Charter School Advocates Fume Over Final Reform Report
California’s charter lobby remains fiercely opposed to far-reaching reforms found in a state Assembly bill.
If some public schools advocates have been less than enthusiastic about Governor Gavin Newsom’s attempts to dilute charter school reform legislation, the governor shouldn’t expect any gratitude from California’s charter lobby. Despite receiving major concessions on Assembly Bill 1505, which had been written to restore robust local control to school boards over new charter school creation, the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) remains fiercely opposed to the bill. And on the pages of EdSource last week, CCSA members were still spitting mad at the man they hold ultimately responsible — state schools supe Tony Thurmond. That’s because as chair of the governor’s California Charter School Policy Task Force, Thurmond included in its final report far-reaching reforms that CCSA opposed and that found their way into AB 1505.
“Learning Curves” is a weekly roundup of news items, profiles and dish about the intersection of education and inequality. Send tips, feedback and announcements of upcoming events to braden@capitalandmain.com, @BillRaden. Abby Kingsley contributed to this column.
“Both camps are unhappy with what’s going on,” observed Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation and University of Kentucky College of Education dean Julian Vasquez Heilig. “This isn’t an issue that lends itself to political compromise, because in the long term, more and more charters leads to the extinction of public schools and both sides know it.”
AB 1505’s sponsor, the California Teachers Association, has maintained that the legislation significantly shifts the center of gravity over all decisions regarding new charter school creation away from Sacramento and back to the locally elected leaders best equipped for the job. The bill “limits the appeals at the state board level only if there was abuse of local discretion,” CTA spokesperson Claudia Briggs told Learning Curves last month. “AB 1505 allows school districts to consider fiscal impact on other schools in the district. It also allows authorizers to deny a charter school that would substantially undermine existing district school services.” (Disclosure: CTA is a financial supporter of this website.)
The fact that charter law reform has dominated this summer’s Sacramento legislative session can be chalked up to Reclaim Our Schools Los Angeles (ROSLA), the undersung coalition that laid the foundation for the wide-ranging political victories scored by United Teachers Los Angeles in January’s L.A. teachers strike. The charter task force itself came out of a concession won by UTLA’s strategy of bargaining for the “common good” that went far beyond the scope of a typical labor agreement. Which makes Building the Power to Reclaim Our Schools, ROSLA’s just-released, blow-by-blow case study of its community-based organizing effort, this week’s must-read for activists across the progressive spectrum as they gird for coming battles over reforms necessary to turn back the ultimate threat to public education — California’s manufactured, post-Proposition 13 austerity.
The case study’s most important takeaway? That there’s strength in numbers. “Labor groups are very powerful,” said Cesar Castrejon, a lead parent organizer with coalition member Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “And they have a lot of resources. So when they use those resources to create spaces where they can amplify and lift up community voices, it creates this sense of unity that gives the community the ability to flex its power. That’s why we were so successful.”
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