“They’ve had five years to figure this out and they haven’t figured it out.” - LAUSD Board Member Jackie Goldberg
When the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) considers the renewal of charter schools, it is supposed to do it in a public hearing that includes comments from stakeholders for each item. At last week’s meeting, the district ignored this rule and instead heard an hour of general public comment with phone calls selected at the beginning of the meeting. Charter school supporters dominated this conversation with only one speaker out of the 20 allotted spots speaking in opposition to these publicly financed private schools. Even with this advantage, one charter school was allowed to have an additional supporter speak during its hearing.
While I had planned to speak at the meeting, my call was not one of the ones that were chosen. The following is the text of my prepared speech:
AB1505 was passed by the California legislature to bring more accountability to the charter school authorization process. According to the CEO of the Extera charter, the California Charter School Association’s strategy to circumvent this law was to overwhelm this board by having as many charter schools as possible apply for renewal at the same time. They hope that there is protection in a herd and you will not CONTINUE READING: Two School Board Members Fail To Hold Failing Charter School Accountable | by Carl J. Petersen | Dec, 2020 | Medium
