Oakland charter school battle rages
Jill Tucker
Updated 10:34 pm, Monday, November 18, 2013
Students break for recess at Lazear Charter Academy in Oakland. Lazear, a public school that was closed by the school board last year, reopened as a charter campus after an appeal to the Alameda County Board of Education. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Oakland is the charter school capital of California. And that might be a problem.
This year, more than a quarter of the city's 49,000 students are attending one of its nearly 40 alternative public schools, far more per capita than anywhere else in the state.
There is a military charter school, an arts charter, a Montessori charter, one created for American Indians that doesn't serve any, one for singers and a few dozen centered on sending students to college.
Depending on who's talking, they're filling the demands of parents for educational options or devastating an already cash-strapped school district.
In reality, both are true. And that reality is setting up a battle between those wanting to open up even more charters and local critics, first among them school board member Jody London, who say the city doesn't need and
