Bill on charter school moratorium merits support
On May 10, the Bay Area News Group published an opinion piece that portrayed a uniformly glowing picture of the charter sector without acknowledging any of the harms that have resulted from unchecked charter expansions in our communities. The three authors, all CEOs of privately managed charter organizations who oppose basic accountability legislation, conveniently used the word racism in the op-ed in an epic demonstration of doublespeak.
The California State NAACP is a co-sponsor of SB 756, the charter expansion moratorium bill referenced in the op-ed. The unchecked growth of charter schools has led to increased segregation and to inequitable resource allocations that have left students with the greatest needs in our public schools with disproportionately fewer resources.
In July 2016, delegates of the National NAACP Convention unanimously passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion, a resolution that was also unanimously passed by delegates in April 2016 at the California State NAACP Conference. The moratorium resolution cites evidence of rapid, unchecked charter growth targeting lowincome communities, increased segregation, the appointment of privately managed boards that do not represent public interests yet make decisions about how public funds are spent, disproportionately high use of suspensions/expulsions, violations of parent’s/children’s rights, conflicts of interest, fiscal mismanagement, forced co-locations that increase tensions/conflict within school communities, weak oversight leading to high rates of closures, and overrides of district/county decisions, in effect eroding local control and disenfranchising communities from democratic governance of their schools.
The resolution echoes concerns that have also been raised by the Journey for Justice, an alliance of 38 organizations of black and brown parents and students in 23 states, which has joined with 175 other national local grassroots community, youth and civil rights organizations calling for a moratorium on charter school funding that continues to pump millions of dollars into unfettered charter expansion.
The current authorizing process in California allows charter school petitioners to bypass district and county elected school boards and land before an appointed state board of education that has had a pattern of approving charter petitions despite knowledge of very serious flaws revealed throughout the review process. Nearly 40 percent of state-approved charter schools have either failed to open or have closed soon after opening.
The increasing frequency of school openings and closures within our neighborhoods creates instability and community fracturing. What is the cost to the state, to school districts, and to our communities of the opening and closing of schools that had red flags from the start? What is the cost to taxpayers of the staff time to review charter petitions that go through lengthy authorization processes, only to be shut down due to financial mismanagement? What is the educational impact to students attending charters that close? Or to students in public schools whose funds for services are decreased because of the high costs of charter expansion? A moratorium would provide time to evaluate the causes, costs, and consequences of charter school closures and allow for solutions to emerge that would increase equity and accountability in California’s educational system.
The California State and San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP urge legislators to pass the charter accountability legislation, Assembly Bills 1505, 1506 and 1507, and Senate Bill 756 to halt unregulated charter school expansions, while we work collectively to fix the broken authorizing system in California. Current charter school law, as written and enacted, has had demonstrably negative impacts on our neighborhood public schools and students, and is not accountable to our communities.