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Trouble in Eden: A Divided Marin County Community Gets a New Charter School

"If there is a positive side to the bitter divide, it may be STAND itself, which has galvanized Ross Valley’s parents around its own schools, while raising their awareness about the vulnerability of all of California’s public schools."

Proposed San Rafael charter school abandoned, founders will work within the system

- "The original plan to open a San Rafael charter school drew strong opposition from teachers, parents, students and the community, in part because the charter would have siphoned money away from existing San Rafael schools."

National Labor Relations Board decides charter schools are private corporations, not public schools (Washington Post)

- “Charter management claims charters are public schools when they want taxpayers’ money, but use legal maneuvers to hide from public audits, [and]  seek to evade the rules that govern public pre-K programs..."

Election Inflections: Why California’s Deep-Pocketed Charter School Backers Went for Broke (Capital & Main)

- "Charter schools are privately managed but taxpayer-funded schools that are virtually free from most of the laws — and much of the accountability or transparency — under which traditional public schools operate. Protecting that status quo, public school supporters insist, drove this year’s independent expenditure [campaign] spending spree..."

A disturbing look at how charter schools are hurting a traditional school district (Washington Post)

-  Joseph Roy (Pennsylvania’s Superintendent of the Year): "We estimate that if all of the students in charters returned, even with hiring the additional needed staff, we would save $20 million. This is the cost of school choice."

Why the shine is off the charter school movement (Washington Post)

- "Freedom from regulation, the sine qua non of the charter world, has resulted too often in troubled schools, taxpayer fleecing and outright fraud."

Charter school awarded $7.1 million in case against LAUSD (LA Times)

- "Charter schools are publicly funded but independently run."

Charter schools are America's new subprime mortgages (Business Insider)

- "The charter-school industry — ... funded partly by tax dollars but run independently — may be heading toward a bubble similar to that of the subprime-mortgage crisis"

Achievement of Students in Multigrade Classrooms  (Los Angeles Unified School District) 

" student learning in alternative groupings—such as multi-age and multigrade classrooms—did not differ from student learning in single-grade or single-age classes."

Out of options (Vice)

- "School choice gutted Detroit's Public Schools"

Schools Matter

- "...the public school they care so much about could be subsumed in a gradual process of bait and switch. The parents feel this is a distinct possibility, and one that has been precedented in other schools, such as Logan Elementary in Echo Park where a charter school has taken more and more rooms over the course of a few short years and overwhelmed the struggling public school with demands."