It isn’t often that I open an issue of California Lawyer with anticipation and excitement. But the cover of a recent issue was emblazoned with a charter school issue with these words: “Charter School Fight Rich v. Even Richer.” So when I picked it up to read it I really was genuinely excited. Imagine my disappointment when I read the article and it just regurgitated the fear, uncertainty, and doubt swirling around charter schools instead of actually digging into the issues, let alone the actual law.

This article entitled “Schoolyard Fight” was about Bullis Charter school in Los Altos, (I went to Los Altos High School and the original Bullis was closed at that time). Instead of fleshing out the law and the issues with it (Prop 39 in particular), the article focused on rich people whining about not having enough control over their Charter school and public school. I wrote a letter to the editor stating as much and it was published in this month’s California Lawyer.

The full text of my original comment is here: Comment by Sonya Sigler – October 21, 2013

It’s unfortunate that the author did not choose to actually evaluate the state of charter school law in this article. After all, the article appears in California Lawyer, not a charter school themed publication. LASD chose to decline granting a charter to BCS. Twice. The county agreed to charter the school, yet LASD is still obligated to provide facilities – that is the law. Still. Yet, as far as I can tell, LASD wants to provide facilities that fundamentally mess with the K-8 program of BCS. The author missed an opportunity to evaluate Prop 39 and what it means to charter schools who don’t have a good working relationship with their district. Seems like LASD is following the letter of the law (provide facilities) but not the spirit of the law (facilities that are “reasonably equivalent” to other facilities for other schools in the same district). Too many games can be played with calculating classroom and non classroom space, in-district, and out of district kids, etc. That would have been a much more interesting article. The author also trots out the same old FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about charter schools – creaming the best students from the school district, and fundraising for BCS as taking money out of the pockets of LASD. But it fails to address the necessity of fundraising at BCS (or other charter schools) when the charter school gets $6,000 per student while the District gets $10,000 per student (which includes parcel tax $ that the charter school doesn’t get, even though this $ includes taxes from parents whose children attend BCS). Charter schools exist because parents want choice no matter what their income level is or what their student test scores are in that district.

All of the web comments on Schoolyard Fight can be seen here. My published editorial comment is the second one down and can be seen here.

Most of the text of my comment was published along with another comment that was praising the “balance and clarity” of the article. Yes it presented both sides of the whining, but the article never discussed the law and it never discussed any of these real issues the article just skirted around. One issue that really could have been dissected and discussed in this article is what school districts and charter schools around the state ARE doing with regard to Prop 39:

• Why do we have Prop 39 in the first place? Why was it that way?
• What was working with Prop 39?
• What wasn’t working with Prop 39?
• What unintended consequences of the charter laws were bring charter schools or their chartering districts (or counties) to their knees?
• What can be done about any of these issues?

I’m on the board of the San Carlos Charter Learning Center, which is the first charter school in California and second in the country. We’ve been around for 20 years. We have a good relationship with our school district, which from talking to leaders at other charter schools, is unusual. We have negotiated a facilities use agreement with our school district where we both agree to ignore Prop 39 and do what we’ve agreed to in our agreement instead. How many other school districts are doing this? How many charter schools are fighting tooth & nail (like Bullis) to get adequate facilities for their school?

The other difference with our charter school and district relationship is that we we have a tight fundraising relationship as well. This again, is unusual. We share the San Carlos Education Foundation money and we share our parcel tax dollars with all of the schools in the district. These dollars are shared on an ADA basis (Average Daily Attendance) so that it matches each school’s population. Our district is doing what is fair, and in my opinion, what is right for the children of San Carlos. LASD is not sharing the parcel tax dollars or their foundation dollars. That is what is causing the fighting with Bullis in addition to the facilities issues. What would happen if LASD and Bullis did what was fair and what was right for the kids of Los Altos, no matter how rich their parents were?

Discussing the facilities issues around prop 39 or the fundraising issues which are both at the heart of the issues raised in Schoolyard Fight would have been a much more interesting article.