a business, and businesses are very good at spending our taxpayer dollars marketing their schools to make them “better.” Inflating grad rates and test scores by encouraging students to leave? Yes, their attrition rates are extremely high and they don’t backfill those empty seats. Lots of test prep to boost test scores? Does that make them better? No, test prep isn’t real learning; it’s test prep.
Personalized learning by putting a student in front of a computer? The wealthy tech parents who created these platforms don’t think so; they send their own kids to the private, pricey Waldorf School in Silicon Valley, where there isn’t a computer in sight.
Now let’s talk about spending. Districts spend more because their populations cost more to educate, particularly special ed students. Charters don’t educate many SPED kids, and they take the cheapest ones. They also don’t pay for experienced, credentialed teachers. Nor do they pay for things like art, music, after-school programs, etc. Many of them don’t pay for meals that low-income kids need. Nor do they pay for wraparound service providers like counselors and nurses. So by not providing these services, they end up taking the cheapest, easiest kids to educate, and then turn around and say they are “better.”
So in summary, charter schools are better because they may have a new building, because they shed a lot of students to inflate their stats, because they don’t educated many SPED, because they don’t have to provide any wraparound services to low-income kids, because they do a lot of test prep, because they put kids in front of computers a lot, because they don’t have to pay for meals, after-school programs, art, music, or other enrichment programs. So what is it that makes them better, exactly?
Shelley 5 years ago5 years ago
For those who feel that charters provide "healthy" competition to your public schools, here are a few of the issues. Charters do not have to follow all the State guidelines that other public schools must follow - so it isn't a fair competition. They get the same level of funding, but are exempt from most of the rules - is that fair? Then, secondly, charters can kick a student out that isn't following their … Read More
For those who feel that charters provide “healthy” competition to your public schools, here are a few of the issues. Charters do not have to follow all the State guidelines that other public schools must follow – so it isn’t a fair competition. They get the same level of funding, but are exempt from most of the rules – is that fair?
Then, secondly, charters can kick a student out that isn’t following their rules or doesn’t meet their standards. A public school cannot do that (back to those pesky rules). So charters can pick and choose which children they want to educate, while the district does not have that luxury.
How about a fair playing field? Allow the public school district to operate under the same rules (or lack of rules) and see what innovation they can provide with that level of flexibility.
Todd Maddison 5 years ago5 years ago
If this weren't serious, it would be funny. If the problem is declining enrollment, how does that not create opportunities to cut costs proportionately? And if the problem is that parents are choosing to put their kids in the charters, what about doing things that make the district schools competitive and attractive to those parents? No, instead they're asking the state to protect them from competition - competition with charters which (rightly or wrongly) are perceived … Read More
If this weren’t serious, it would be funny.
If the problem is declining enrollment, how does that not create opportunities to cut costs proportionately?
And if the problem is that parents are choosing to put their kids in the charters, what about doing things that make the district schools competitive and attractive to those parents?
No, instead they’re asking the state to protect them from competition – competition with charters which (rightly or wrongly) are perceived by parents as better options for their kids.
And, of course, the article touches on the real reason for their financial problems – increases in pay and benefit costs caused by featherbedding of both by the district.
Let’s find out what the average charter pays – for both teachers and administrative staff – and how much they pay as a percentage of that to support those employees benefits.
Then let’s apply those same averages and percentages to the district’s employees, and see how many millions would be freed up to spend on actually educating kids – special needs or not – if they simply paid the same.
Chris 5 years ago5 years ago
The students and the funds that follow them do not belong to the district. Forcing students to attend schools that do not meet their needs in order to fund employee health and pension benefits is anathema to the purpose of public education.
CarolineSF 5 years ago5 years ago
A lot of people don’t understand why a charter school would have a negative impact. (Has press coverage over the years been overly positive toward charters?) Anyway, here’s a guide to why school districts might not view charter schools favorably. https://teachingmalinche.com/2018/04/29/whats-wrong-with-charter-schools-the-picture-in-california/
Replies
Karl Yoder 5 years ago5 years ago
Working with charters, I can say unequivocally that charter schools have a negative fiscal impact on districts, meaning that if parents choose to send their children to charter schools, the districts lose that revenue. But the purpose of taxpayer-funded public education is not to support school districts, it's to best educate students. School districts are simply one means to that end. I think the whole argument is whether or not the best way to serve students … Read More
Working with charters, I can say unequivocally that charter schools have a negative fiscal impact on districts, meaning that if parents choose to send their children to charter schools, the districts lose that revenue. But the purpose of taxpayer-funded public education is not to support school districts, it’s to best educate students. School districts are simply one means to that end.
I think the whole argument is whether or not the best way to serve students is through a single governmental system that is immune from competition. Maybe it is, but my opinion after 20 years working with districts and charters is that a healthy amount of competition (increasing to 10-20 percent of total enrollment over many years) will drive overall improvements to public education without reducing school district budgets to the point that they cannot be viable due to declining economies of scale.
But simply stating that parents shouldn’t be allowed to choose a better option at a charter because it will “hurt” the district financially is prioritizing the wellbeing of the district over the overall education of the public school students (at both districts and charters).
The Morrigan 5 years ago5 years ago
Karl, Your ethical argument only works if all charters are "better" than or at least equal to their public school counterpart. If one charter school is not "better" than or equal to, then the "overall education of the public school students" is hurt and so is the financial well-being for one of the parties in the competition. After working on both sides of the fence regarding this issue, it is clear to me that … Read More
Karl,
Your ethical argument only works if all charters are “better” than or at least equal to their public school counterpart. If one charter school is not “better” than or equal to, then the “overall education of the public school students” is hurt and so is the financial well-being for one of the parties in the competition.
After working on both sides of the fence regarding this issue, it is clear to me that what we have right now does not address the ethical argument that you bring up.
If we are truly committed to the “overall education of public school students (both district and charter)” and all kids in both, then we need to change some things to ensure that we are not allowing groups, whether it be traditional or charter, to steal educations from the students.