The rules and procedure for
a school board to follow in rejecting a charter petition are very narrowly
written to make it difficult to vote no. This is the result of 20 years of
corporate funded charter lobbyists working the halls of Sacramento. However, a
close examination of the charter petition currently before the Lagunitas Board
of Trustees in light of these rules demonstrates many ways in which the Board
may vote to reject the charter petition. Below I identify a number of flaws in
the charter petition’s educational program that make it unlikely to achieve it
stated goals.
According to the California
Education Code Section 47605(b) the governing board of the
school district may deny a charter school petition if it makes one or more of
the following written factual findings:
1. The
charter school presents an unsound educational program for the pupils to be
enrolled in the charter school.
2. The
petitioners are demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set
forth in the petition.
3. The
petition does not contain the number of signatures required.
4. The
petition does not contain an affirmation of each of the conditions described in
Ed Code Section 47605(d).
5. The
petition does not contain reasonably comprehensive descriptions of all 16
required elements.
In this piece I provide a
detailed analysis of why the charter petition can and should be rejected by the
Lagunitas Board of Trustees for its failure to meet any of 1-3 and 5 above.
This posting focuses on the educational program and staff of the charter
school. My next piece will focus on the inadequate financial plan that will
make success unlikely.
As a Waldorf parent, my
utmost concern is that this charter petition is based on an unsound educational
program that is unlikely to achieve the program it proposes, effectively items
1 and 2. From my close reading and analysis of the entire charter petition I
have identified a number of causes of grave concern discussed below. On May 10th
the District staff is expected to also present its preliminary analysis at the
Board meeting. I will read that closely to see if we have any points of
agreement and differences. I encourage you to do the same. Document any
observations you have and present them in writing to the Trustees and the
media. I also encourage you to attend and speak out at the May 10th
and the decisive June 12th meeting when the Trustees are expected to
vote whether to approve the charter school. You are also welcome to post in the
comments section of this blog.
Follow the Money
In order to best assess whether
the charter proposes an unsound educational program that it will be unable to
achieve it is unavoidable to analyze the money it is demanding from the District.
To use the old adage “the devil is in the details” is no exaggeration. Let me
explain as simply as I can. Please stay with me as these budget issues are
crucial to illustrating why the charter cannot fulfill 1, 2 and 5 above.
The petition provides two budgets, what it calls its’ “Fair Share Budget” and “Regular Budget”.
The former assumes nearly the same level of funding per student as the District now spends on all
its students—$9400 per student. However, as I understand it, the District is not obligated to provide
the same money per student it now spends. It may simply grant the charter its minimal obligation to
provide a “General Purpose Block Grant” ($5115 per student) and a “Categorical Block Grant” ($385)
per Average Daily Attendance (ADA). This totals only $5500 per student. This is the minimum funding
per student the District is required provide under law. As I noted in an earlier posting, according to the
District budget manager Amy Prescott, the Block Grant amounts are as follows:
K-3:
$5,077
4-6:
$5,153
or $5115 per student for K-6
As for students that transfer in from other districts it gets a bit tricky. According to an email I received
on April 4th from Prescott, if a student transfers in from what is referred to as a "revenue limit" district
to our “basic aid” district our district will receive 70% of what the student’s home district would have
otherwise spent on her or him. This will most likely be about $3850 of both block grants combined.
However—hold onto your hats—if the student resides in another “basic aid” district our district would
get $0 for that student attending the charter. The key factor that the charter petition never acknowledges
is that according to Prescott, “to be clear, this is money that is received by the District, not the charter.”
As I understand this, the District is under no obligation to forward that money to the charter.
What this means is that as the charter’s enrollment grows, by 41% in the Fair Share Budget and 47%
n the Regular Budget by year 3 (2014/15), the charter could end up receiving less and less money per
student as the number of transfer students grows. A significant source of the enrollment growth will
come from such transfers. For example, during year 3 (2014/15) the Fair Share Budget projects 13
(Inter-District Transfers) from Revenue Limit districts and 5 from Basic Aid districts. In all, 18 of the
74 students would come with either $0 or 70% (possibly only $3850) of what its District now spends
per student.
The charter appears to be set up for a race to the bottom: the more transfer students it takes in could
mean the less money it has to spend per student.
Yet, inexplicably the charter is demanding much more than what the District is obligated to give it.
What is puzzling is that the charter does not have a budget to explain how it will operate with only
$5500 per in district student—significantly less money than both budgets propose.
Here’s what both charter budgets are demanding:
Fair Share Budget
2012-13: $9776 per student
(44% more than the District is required to give it)
2013-14: $8732 per student
(38% more than the District is required to give it)
2014-15: $8470 per student
(35% more than the District is required to give it)
Regular Budget
2012-13: $9543 per student
(43% more than the District is required to give it)
2013-14: $8526 per student
(36% more than the District is required to give it)
2014-15: $8097 per student
(32% more than the District is required to give it)
As you can see, both budgets are significantly above the $5500 the District is obligated to provide
and makes no contingency for receiving only $5500 for each in district student not to mention $0 to
$3850 for transfer students. Either way, this is a massive reduction below what our LWIP students
already receive as part of the District—$9400 per student.
It’s puzzling why anyone would sign this charter petition since it cuts the amount of money that
will be spent on our children from day one. At best, the District is only obligated to provide our
children 42% less money than they now receive. The only explanation is that my fellow LWIP
parents were strong armed into signing a petition which they were never allowed to read written
in secret by Walmart/Walton Foundation funded charter school lobbyists and pricey lawyers.
This much reduced spending per student makes the charter school doomed to fail to realize this
intention of providing a quality Waldorf education. As we will see below, the hypothesized cuts
identified in the over-optimistic Regular Budget demonstrates that it will fail.
The only way to fill in this huge gap would be to put the squeeze on us parents to pay more so-called
“donations” above the currently budgeted $1300 per student, raise donations from the pro-charter
Walmart/Walton Foundation, Gates and Broad foundations, or from the state.
In no way do I imply that there are no costs to the District whether it grants what the charter demands
or the minimum required under law. There would be substantial costs to the District which I will
discuss later.
Let’s now turn towards the educational program which as we will see from these flawed budget
expectations will cause the charter will fail to implement thus failing to achieve measures 1 and 2
above.
The Charter Cannot Achieve its Curriculum Goals and Objectives
No Music and Foreign Language
Although the charter petition (here referred to as the “petition”) identified music and foreign language
as central curricular components for grades 1-5 these, along with eurythmy, are not funded in the
Regular Budget. (p. 20-21, 24) What this means that even if its least optimistic budget, which still
demands 32-43% more money per student than the District is obligated to give the charter school, is
implemented it cannot offer music and foreign language. The current public Waldorf Inspired Program
provides eurythmy, music and Spanish so the charter would provide a worse educational program than
our children now receive. If its still cannot provide these core parts of the Waldorf curriculum with this
level of funding the charter cannot achieve its educational program.
Charter lacks commitment to cultural diversity
The petition claims it will
have a “similar level of racial and ethnic diversity to the District.” But this
claims is questionable since it doesn’t say how or by when this would be
accomplished. The charter also expects to enroll no immigrants (despite, by my
count, at least 6 current families in which one or both parents are immigrants),
less than 1 “English language learner,” and will provide no bus transportation
or free or subsidized meals. Its outreach plan also shows no indication of the
racial and ethnic diversity of the geographic areas where outreach will occur.
(p. 58-9)
How can the petition claim
that the charter “shall not discriminate” if it expects less than 1 English language
learner, supposedly no immigrant students, and will not provide transportation
and free or reduced lunches, and expects an average parental contribution of
$1300/yr per student? (budget, p. 15)
The petition sets an
educational goal that students will demonstrate an understanding and
appreciation of “local, regional and global diversity” but how will it achieve
this if the petition lacks any information about the local diversity in the
Valley and the charter will not enroll immigrants or provide resources to low
income students? (p. 35)
Its admissions and enrollment policy appear to be
discriminatory
According to the California
School Boards Association, a charter school must make an assurance not to
discriminate based on national origin. (CSBA, 2008, p. 28) However, the charter
petition admits that the charter intends to administer a “home language survey”
for English language learners “upon a student’s initial enrollment into the
Charter School (on enrollment forms).” (p. 29)
The charter also appears to
plan to use various vaguely described filtering mechanisms to pre-sort and weed
out students based on undefined cultural and socio-economic traits. Although
the petition says “no test or assessment shall be administered to students
prior to acceptance and enrollment” it does require an “orientation meeting,” “entrance
interview,” “signed parent expectation form,” and “application form” although copies
of these forms are not included in the charter petition. (p. 60)
We are left to guess what
might be included on the “signed parent expectation form” and asked on the
application and during the interview. An educated guess might lead one to
presume it will specify the $1300 minimum “donation” that must be paid to the
charter for each enrolled student and the 40 annual hours of “volunteer” hours
(read: unpaid administrative work once performed by unionized staff paid a
living wage). In effect, these requirements could serve as a filtering
mechanism by which to weed out students they do not want.
A student’s residency plays an
important role the charter’s admissions policy although, according to the California
School Boards Association, it may not use place of residence to determine
admissions. (CSBA, 2008, p. 25, 28) The charter requires proof of residency but
it doesn’t say where the residency must be. (p. 60) Is this to
distinguish between transfer students who would come with and without money
from their home district? The charter will also conduct a “public random
drawing” lottery that isn’t random but based on a ranked series of preferred
statuses for enrollment including various factors such as residency.
Inexplicably current LWIP
students are automatically enrolled in the charter for only the first year. (footnote
4, p. 60) How many of my fellow LWIP parents are aware of this? According to
the California School Boards Association, the charter must give preference to
students that currently attend and reside in the district. (CSBA, 2008, p. 28)
Contradiction between the charter’s actions and its
values and principles
How can the goals of
educating analytical, critical thinking, responsible and caring citizens with
an “ability to critically assess data” and “honor cultural, ideological, and
philosophical differences” be realized if the authors of the charter petition, also
the members of the LWIP Administrative Council, refused to allow free, open and
transparent discussion of the charter petition by the parents as I have
documented in previous posts? (p. 13-15, 16) This alone should be sufficient
evidence that the charter board is unprepared, untrained, and too inexperienced
to run a school that is transparent, democratic and abides by existing open
government laws such as the Brown Act (see my complaint to the Marin DA posted
here).
Adequate teaching staff and
facilities will also play a crucial role in whether the charter can achieve its
educational program goals. Another glaring inadequacy in the charter petition
is how it will provide an education for English language learners. Inexplicably,
the charter petition estimates having less than one English language learner
per year (is having less than 1 person anything like having 3/5th of
a person?). However many English language learners the charter ends up having
it has no plan to require new hires be trained and experienced for teaching English
language learners. (p. 30) Surprisingly, the charter petition even estimates
that it will have no immigrant students. (budget, p. 16) Apparently, the
authors of the petition are unaware that there are children of at least 6
families of which I am aware in which one or both parents are immigrants.
The petition promises to
teach “Life long learning skills” by teaching library research but it’s unclear
how they will do this if the District does not lease access to the campus library.
(p 35) The nearest public library in Fairfax is not a workable option. If the
District rejects the charter’s generous offer to pay it about $500 per month
for access to everything we now use plus additional office space we do not now
have the charter could not possible afford to rent equivalent facilities in the
Valley. In that case, it would fail to achieve its education goals.
Standardized testing and Waldorf don’t mix
Despite its claims to the
contrary, the charter doesn’t seem very confident that it will be able to
achieve the required necessary scores on the many standardized tests its
students will be forced to start taking for the first time. The charter says
that “the Waldorf Educational Methods do not correlate grade by grade with the
State Content Standards—especially in the lower grades” (p. 17) It also admits
that such testing “can be challenging for a school with a curriculum inspired
by Waldorf education.” (p. 39)
This is a classic
understatement. From what I was told no Waldorf student took a standardized
test last year and I would assume that none are prepared to do so. Our children
will now be expected to go from having never taken a standardized test to
taking quite a few. The total number of standardized tests that will be
required by grade (p. 38) are: K will take 1, grade 1 will take 2, grade 2 will
take 3, grade 3 will take 3, grade 4 will take 4, and grade 5 will take 3
tests.
Despite this heavy testing
load, the charter provides no special curriculum, tutoring or services to
prepare the students or address the likely outcome that they will not do well
once they start taking them. As an educator, I can attest that knowing how to
take a test is just as, if not more important than, actually taking the test.
Since the teachers will need
to spend valuable class time to prepare the students take the tests the Waldorf
curriculum will be significantly impacted. However, the charter petition does
not provide details as to which curriculum block will be dropped to make room
for teaching how to take and actually taking the tests. Will we drop the May
Day fair? Violin? The class play? Eurythmy? The overnight field trip?
The charter claims that it
will achieve unspecified growth in STAR scores from year to year and that it
will show “measurable growth each academic year, as evidenced by an increase in
the percentage of students in each class who score proficient or above on the
California Standards Test from year to year.” (p. 36-7) Its benchmarks are
quite broad and vague. The projected API decile rankings will range from 4 to
10 in the prior year or in 2 of the last 3 years. (p. 36-7) The petition claims
that “differences in the educational program and curriculum sequence may be
reflected in test score variations in specific areas of the state standardized
tests in the early years of the program. As student progress towards the exit
outcomes, these variations will diminish or disappear.” It also plans 95% of
the students will take the tests.
How does the charter expect
to make yearly progress towards meeting state API scores without any additional
funding, resources and instructional support such as tutoring? Just wishing
that the student will meet proficiency goals will not make it so. The charter
has no plan whatsoever to meet the completely arbitrary rules put into place by
the federal government to demonstrate annual “progress.” Because there are no
resources, staff, or a plan to achieve these claims the charter is unlikely to
achieve these outcomes. (p. 34) If the charter fails to make satisfactory
yearly progress after several years it will be shut down as some charters are. I
taught a community college class at a charter high school in Menlo Park a few
years ago that is under threat of being shut down for this very reason. If the
proposed charter is shut down for poor test scores we will have no more Waldorf
or even a pseudo Waldorf charter program period.
Director and teaching staff are not required to be
Waldorf trained
One of the main reasons to try
to take our program charter is to gain control over the hiring and firing of
our teachers the charter advocates tell us. Yet, if that is so vital to the
charter school why don’t they want to require that all the teachers be Waldorf
trained when they are hired? The charter does not require that the teachers
have a Waldorf certification when they are hired. The charter board must only
“consider” whether or not the candidate has “familiarity with or willingness to
be trained” in Waldorf during the interviews. Those hired without background or
training are expected to participate in training but there is no money budgeted
for Waldorf training, no time limit to obtain a Waldorf teaching certificate,
and no money for the teacher to attend a summer 1 week training. (p. 50) In
effect, there is little to no enforceable requirement the charter even have
experienced, certified and trained Waldorf teachers. Although both the current core
teachers are experienced and trained in Waldorf if they leave they can be
replaced with non-Waldorf teachers. When and if this happens the charter will
not be a Waldorf school.
In addition, the minimum
qualifications outlined in the petition do not require that the school director
have any specific knowledge, experience or training in Waldorf required. (p. 49)
Perhaps they already have a candidate in mind? It is expected that the charter
applicant specifically identify who would fill this position otherwise the
Board has grounds to reject the petition.
Missing from the charter
budget is money for membership in any Waldorf organization or association.
Instead, the charter oddly demands the District provide taxpayer money to pay
$5.00 per student to the California Charter School Association (CCSA). I will
write more about CCSA in a later blog but for the time being it is important to
note that this would be an inappropriate use of public money to pay for
membership in a lobbyist group that seeks to privatize public schools by
turning them into profit making centers for the charter-textbook-testing
corporate complex. This small but important detail demonstrates that the
priority of the charter petition is to carve out a privatized sphere in our
District not continue our Waldorf Inspired Program as a charter school. Afterall,
why would it leave out the word “Waldorf” from the school name?
Charter board members have no experience running a
school
Another reason the Board of
Trustees might vote to reject the petition is that none of the members of the
charter board, which was never elected by the LWIP Parent Council but merely
self-selected by the current Administrative Council members, have any
experience running a school. Only one has experience related to education but
it was with an orphanage in India and not with a school in the US. (p. 133)
Set Up to Fail?
The charter school is built
on shaky financial ground, is willing to abandon its claim to provide a
Waldorf curriculum in the case of a budget shortfall, and appears to propose a
discriminatory admissions policy. The charter board lacks experience and has a track
record of refusing to abide by principles of transparent governance. New
teachers and the school director are not required to have any Waldorf
experience. These are all troubling indicators that this charter school cannot
successfully implement its stated educational program. Does the Board of
Trustees really want to put about $1.8 million at risk? Do we Waldorf parents
really want to take these risks that our program will fail?
Stay tuned for Part II.
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