蜜桃影视

California legislators are considering a change to education law that would address a peculiar and controversial feature of the state鈥檚 charter school sector. The proposed fix is dredging up long-standing issues around how the state permits and oversees schools of choice.

At present, California school districts have the option to authorize charter schools that don鈥檛 fall within their geographic boundaries 鈥� in fact, the schools sometimes operate inside other districts that had previously thwarted attempts to form a charter. AB 1507, a bill that has been approved in the state assembly and is now being considered by the state senate, would forbid that practice, partially as a response to angered local authorities who have complained of charter schools opening within their boundaries that they expressly opposed.

The proposal is one of two aimed at reforming California鈥檚 charters, which, at just over 1,300 schools, make up the largest statewide sector in the country. AB 1505, the more sweeping and controversial of the bills, would grant more leeway to districts in deciding whether to approve or deny charter applications; two others, which would have capped the total number of charters across the state and imposed a two-year moratorium on new openings, were withdrawn earlier in this legislative session but could be up for reconsideration next year.

AB 1507 is the more targeted of the provisions, addressing a practice that has proven divisive in the past few years. Charter critics say that allowing school districts to authorize schools far from their normal zone of oversight is a recipe for abuse and profiteering. Even skeptics of the bill agree that some bad actors are taking advantage of a loophole in the state鈥檚 charter school law, one of the nation鈥檚 oldest.

鈥淐ertainly newer charter laws have very different authorizing structures,鈥� said Colin Miller, a senior adviser at the California Charter Schools Association. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a section of law that really wasn鈥檛 that thought-out, I think, when we initially enacted the Charter Schools Act [in 1992].鈥�

AB 1507 isn鈥檛 the first attempt on the part of California lawmakers to address the practice referred to as 鈥渞emote authorizing.鈥� In both 2014 and 2016, the legislature passed bills to tighten restrictions on where charter schools could be authorized. In both instances, then-Gov. Jerry Brown 鈥� an avowed charter school ally who founded several in Oakland 鈥� vetoed the legislation.

All the while, concerns grew that some districts were approving charter schools nowhere near their own boundaries, solely to bring in money.

The was that of Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District, a tiny district in northern Los Angeles County that began authorizing new charters outside its borders in 2013. Its first approval was the Albert Einstein Academy of Letters, Arts and Sciences, a charter whose application had been rejected by multiple other districts. Albert Einstein opened that fall 20 miles away 鈥� in Newhall School District, which had previously rejected its application. Within a few years, Acton-Agua Dulce had increased its enrollment by thousands of students and reaped millions of dollars in authorizing fees from the state.

That led to lawsuits, as well as a 2017 , which found that the phenomenon 鈥渁llowed districts to increase their enrollments and revenue without being democratically accountable to the communities that are hosting the charter schools that they authorize.鈥� Most Albert Einstein charters in California , Acton-Agua Dulce Unified, after struggling with enrollment and financial difficulties.

John Rogers, director of the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at UCLA, echoed the audit鈥檚 concerns. He said he supports AB 1507 as a means of bringing charter expansion back in line with the intent of California鈥檚 original charter school law.

鈥淚t aims to advance what seems to be a fairly commonsense, small-d democratic proposition: that the decisions relative to school governance and programs should be made by elected representatives of the community in which those programs are being operated,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 extremely commonsense, but since we鈥檝e had a structure that has stretched beyond that, I think it鈥檚 a useful corrective.鈥�

The problem, many believe, grew from the state鈥檚 unusual approach to charter school authorizing.

For background: Each charter school answers to a charter authorizer, which approves its application, supervises its performance and finances, and decides whether to reapprove the school鈥檚 charter at the end of a set length of time. Different states maintain varying standards for authorizing and designate separate institutions as eligible to act as authorizers, but experts tend to agree that responsible authorizers adhere to scrupulous around contracts, staffing and financial auditing.

California鈥檚 charter laws set the state apart from many other states, which restrict charter authorizing to either a single statewide entity (such as the state board of education) or other trusted institutions (often universities). Instead, every school district in the state is eligible to authorize charter schools, resulting in a remarkably decentralized authorizing sector: Each charter authorizer in California presides over an average of 3.5 schools, just half the national average.

Quantity hasn鈥檛 necessarily translated to quality. Many school districts 鈥� particularly small ones short of both staff and funding 鈥� have a hard enough time overseeing the traditional public schools under their purview, let alone new charters. In , Harvard University education professor Martin West called for changes to the state charter law that would boost authorizers鈥� capacity and make them more accountable for the performance of charters under their oversight.

In an email, West said that AB 1507 could play a 鈥渃onstructive鈥� role in improving the situation in California.

鈥淏arring districts from authorizing charters outside of their boundaries could be constructive. It is obviously more challenging for an authorizer to provide effective oversight remotely, and the sheer number of districts in the state increases the risk that one will embrace authorizing as a money grab without any interest in ensuring the growth of high-quality options for students.鈥�

But others aren鈥檛 so sure. Veronica Brooks-Uy, director of policy at the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, said that 鈥渟ubstantial changes鈥� were necessary to correct California鈥檚 authorizing culture. (The organization published condemning 鈥渋nconsistent and ineffective鈥� practices.) But she also warned that AB 1507 only remedies one aspect of a complex problem.

She wrote in an email that even though AB 1507 鈥渁ttempts to address the bad incentives for smaller districts to authorize schools, without addressing the others simultaneously, it is likely to create negative, unintended consequences for existing good charter schools. This includes many charters that would face closure when they went up for renewal, not because they aren鈥檛 serving children well but because their new local district authorizer may not want to authorize at all.鈥�

The CCSA鈥檚 Miller agreed that California鈥檚 charter authorizing issues were so 鈥渟ystemic鈥� that dealing exclusively with remote authorizing could prove shortsighted.

鈥淪ome of these schools have operated at or near where they intended to be,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd over time they have ended up across the street, in the perfect facility, which is technically in another district. In those situations, there鈥檚 really no question about the quality of the schools or the ability of that district to do the oversight 鈥� it really is a matter of the geographic line where the district is relative to where the charter school can get a facility. And in some of those cases, those schools have been operating for 15, 20 years.鈥�

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