California’s war over charter schools raging in court

From And WaltersCalmness

This comment was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

For decades of wars among the kingdoms of medieval Europe, they have their political equivalents in political conflicts in California between economic and cultural groups of interest.

Governors and legislators come and go with electoral cycles, but warriors hired by countless interest groups are permanent matches in Capitol and other political arenas, such as regulatory agencies, voting elections and courts.

Farmers against environmentalists are confronted with the distribution of water, employers against unions due to salaries and benefits, insurers against personal attorneys for injury for responsibility and hospitals against nurses for staff requirements. They are just a few of the many eternal fights, often with multi -million -dollar bets.

One of the more interesting-the most important-from the point of view of its influence on children-is the continuous war between the Organization for Public Education and Charto school movement.

The most, the defenders of Charter School, claim that by eliminating many of the legal and regulatory mandates of conventional public schools, they can provide more efficient instructions. But school councils, administrators and teaching unions view charters as parasitic competitors for students and school -based school money.

While charters have the legal right to exist and claim shares of school funding, and sometimes they also occupy classrooms on public school sites, their rivals – especially politically powerful unions – do what they can to limit the charter or even release existing charters.

Last year, for example, the California School Council Association installs a campaign To facilitate local tips to reject apps for new charters. The legislation, Senate Bill 1380S

The Los Angeles University Quarter, the second largest system of public schools in the country with more than half a million students, is one of the most changeable arenas for the battle for charter schools. Control United Teachers Los Angeles And other unions and those who are not.

Lausd, like other urban areas in California, has been By experiencing a declining recordingWhich becomes decreasing quantities of state school aid, which is mainly based on attendance, thus increasing the intensity of hostilities over the money claimed by charters.

Last year, after the candidates supported by the Union reached a majority on the LAUSD Council, it issued a new policy, saying the area should “avoid” residential charters in 346 of the school sites in the field, thus potentially expelled them.

The Association of Charter Schools has filed a case, claiming that policy violates state legislation, which allows such agreements for joint accommodation, including a measure of vote since 2000, Proposal 39S This measure, which was mostly aimed at reducing the requirement of voting on the problems of local school bonds, as it is said in an analysis, “requires every local K-12 school district to provide charter school facilities enough to accommodate the students of the charter school.”

The claim is already before the Supreme Court judge Stephen Gorvic and The result seems to be hiding Regarding the use of the controversial policy of the word “avoid”. In his indicative decision, Goorvitch writes that “avoidance” can be considered the same as the “ban”, which can then make the policy illegal. The lawyer of the district claims that “avoidance” is not excessive, but simply guidance.

The judge suggested that both sides discuss a compromise. But in the absence of a deal, Goorvitch told the lawyers that if he stood aside with the paper, the school council could oppose by changing the controversial word of something less prescribed. “I think this can be repaired,” Gorrevich said. “This may be a narrow and temporary victory for the petitioner.”

In other words, regardless of the result of the suit, it will be just another fight in an eternal war.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.