Charter Schools

Gov. Pete Wilson has signed a potentially far-reaching bill that will empower parents, teachers and others to create new taxpayer-financed schools that operate free of most state and local controls, it was announced Monday. The author of the bill, Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), envisions the proposed "charter" schools as those where only the academic basics are taught; students and teachers do the work of custodians, and parents and children go to school together on Saturdays.

WASHINGTON - Targeting an issue popular with women, a key voter group, Mitt Romney assailed President Obama's leadership on education Wednesday and blamed teachers unions for problems facing American schools. The Republican presidential candidate is making education the focus of his brief campaign schedule this week. On Thursday, he will tour a charter school in Philadelphia and lead a discussion on education in the most heavily Democratic part of the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Two dozen high-performing Los Angeles schools are seeking to become charter campuses in search of more money and increased flexibility. The list reads like an honor roll of academic excellence. Every school has surpassed the state's target score of 800 on the Academic Performance Index, which is based on standardized tests. Although many of the schools considered the move in hopes of greater funding, campus officials said they also began to see the benefits of increased freedom over such things as curriculum, testing and schedules.

MUSIC Proving they have way better taste in music than you did in high school, the kids at Champs Charter School are putting on a music fest with some the best names in the L.A. beat scene, including Shlohmo and Jonwayne, alongside a bevy of food trucks and school group performances. We already feel old marveling at the precocity. Champs Charter High School, 6952 Van Nuys Blvd., Van Nuys. noon Sat. $10. aertalk.com

For years, Synergy Charter Academy couldn't get the time of day from the Los Angeles Unified School District, at least not when it came to its most urgent need. Synergy, which rented space from a church in a battered neighborhood in Historic South-Central, needed a new campus -- badly. The L.A. Unified School District was building a stunning new elementary school just a block away. State law says charter schools are entitled to a share of district facilities. But every time Synergy founders Randy and Meg Palisoc asked if they could have at least a portion of the new facility, they were told, "Check back with us next year."

California charter schools outperform traditional public schools in reading but significantly lag in math, according to a national study released Monday by researchers at Stanford University.

In its Dec. 9 editorial, "Learning about ethics," The Times calls for state charter school laws to be "changed accordingly" in relation to publicly disclosing the expenditures of taxpayers' money. Readers may come away with the impression that charter operators are subject to little accountability compared to traditional public school districts. The truth is that charter schools are public schools, and as with any other public entity, they are already required to make information available to the public.

To Vancouver Re "No love for the Games," Feb. 6 Though some have concerns about the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the life of a city depends on how well it grows -- and the 2010 Winter Olympics will see the city of Vancouver bloom. Los Angeles is a two-time Olympics host city. I know what a great thing the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games were for Los Angeles. I am sure this will be a very positive event for Vancouver as well. The city will play host to some of the world's finest athletes in competition, an opportunity to shine on the world stage unlike any other.

A lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles teachers union to block the city's school district from giving new campuses to charter schools was denied Friday by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. The suit was filed in December on behalf of United Teachers Los Angeles as a result of the Los Angeles Unified School District's controversial school reform plan, which sought to turn over 30 campuses to bidders from inside and outside the district, including charter school organizations. The lawsuit claimed that L.A. Unified could not allow charter operators to take over new campuses unless 50% of the district's permanent teachers petitioned for it. Charters are independently managed public schools and are generally nonunion.

The growth of charter schools has promoted segregation both in California and nationwide, increasing the odds that black, Latino and white students will attend class with fewer children who look different from themselves, according to two new studies. Charter school advocates contend that the researchers' presumptions about racial separation are out of date. They said parents -- including low-income minority parents -- are turning to charters for a quality education that traditional schools have not provided.

The Los Angeles Unified school board did an injustice to hundreds of students and to the school reform movement when it overrode the recommendation of its staff and decided not to close a low-performing charter school. Academia Semillas del Pueblo in El Sereno is run by dedicated educators who are striving to provide their kindergarten-through-eighth-grade students with a safe environment, a lively and enriched curriculum, as well as skills in three languages. The school has been controversial because one of those languages is an indigenous language of Mexico, and part of the school's mission is to instill in children an understanding and appreciation of their cultural heritage.

A court ruling has invalidated the lease of a high-performing charter school in Glassell Park, threatening it with closure when the school year ends in June. The Alliance Environmental Science and Technology School, whose students have some of the highest test scores in the Los Angeles Unified School District, will lose its campus under a ruling last week by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ann I. Jones. Her ruling came in a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Community College District filed by a coalition of community groups over the college district's compliance with environmental laws.

Things would be easier if Academia Semillas del Pueblo didn't have such low test scores. Then, the focus could be on the El Sereno charter school's International Baccalaureate program. Or on its trilingual curriculum: English, Spanish and Nahuatl, an indigenous language of Mexico. Or on the two co-founders dedicated to teaching culture that stretches back to before colonial Mexico. Instead, the focus shifted in recent weeks to the campus' test results. Compared to schools statewide that serve similar students and when matched against campuses in the neighborhood, results are low. Last year, the school's score on the state's Academic Performance Index dropped 92 points to 624; the state target is 800. Just 22% of students tested at grade level in math, 30% in English.

Two dozen high-performing Los Angeles schools are seeking to become charter campuses in search of more money and increased flexibility. The list reads like an honor roll of academic excellence. Every school has surpassed the state's target score of 800 on the Academic Performance Index, which is based on standardized tests. Although many of the schools considered the move in hopes of greater funding, campus officials said they also began to see the benefits of increased freedom over such things as curriculum, testing and schedules.

Los Angeles school district officials are moving to retake control of Birmingham Community Charter High School, citing numerous alleged problems at the campus that broke away from the system three years ago. L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy has faulted the leaders of the Lake Balboa campus for allegedly mishandling student expulsions and services to disabled students and for failing to respond adequately to allegations of racial discrimination. School officials said they are looking into the allegations, but are aware of no major problems.

More than two years after California's "parent trigger" law was enacted, things haven't worked out the way school reformers had planned or opponents had feared. In those heady days, it was expected that parents would race to sign petitions to transform their low-performing schools. More than 20 states considered passing similar measures. The California law allows parents to compel one of four major reforms at their children's schools if half or more sign a petition. Right now it's limited to 75 schools statewide, as a sort of pilot program.

Re "Charter Teachers Face Choice," Dec. 21: Your otherwise excellent article failed to illuminate the enormous funding disparities between charter schools and traditional public schools. In California, about 70% of public school funding comes from the state. Charter schools receive this state funding, but nothing in local funding and almost nothing in federal aid to education. Of this state funding, the charter schools must kick back 20% of the money to their chartering district for "administration," even though charter schools are self-governing.

The latest setback for the parent-trigger reform -- when the Adelanto School District last week rejected a petition to ... well, it's not exactly clear what the parents sought, but more on that later -- will surely be appealed in court. Parent Revolution, the group behind the trigger movement, might well have a valid challenge, since it looks like school administrators were far more careful about checking the validity of the parent signatures in favor of the trigger than they were about those rescinding their previous signatures.

A day after Mojave Desert school officials rejected a controversial effort by parents seeking major changes at their lowest-performing elementary school, the embattled campus finally appeared calm even as supporters vowed to continue the fight. David Mobley, principal at Desert Trails Elementary in Adelanto, said Thursday that the school was free from weeks of conflict between supporters and opponents of the petition to hand over management to a charter operator under the state's landmark parent trigger law. "It was nice to relax," he said.