In May, Gadfly reported that the Los Angeles teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, had managed to unseat several reform-minded members to win back the majority of the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board [see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=24#103]. As we anticipated, this reversal of fortune has been bad news for education reformers, in particular for local charter school operators. The current board, with its union-backed majority, has expressed "misgivings about the long-term impacts of the charter movement on the nation's second largest school district" and has yet to approve a single additional charter application, though at least 17 are in its pipeline. Worse, the system keeps skimming off the charters' budgets to help make up for its own fiscal shortfall. Remarks board member Jon Lauritzen, "When the state was wealthy, you could afford to cut a charter loose and let them do their thing. Now when everybody is cutting their budget, it's hard to tell charters they have full right." In fact, charters generally get less per-pupil funding than traditional public schools, have far lower administrative and operating costs, and in LA actually give back to the district 37 percent of their special education budget to cover things like student transportation. Case in point: LAUSD asked the Granada Hills charter school to contract for information technology support with the district at a price tag north of $100,000. Granada Hills, however, was able to find a private group to provide the same services for $33,000. Why charter schools should be forced to subsidize the costs of bureaucracy at district schools is beyond Gadfly - but not, apparently, too much for the distinguished members of the LA school board.
"Charter efforts stalled," by Helen Gao, Los Angeles Daily News, September 21, 2003