California’s Strong Charter Accountability Bills Weakened by the Governor—Why?

A grassroots effort to close charter loopholes made its way to the State Assembly, just to be undermined by the state’s highest office.

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Two 2019 teacher strikes in California capped a series of walkouts in 2018 for better student learning conditions, crucial student mental and physical health and college readiness supports, and increased funding to school facilities and teachers.

The grassroots have spoken. We see it in the tens of thousands who rallied in support of charter accountability, in picket lines at hundreds of individual schools in Oakland and Los Angeles, in public comments offered in Sacramento at state legislative committee meetings, in petitions to lawmakers, in resolutions from the California Democratic Party to support a charter moratorium, and that public funds be prioritized for public schools with public oversight.

We also see it in the election of candidates who oppose the charter lobby, including Governor Gavin Newsom, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond, and Los Angeles Unified School Board member Jackie Goldberg. We see it in school board resolutions calling for a statewide moratorium on charters and charter school accountability, and in numerous unanimously agreed-upon principles by the California Department of Education’s Charter Task Force.

California’s legislators have responded to these indications of support for public schools and charter school accountability by drafting AB 1505 and 1507. Charters deplete Oakland Unified schools of about $57 million a year, and charters deplete Los Angeles Unified of nearly $600 million a year.

Yet grassroots activists have always worried that the fallow June-July period—when families are on summer vacation and various watchdog groups turn their eyes away from K-12 coverage in the name of seasonal lull—might be when the charter lobby moves to water down the strong Assembly version.

AB 1505, as passed by the Assembly, blocks the ability of state and county school boards to authorize charters directly. Local school districts with publicly-elected trustees or school board members would have sole authorizing ability, as they know best the enrollment trends, family demographics, facilities needs, and other details of day-to-day school administration. County school boards, would become involved only to determine if local districts had bumbled procedural issues. Any violations of deadlines for authorization decisions, for example, would be remanded back to the local district for remedying.

AB 1507 as passed by the Assembly specifies that charters authorized by local districts may operate only within those districts, and has a clause including online charter schools in this provision.

Around the time these bills passed out of the Assembly, the California Department of Education released its Charter Task Force’s report. There were several unanimously-agreed upon principles by the eleven-member task force that bolstered the Assembly versions of AB 1505 and AB 1507. Edsource’s summary observed that “saturation” of charters in proximity to public schools is just one reason why local school districts can disallow charters.

With debate and votes conducted in the sunshine of a May 22 rally to support the bills and apply public pressure, the Assembly passed strong versions of the bills at the end of May.

Once the bills moved to the State Senate, and teachers and families finished the academic year in June with a parallel slowdown in grassroots momentum, however, privatization forces came out of the shadows to insert amendments to weaken the bills. The surprising source of those bad amendments? Governor Newsom.

Changes to AB 1505 and 1507 made by the Governor’s office have reintroduced the ability of state and county school boards to authorize charter schools, and undone the ability of local districts to deny a charter—essentially neutering the parts of the bill that reinstated local control. As with 1505, in 1507, the principle of subsidiarity—local control with the intentional abeyance of the state, often touted by former Governor Brown—is crucial to the decision making of school districts to allow or deny charter expansion within their borders. 

To reiterate: local school districts intimately understand enrollment patterns and demographic changes, they are well-positioned to administer the existing resources available to public schools. Sacramento, or a school district halfway across the state, will not be able to monitor both the good citizen charters and the fly-by-night operators with any integrity. Local school districts are subject to oversight by publicly-elected school boards, as should be the case with a publicly-funded institution. 

Has anyone ever been removed from the State Board of Education or a County Board of Education for poor charter oversight that resulted in millions of public money disappearing into the bank accounts of grifters who never opened, opened and then almost immediately closed, or listed phantom students on their rosters to the tune of $80 million? The answer is no. No state or county board appointee has lost his position and no elected county school board member has been recalled, despite the great cost in corruption to the entire state’s K-12 public school system.

No state or county board appointee has lost his position and no elected county school board member has been recalled, despite the great cost in corruption to the entire state’s K-12 public school system.

We saw former Governor Brown’s hypocrisy when he allowed local school districts to be overridden by his handpicked state board of education or by a county board of education members who were often unelected. The fact that an essentially criminal enterprise, enabled by the same few rotten apples in education administration in Acton Agua Dulce Unified School District, and in the form of felon and former school Superintendent Steve Van Zant, could thrive by flouting geographic constraints on the physical site of “online charter schools” also shows how corruption flourishes when local control is ignored—and which 1507 would also fix. 

Governor Newsom appears to be on the same hypocritical path as his predecessor.

Hypocrisy also greases corruption. Lest electeds forget, Californians specifically voted in a pro-public school Governor and State Superintendent of Public Instruction despite the California Charter Schools Association putting money toward their opponents. The public’s votes defied the lobby groups desires. As the state’s top public official, Governor Newsom needs to stand up to charter graft, or reckon with his reputation becoming tarnished by allowing it.

The adulterated versions of 1505 and 1507 passed the State Senate Education Committee on July 10, and only a few more opportunities remain for additional amendments to be stripped or offered to alter the Governor’s amendments at the State Senate Appropriations Committee meeting in August.

The people have spoken; the state’s electeds must yield to their wisdom. This includes the Governor.