KIPP Refuses Agreement To Abide By Conflict of Interest Law; Gets Approved By State Board of Education
[Original Title]: Will KIPP Be Allowed To Bypass Conflict of Interest Law In Its Bid For State Funds?
[3/14/18] Update: The California State Board of Education has voted to approve two KIPP petitions to expand campuses into San Francisco and San Jose despite strong community resistance and knowledge of the charter chain’s refusal to agree to abide by a basic conflict of interest law – Government Code 1090. The following is an open letter that had been sent to the State Board of Education to urge a no vote on the expansions. For related posts on past State Board of Education votes, see here and here.
______________________
Dear California State Board of Education Trustees,
We urge you to uphold local decisions by publicly elected board trustees to deny the KIPP charter petitions that will be up for appeal at your March 14th meeting. San Jose’s East Side Union High School District has more charters than traditional public schools and is facing budget drains of over 15 million dollars per year as a result. Such losses impact valuable student supports, human resources, and programs. Charter schools are the recipients of millions of dollars of public funding, yet many insist on private governance without equivalent standards for transparency, open meetings, or compliance with conflict of interest laws. To see the impact of these lax governance and oversight policies as they have unfolded, consider the following:
1) NAACP Calls For a Moratorium on Charter School Expansion
The following links lead to the official NAACP statement about the resolution and the original resolution with research links. See also the recent Task Force report/recommendations, which specifically highlight the importance of local governance in decision-making about charter schools.
KIPP is mentioned several times throughout this report (see refs for p. 7 and 21 in addition to the quotes below).
“A study of KIPP charter schools – the largest corporate charter school chain in the U.S. – found that they enrolled a much lower percentage of students with disabilities (5.9%) than did their local public schools (12.1%). The same was true for English language learners (11.5% compared to 19.2%). p. 11and
“For example, the KIPP network of charter schools, well- known for their strict, military-style atmosphere, loses 15% of their students per year, far higher than their surrounding school districts.”
The patterns revealed in the above report are consistent with other published critiques of KIPP and with our own local Continue reading: KIPP Refuses Agreement To Abide By Conflict of Interest Law; Gets Approved By State Board of Education | EduResearcher
Related:
