Are Schools for Learning or for Profit?

Their proponents point to more individualized education and better success rates. Their opponents claim they are taking funds needed for the neediest of our students and puffing up their stats by excluding students most likely to score poorly on standardized tests. 

The initial concept of charters came from the president of the American Federation of Teachers after a visit to Germany where teachers had significantly more input into how schools were run, and how and what to teach than in the US. His concern at the time was how to stimulate the interest of unmotivated students. 

In this experimental approach, he was supported by Diane Ravitch, who was shortly to be appointed Assistant Secretary of Education under George H. W. Bush and then Clinton. 

But within a few years both were to resoundingly reject charters as a concept that was eagerly jumped on by businesses seeking to profit off the monies available in the public education system and would be used to privatize public education to enrich management at the expense of their students. 

In 2015, I and others strongly opposed the candidacy of Ref Rodriguez for the LAUSD Board of Education who represented himself as the face of the new wave of public school education. Improprieties regarding PUC Schools, a charter network he founded and profited handsomely from, were easily found online but, buoyed by massive funding by charter education interests he was elected. 

Two years later he was elected President of the Board despite ongoing complaints by parents and residents of the Region he represented. 

But it wasn’t till a year later when the Ethics Commission filed formal charges against him for campaign finance violations that his empire started to implode. 

Although not technically illegal Rodriguez owned the buildings his charter schools were renting and used taxpayer dollars to pay himself for renting them. Taxpayer dollars that should have gone for better teachers and other resources for his students. Taxpayer dollars that came from funds public schools needed to educate low-performing, high-maintenance students that the charter schools had learned to avoid. 

The very students who most needed help but would also lower the charters’ test scores, scores they relied on to burnish their image and attract more students to help fund their for-profit education. More money for the Ref Rodriguezes of this country. 

Rodriguez has sunk into the muck of past history overtaken by the impact of the pandemic on our children but under the tutelage of Trump, another attack on public education gained traction, Student Centered Funding.

Embraced by Betsy Devos and her elitist pals to transfer our tax dollars into the pockets their capitalist comrades, this is the brainchild of the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is the unholy and purportedly non-profit organization of conservative legislators and private sector profiteers best known for drafting and promoting legislation at all levels of government to promote profit and cut services. 

They call for a “student-centered finance model based on a weighted student formula in which money follows a child to his or her school.” What follows is gobbledygook intended to promote the interests of ALEC and their deep-pocket corporate sponsors. 

Also known as Student Based Budgeting, the intent of Student Centered Funding in Los Angeles would force a fundamental shift in resource allocation by the LAUSD which would negatively impact advances in equitable education spending across the City. 

It would also allow waivers from current mandates on class size, etc. and again give charters the edge over schools with union teachers allowing them to put more money in their investors’ pockets. 

It comes down to how one defines quality. 

For now, it is in the hands of the LAUSD to assign teachers, counselors, librarians, nurses, social workers, therapists, aides, maintenance workers, programs, etc. to schools based on their enrollment, and provide additional resources to schools with higher needs to ensure all the children in Los Angeles have the resources to equally thrive and develop the skills to achieve success. 

This would be replaced by what amounts to a new iteration of the voucher system with funding based on an amount for every single student from which the principals would have to pay for educators, support staff and everything else required to educate young Angelenos. 

Historically, charter schools have manipulated this type of approach by registering large numbers of students and then ignoring the needs of some so they leave of their own accord or taking action to force out those who perform poorly to keep their success percentage up. 

But keeping the money. While those “left behind” by the charters swell the numbers in public schools or allow kids to drop out entirely. 

Technically this should not happen but the charter system has become very adept at bending the rules. This does not mean all charters are bad but that the charter system has become a significant drain on resources needed by the public schools to ensure every child has the right to a decent education. 

A report by the Los Angeles teachers’ union indicates major losses in funding for a number of schools. 

The heavily Hispanic James Monroe High in North Hills which has two magnet programs would lose $1.2 million per year. 

The academically-challenged Black and Hispanic Dorsey and Crenshaw High Schools face losing $800,000 each a year. 

Poly Senior High would lose $2.6 million, Hamilton Senior High would lose $1.4 million, Roosevelt Senior High would lose $1.5 million, and Panorama Senior High would lose $737,000. 

Obviously other schools would benefit but which others? And what percentage would go to improving our students’ education and how much would go to lining the pockets of the profiteers who have been leeching off our children’s future for the past decades? 

For now, the can has been kicked down the road with the LAUSD abruptly pulling discussion of implementing Student Based Budgeting from a recent agenda. 

With a brand new superintendent who is making big bucks - $440,000 per year, $90,000 more than his predecessor – and hails from the politically suspect Miami-Dade County, people need to be ever vigilant.

(Liz Amsden is an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world.)