IN DEPTH:
Charter schools absent in area
While L.A. Unified has 157, Burbank and Glendale are still at zero.
By Max Zimbert
As Lyle Slack’s daughter prepared to begin sixth grade last year at Wilson Middle School, the Glendale resident and Woodbury University instructor changed course, instead enrolling his child at Renaissance Arts Academy, a sixth-through-12th-grade charter school in Eagle Rock.
“What got us thinking about moving our daughter, when she went from third to fourth grade at Glenoaks Elementary — her class went from 20 to 36,” he said. “When your class is up to 36, all you’re doing is being a traffic cop.”
After a tour of Wilson, Slack began researching alternatives.
There are more than 5,000 charter schools in 39 states and Washington, D.C., but nowhere are the campuses more promising than in Los Angeles, where the school district’s size, demographics and facilities are ripe for experimenting with education reform and reversing chronically low-performing schools, advocates said.
Options for Youth operates two charter facilities in Burbank focusing on at-risk youth, and it is not considered full-service.
“The extent to which charters exist in a given district or not depends largely on the politics of the school board,” said Priscilla Wohlstetter, a professor and the director of the Center for
“What got us thinking about moving our daughter, when she went from third to fourth grade at Glenoaks Elementary — her class went from 20 to 36,” he said. “When your class is up to 36, all you’re doing is being a traffic cop.”
After a tour of Wilson, Slack began researching alternatives.
There are more than 5,000 charter schools in 39 states and Washington, D.C., but nowhere are the campuses more promising than in Los Angeles, where the school district’s size, demographics and facilities are ripe for experimenting with education reform and reversing chronically low-performing schools, advocates said.
Options for Youth operates two charter facilities in Burbank focusing on at-risk youth, and it is not considered full-service.
“The extent to which charters exist in a given district or not depends largely on the politics of the school board,” said Priscilla Wohlstetter, a professor and the director of the Center for