Sign a Petition to Change the Charter Law in California
Allies who met at the Oakland conference of the Network for Public Educare are petitioning to regulate charter schools so they don’t harm public schools.
Dear Friend of Public Education:
On behalf of Educators for Democratic Schools, and Wellstone Democratic Club Education Committee (both active in Oakland) we are writing again to those who participated in the California Caucus of the NPE conference and others interested in Charter School reform to enlist your support for reform of the Charter School Act. We are about to launch a statewide petition for the following specific changes to the Act:
- Add adverse fiscal impact as a basis on which districts may reject charter applications.
- Give locally elected school boards the sole authority to approve and renew charter school petitions.
- Require charter schools to enroll students with disabilities, including those with the most severe disabilities, English Language Learners, and newcomers, in equal proportion to the enrollment of these groups of students in the district in which the charter operates.
- Apply to charter school board members the same prohibition of conflicts of interest as apply to public school boards.
- Require charter schools to be more accountable and transparent and not force school districts to have to cede control of their facilities to charter schools.
You can sign the petition today by going to CharterLawReform.com.
We also created a suggested cover email for you here but if you want to create your own personal cover even better: Open in Docs
We are hoping that tomorrow each of you will join each of us and many other organizers throughout the state to send the petition out to all your friends, families, networks and organizations and ask them to sign as well. Once someone signs and inserts their address it will automatically be directed to their state Senator and Assembly member as well as every member of the Education Committees of both bodies and the Governor.
Thank you in advance for your help and support!
David Weintraub, on behalf of Educators for Democratic Schools
Wellstone Democratic Club Education Committee
Sign a Petition to Change the Charter Law in California | Diane Ravitch's blog
