Loans boost charter schools
What I don't get about this story is how charter schools repay these
loans. And where are the loans for traditional public schools? (Also,
how does a reporter for a major newspaper manage to be so wide-eyed and skepticism-free?)
Loan beneficiary Mike Piscal, quoted here, wrote a widely hyped column
for the Huffington Post in which he singled out the PTA along with
teachers' unions as impeding reform. He promised to name names of
guilty individuals (those fiendish volunteer PTA mommies) in
a future column, but if that future column ever appeared, I couldn't
find it.
loans. And where are the loans for traditional public schools? (Also,
how does a reporter for a major newspaper manage to be so wide-eyed and skepticism-free?)
Loan beneficiary Mike Piscal, quoted here, wrote a widely hyped column
for the Huffington Post in which he singled out the PTA along with
teachers' unions as impeding reform. He promised to name names of
guilty individuals (those fiendish volunteer PTA mommies) in
a future column, but if that future column ever appeared, I couldn't
find it.
From the Los Angeles Times— Caroline
Loan Program Helps 5,000 Students Attend California Charter Schools
By Carla Rivera
Times Staff Writer
June 29, 2006
A program designed to boost enrollment at California charter schools has helped get nearly 5,000 mostly low-income children off waiting lists and into high-quality classrooms, charter school officials said Wednesday.
The Charter School Growth Loan Program was created by the California Charter Schools Assn. and taps banks and lenders to provide loans to schools to help them expand.
Since the program began two years ago, loans nearly doubled from $5.5 million to $10 million. This year alone, 28 public charter schools were able to place 2,818 children who otherwise would have remained on waiting lists.
"This is a good example of a public and private partnership that is great for public schools and banks," said Caprice Young, charter association president and chief executive. The banks earn interest off the loan, while "parents and children benefit by having greater school choice. It's good business all around."
The loan program is vital, Young said, because new public charter schools typically face a four- to six-month lag from when a new student arrives to when the school receives state funding.
The loans can be used to hire more teachers, buy books and add space. So far, all of the schools have repaid lenders in full and on time.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the program has helped more than 2,000 students get into charter schools.
Under the program, View Park Preparatory Charter Schools in South Los Angeles enrolled 550 additional students, said founder and head of school Michael D. Piscal.
View Park, which opened in 1999, will have five campuses next year and has about 5,000 students on its waiting list.
"The program has been phenomenal," he said. "We were able to get a loan of $1 million last year and $450,000 this year. Now that so many charter schools have been successful, banks now find us credit worthy."
The loan program is expected to increase to $13 million next year to fund spaces for 3,500 new students at 35 schools, officials said. Lenders include Prudential Social Investments, the Low Income Investment Fund, NCB Development Corp., Local Initiatives Support Corp. and Raza Development Fund.
2 Comments:
It always amuses me that the proudly liberal "leadership" in San Francisco are so anti-reform and at the same time amazingly ignorant.
Why aren't their loans for public schools? You got to be kidding? Need we mention the $18 plus billion in bonds (also known as loan instruments) passed by the voters of Los Angeles. Of the disbursement of $18 plus billion, less than half of 1% goes to charter schools. Why? Because of hostility to reform by people like you, aka the teacher's unions.
Note, teachers are not opposed to charters and real reform, they are leaving in droves to come to charter public schools. Second, to directly answer your question: financial institutions do not need to lend money to non-charter public schools for cash flow purposes because they already receive a cash flow loan from the federal government (as does every state government, city, town, and school district) called a TRANS LOAN. TRANS stands for Tax Revenue Anticipation NoteS. The interest rate by the way is 1%. Banks charge charter public schools the standard 6% plus. Again, charter public schools get the short end of the deal. Even more unfair is that charter public schools in California get $2,000 less per student than traditional public schools. Aren't the children in charter public schools just as important as the children in non-charter public schools? Of course, they are. It is just that the powers that be in Sacramento are terrified of the union machine so charter public school children get treated like step children.
But it doesn't seem to matter how much the unions and the school boards they elect try and squash the charter public school movement. Or should I say the parent choice movement? Parents should be able to choose which public school they send their children to - charter or non-charter. Increasingly, parents are choosing to send their children to charter public schools and teachers are choosing to teach there as well.
Entrenched interests such as your web site masquerading as liberals and champions of the little guy are disingenous at best and hypocrites at worst.
This claim is based on some charter-school hype that got lapped up by the naive L.A. press:
... (teachers) are leaving in droves to come to charter public schools...
I've never heard of even one teacher doing that in SFUSD, and of course it would be pretty risky, as the jobs at charter schools are far less stable and often crushingly demanding. That's why charter schools reportedly often suffer sky-high turnover, as described by charter-school advocates such as Joanne Jacobs in "Our School" (her account of the creation of a San Jose charter school).
This claim certainly doesn't jibe with any known information:
... Even more unfair is that charter public schools in California get $2,000 less per student than traditional public schools....
In fact, the law mandated that districts give a certain amount to charter schools that in San Francisco amounted to $800 more per student per year at high-school level than non-charter schools got. Students at traditional public schools have been sacrificing to provide higher funding for students at charter schools. A new state senate bill that takes effect this fall will rectify that inequity.
In addition, charter schools get immense amounts of private funding from orgnaizations such as the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, among many others.
A letter to the editor in the current SF Weekly mentions the "ethical problems KIPP and other charter schools raise: the purportedly charitable destruction of the public school system."
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