The financial drain and lack of local control of charter schools were a major issue in this year’s teachers strikes in California, and now the state legislature has passed a bill that might help. AB 1505 gives local school boards the ability to block new charter schools under some circumstances.
The bill, which still has to be signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, would allow school boards to block the opening of new charter schools or expansion of an existing charter where it would duplicate already-existing programs. It would also allow school boards to consider the fiscal impact of opening a new charter school. This is a change: Previously, if a local school board said no, the state could come in and overrule it, forcing a new charter school in. Exactly that happened in San Francisco, even over decisions that were unanimous at the local level.
“In effect, we have certain charters in our district that we didn’t agree on and they did not meet our standard and yet we have to house them in our buildings,” San Francisco School Board Commissioner Alison Collins told SF Weekly. “Charters are circumventing local control. We have very little power over fixing things and holding them accountable.”
AB 1505 follows another important bill, Senate Bill 126, passed last spring, which requires charter schools to follow the same open meetings, open records, and conflict of interest laws as public schools—a no-brainer, you would think, but something charter schools have fought tooth and nail in multiple locations.
This article was originally published at Daily Kos on September 14, 2019. Reprinted with permission.
