Parents want the best education they can get for their children. For growing numbers of parents in California, charter schools have provided that opportunity. But not everyone is pleased with the expanding popularity of charter schools, especially teachers unions, which have launched yet another campaign to smear the integrity of charter schools with the singular aim of retaining and broadening their own political power.
On March 22, eight teachers unions, including the Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association, San Bernardino Teachers Association and United Teachers Los Angeles, announced the formation of the California Alliance for Community Schools to take on “a Donald Trump/Betsy DeVos administration that wants to dismantle public education and billionaire privatizers who want to replace public schools with unregulated charters.”
Behind the scary talk, the coalition is backing a number of bills, purporting to hold charters accountable. The most pernicious of the bunch is Senate Bill 808 by state Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Cerritos, which would limit charter school authorization to school districts rather than a county board of education or the state board. In practice, the idea is simply to limit opportunities for charters to be authorized and reauthorized.
Beyond legislative advocacy, according to Grant Schuster from the Anaheim Secondary Teachers Association, the coalition is advocating for local districts to impose a moratorium on new charters until measures satisfactory to the unions are implemented.
Listening exclusively to the union talking points, one would be forgiven for thinking charter schools in California are unregulated, unaccountable business enterprises that do little public good. But we’ve seen this type of rhetoric before and a basic understanding of charters reveals gaps in the narrative of the teachers.
Charter schools are public schools that operate with many of the same requirements as traditional public schools, but with greater flexibility to try innovative teaching methods.
The more than 1,200 charter schools in California are tuition-free, non-sectarian and must comply with state and federal laws. They must also be authorized by either the local school district, county office of education or the California Board of Education, with review and reauthorization required every few years to ensure they fulfill their promises.
The accountability that comes from such reviews — and the freedom of parents to withdraw their children if they aren’t satisfied — has probably contributed to the positive outcomes observed in many charters. Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes has found favorable outcomes statewide and locally, with particularly positive outcomes among low-income and black students.
Such positive outcomes have manifested in growing popularity among parents. Enrollment in charter schools has tripled in the past decade, growing from 200,000 students in 2005-06 to 573,000 in 2015-16. Further, in 2015, the California Charter Schools Association noted 158,000 students were on waiting lists for charter schools.
Clearly, there is a demand for charter schools, and it has nothing to do with some grand conspiracy by billionaires.
“The results our schools are producing speak for themselves,” said Carlos Marquez from the CCSA. “There is a concerted effort to create campaigns to distract from the reality that too many kids are falling through the cracks in traditional public schools.”
Indeed, the new coalition is just the latest teachers’ organization to invoke the billionaire privatizer conspiracy theory. Last year, the California Teachers Association launched a campaign vowing to take on “the coordinated agenda by a group of billionaires to divert money from California’s neighborhood public schools to privately-managed charter schools.” As California continues to trail most of the country on national tests, I suppose a billionaire conspiracy is as good a scapegoat as any.
For parents seeking better educational outcomes for their children, whether a school is privately managed or not makes no practical difference. What matters is whether the school delivers on its promises. Unlike poorly performing traditional public schools, bad charter schools get shut down, as they should. Given the abysmal state of K-12 education in California, those truly interested in positive results should embrace innovation, not stifle or demonize it.
Sal Rodriguez is a staff columnist. He may be reached at: salrodriguez@scng.com
