Charter campuses focus of L.A. school-board protests
About 400 charter school advocates descended on Los Angeles school district headquarters Tuesday to protest a proposed moratorium on new charters. Later, a smaller but equally passionate contingent of parents and teachers from Berendo Middle School arrived to oppose construction of a building to house a charter school on that campus.
Charters have become a flashpoint in battles over school reform. Charters are independently operated, publicly funded schools that are exempt from some rules that govern traditional schools. Most are non-union. L.A. Unified has more of them, 186, than other U.S. school system.The first pro-charter demonstration was in response to a resolution by school board member Steve Zimmer, who has decried the increasing migration of students to charters as harmful to public education. Zimmer’s proposal, scheduled for action in October, would establish stricter, more sweeping accountability measures for charters, and while these are being established, he proposed, the district should delay approving new ones.
As protesters rallied outside, speaker after speaker in the Board of Education meeting criticized Zimmer, who