In California, teachers unions and their allies fight to close off educational options even though poor Latino kids attending a charter school in southeast L.A. vastly outperform children in neighborhood public schools. Allysia Finley explains at The Wall Street Journal.
According to L.A. County Board of Education member Doug Boyd, the district arguably acted illegally when it rejected Aspire schools on these grounds. “We were shocked that LAUSD would turn down the charters,” he says. “The pretext that they used was ridiculous.”
Mr. Boyd, who has an autistic son in the first-grade, visited the Aspire schools last week. “I have never seen a better charter school,” he says, adding that Aspire students often come from single-parent homes in some of the most violent areas of Los Angeles.
So why did the board vote to close the schools? “They want the money that the state attaches to each kid,” Mr. Boyd says.
But more fundamentally, teachers unions and their allies on the board are opposed to offering parents educational options, especially if those options expose the failure of public schools. Parents in southeast L.A. must be wondering why poor Latino kids attending Aspire schools vastly out-perform their friends in neighborhood public schools.
While the county board which hears charter appeals has issued a resounding rebuke to L.A. Unified’s school board, Mr. Boyd says district officials have been threatening to close other charters that refuse to sign up with the district’s special-education plan. “How many of the charters will succumb to the blackmail?” he muses.
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