Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control
A highly anticipated state report on charter school reforms was made public Friday, recommending that California school districts be financially buffered from the loss of students to charters and get more flexibility in deciding whether to approve any more of the privately run, publicly financed and mostly non-union schools.
Commissioned by Gov. Gavin Newsom and led by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who both overcame opposition from charter supporters on their way to election, the report, drawn up by a special state task force, stopped short of calling for some of the more sweeping regulations now under legislative consideration.
But it also pointedly noted that a majority, if not a full consensus, of the 11-member panel—an even mix of labor and charter advocates, plus Thurmond—supported some of the key rule changes state lawmakers have been mulling at the urging of teachers unions.
Among them: provisions that would let districts include the financial impact on traditional schools in their criteria for determining whether to authorize charters and that would make charter school denials harder to appeal.
Months in the making, the report has been on the minds of legislators as they have weighed a cluster of hotly debated charter regulations against the backdrop of urban teacher strikes. The charter issue has pitted two powerful constituencies—organized labor and wealthy proponents of school choice—against each other, and was a campaign flashpoint in the 2018 races for governor and state schools chief. Union opposition to charters has been particularly vocal in big urban districts such as Oakland and Los Angeles.
Convening the task force was one of Newsom’s first acts as governor, after striking teachers in the state’s largest school Charter school task force echoes calls for tighter charter school regs, more local control | CALmatters
