What does fallout from LA teachers strike mean for the future of charter schools?

On paper, the six-day strike teachers strike that disrupted learning at 900 public schools across Los Angeles was a fight about orthodox demands like lower class sizes, higher pay and more support staff from nurses to librarians and counselors.

But a core issue and perhaps the most divisive barely touched the bargaining table: the future of the city’s 224 charter schools.

Education policy experts contend that although United Teachers Los Angeles – the union that represents the teachers in L.A. Unified – wins regarding charter schools at the strike’s conclusion may be largely symbolic, the strike has sparked a broader conversation happening across Southern California on charters that will likely make its way to Sacramento and stands to impact the direction of public school districts across the state.

Public education is essentially a two-sector system codified into state law in 1992 – the traditional, centrally managed school district and charter schools independent from a central school board.

As enrollment in the Los Angeles school district declined for 15 years, charter schools grew into a full-fledged industry educating more than 112,000 students and posing tough competition for traditional public schools.

Angeleno enrollment in charters, which are publicly funded but privately managed, reportedly drains $600 million a year from the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is tasked with serving around half a million students. While the schools do undergo a rigorous approval process complimented by hundreds of pages of paperwork, they operate free from many regulations and all but a few are nonunion.

To clear up any confusion about district-affiliated versus independent charters, a district-affiliated charter is a hybrid. The word “charter” in its name reflects a status the school adopted to secure more outside sources of revenue but it operates within the confines of the district.

During the strike 

In the months leading up to and during the six-day walkout, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl frequently decried “the unregulated growth of charter schools” to the press and his own membership.

“That doesn’t mean all charter schools are bad,” he repeated in his characteristic baritone, rather what began as a well-intentioned experiment now undermines traditional public schooling as more charter schools backed by billionaires and neglect the neediest students.

Charter school advocates call the union’s messaging on charters during the strike a blatant mischaracterization.

“I’d really like Alex Caputo-Pearl to come to the schools I run,” said Gloria Romero, the executive director of Scholarship Prep Charter School in Santa Ana and a former California state senator who while representing the San Gabriel Valley and East Los Angeles served as chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee.

“We’re closing the achievement gap for children who are English language learners and special education, if anything. There are some great schools in L.A. Unified but there are too many pockets where schools are chronically underperforming.”

John Rogers, director of the UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access, warned of sometimes superficial narratives surrounding charter schools.

“I think there are a number of somewhat simplistic analyses that don’t capture the full picture,” he said. “Many charter schools enroll large numbers of low-income students and students of color and we shouldn’t forget that fact.”

That said, charter advocates have in recent years poured millions into political campaigns, including in Los Angeles, where billionaire and charter supporter Eli Broad spent almost $10 million in 2017 along with allies in an effort that won a majority on the LAUSD Board of Education.

The charter sector, according to Rogers, is “a mix of some amazing educators who have worked within district bureaucracies and got frustrated and wanted in their words more freedom, some wealthy people who wanted to do good and felt like their money wasn’t going to be spent well in the district, and then some with ties to right wing think tanks and organizations who are deeply committed to undercutting the power of unions as kind of a bulwark of the democratic party.”

He added that it is rare for charters to admit students with the most substantial special needs, but that’s mostly backed up only by anecdotal evidence.

In the agreement

The main appearance of charter schools in the 40-page agreement reached between UTLA and LAUSD this Tuesday is a provision calling for more community input in cases of potential co-location, when a charter school moves into either occupied or un-occupied space on the campus of a traditional public school.

The still-temporary deal must be ratified by the School Board in a meeting slated for Jan. 29.

“The district has to inform us in December about any schools that are targeted for co-location,” said Caputo-Pearl on KPCC’s AirTalk Wednesday. “That gives time for respectful notice to parents … and certainly parents can ask questions and teachers can push back.”

As a side-bargain, UTLA also said the school board agreed to vote this month on a resolution that calls for Gov. Newsom to enact a cap on new charter schools at LAUSD while the state further studies the issue. If approved, the resolution would be a call for more state action on public charter schools.

Yet “it remains to be seen” whether the measures become more than a symbolic win for the union, said author of a book on California politics and New York Times opinion writer Miriam Pawel.

One out of every three independent charter schools in Los Angeles is co-located. While the arrangements are mutually beneficial, many complain of discord as entirely separate schools attempt to share everything from libraries to cafeterias and playgrounds.

“Co-location seemed to be a significant step for the union potentially. But the district doesn’t have has much leeway, so I think those are issues that will have to be addressed at the state level, and there’s definitely some interest in addressing it in Sacramento.”

Looking ahead

What all parties appear to agree on is that the teachers strike drew attention from the Inland Empire to L.A. to the befallen state of traditional public education in the second-largest school system in the nation, but that the future of charters can only be determined in halls of the state capital.

“The strike opened the conversation about how the broader public can begin to develop rules and regulations through the legislative process,” said Rogers, “purposeful planning of how we bring on new charter schools, how we reauthorize charter schools, how we think about the location of charter schools.”

And charter leaders like Gloria Romero are prepared to make a case.

“I look forward to sitting at that table testifying before former colleagues and new folks to say hey forget about the campaign contributions that you got from CTA (California Teachers Association) and let’s think about what this means in terms of student achievement,” she said.

“The fact that charters are thought to be so dangerous, that’s a product of their success and that’s what I hope a fair hearing in Sacramento would find.”