Charters, give our kids their money...

The Calif. Charter Schools Assn. sent an update on a proposed bill by Carole Migden that would have eliminated the requirement that school districts give their high school charters a set amount -- which in SFUSD exceeds the amount regular schools get by $800/student/year.

The parties are working on a compromise. The language describing it is pretty incomprehensible, but I think it means that districts will no longer have to fork over that extra $800 out of their OWN money. Instead, the STATE will fork over the extra $800.

Of course, that's still money that should be going to all our kids' schools, not just charter schools, even if it comes from the state. So it sounds to me like charters will still unjustly and divisively get extra money and it's just accounting sleight-of-hand where it comes from.


Also, I am told by knowledgeable sources that it's not true that school districts make money on elementary charters, at least not in SFUSD. Those are the same sources that told me about the extra $800 charter high schools get, which the charter people used to dispute, so you can see which is more credible. Fool me once, etc. (as George Bush likes to say).

Anyway, pasted below is the impenetrable description from the CCSA. I love the device of putting "lose" in quotes when they admit that school districts lose money on charters... How about: all our kids "subsidize" charters, and all our kids "lose" when the school district approves another one.

Welcome to this edition of the Capitol Update-Capitol Journal Online. In this edition we will give you an update on several charter school bills that Assembly or Senate Committees took action on today and yesterday.

In the Assembly, agreement was finally reached between the California Charter Schools Association and The Senate Appropriations Chair, Senator Migden on her measure SB 319:

Yesterday, SB 319 was heard in the Assembly Education Committee. The measure began life as a bill to allow unified school districts to negotiate charter school revenue limit amounts instead of paying the statutory charter school general purpose grant amounts. The genesis of the bill was the discrepancy in rates between charter school rates and the unified rates. The "blended rate" for unified school districts is less than the charter high school rate and greater than the charter elementary rates. After the California Charter Schools Association strongly opposed the bill and met with Senator Migden, the bill was amended to provide to districts the full charter rates to pass through to start up charter schools.

There is also a competing policy in existing law that prohibits unified school districts from converting high schools to charter schools to collect the higher charter high school rate. The current provision still requires the unified district to pay to the charter the charter rate. Consequently, unified districts make money from elementary charters and "lose" money from high school charters.

LAUSD raised the specter of continuing to "lose" funding from conversion schools and not make money on elementary charter schools to help pay for the conversion high school costs. The bill was amended to handle existing conversion schools, existing start-up schools, and future start-up schools but not change current law for future conversion schools.

LAUSD and others continued to argue against the proposal before the start of the Assembly Education Committee hearing. That committee is chaired by Assembly Member Goldberg (Los Angeles). In last minute developments, amendments were proposed to address future conversion schools. In essence the amendments are intended to ensure that future conversion schools will receive the same level of per ADA funding general purpose funding (teacher salaries and benefits, utilities, etc) as they received in the year before conversion adjusted by COLA and resident average daily attendance. In addition, all charter categorical funding will continue to be available to these conversion charter schools.

SB 430 also passed out of the Assembly Education Committee yesterday. This measure would require that charter schools adopt conflict of interest policies and also codifies current charter school practice concerning the county superintendent. We are still monitoring this legislation, so please alert our staff to any concerns that you might have concerning SB 430.

Today in the Senate Education Committee SB 1610 was voted out of committee. SB 1610 is the Superintendent of Public Instructions omnibus charter school legislation. SB 1610 includes several charter school provisions that we do not believe are too burdensome or onerous to the charter school community. As with SB 430, please check the measure and let our staff know your thoughts on the measure.

Finally, SB 846 which provides dry period funding to California's charter schools passed the Assembly Local Government Committee and will next be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

To view any of these measures please go to the web site, http://www.leginfo.ca.gov, hit the bill link and put in the bill number.

Branché Jones, Director-Governmental Affairs

Caroline