Carl Petersen: The Shocking Decision by the LAUSD Not to Renew Five Charter Schools
Carl Petersen is a candidate for the Los Angeles Unified School Board in 2017. He is also a close observer of school board meetings and a strong supporter of public schools.
In this post, he describes the last school board meeting, where five charters were not renewed. Three of them were part of the Fethullah Gulen charter chain called Magnolia (in Los Angeles), and the two others were Celerity charters. This was quite a shocker for the charters involved because the LAUSD has a long record of nearly automatic renewal of all charters (according to the article, 155 of 159 charters have been renewed).
Carl notes that despite the fact that most students in Los Angeles attend public schools, not charter schools, the agenda of every meeting is dominated by charter schools. It is as though the public schools disappeared and no one noticed.
He writes:
Last year, the charter industry invested “nearly $2.3 million” in “the nation’s most expensive school board elections” to ensure that they were free from the inconvenience of oversight. While the California Charter School Association (CCSA) has stated that they “are deeply concerned that this month District staff have recommended more charter renewal [denials] and material revision denials than they have in the last five years combined”, the recommendations against Magnolia and Celerity should not have been a surprise or seen as a change in policy. In 2014, the Board voted against two other Magnolia campuses “for fiscal mismanagement and a slew of other accounting irregularities.” Celerity had two charter renewal petitions rejected last November. The Board’s interest in the “financial shenanigans” at ECRCHS is a little more surprising, especially since their charter was renewed last year with at least two Notices to Cure outstanding. However, the publicity provided by the Los Angeles Daily News investigative reports most likely made the irregularities more difficult to ignore.
The is no way that the allegations against any of these charters could be considered nit-picking. Neither the LAUSD Charter School Division Carl Petersen: The Shocking Decision by the LAUSD Not to Renew Five Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog:
Carl J. Petersen for LAUSD School Board, District 2 because:
All Kids Are Our Kids!
- The LAUSD School Board needs a parent's perspective. None of the current Board members has a child enrolled in the district.
- One size education does not fit all. The District must provide opportunities to all students, not just those who are college bound. We will fight to block the closure of special education centers and return funding to vocational education.
- Eli Broad's plan to privatize education must be stopped. Unlike Mónica García's campaign, this campaign will not be funded by the charter industry. I will answer to the parents and students of the district, not corporate donors.
CHANGE IS COMING!
March 7, 2017
Carl J. Petersen for LAUSD School Board 2017 (ID# 1384794) -http://www.changethelausd.com/