Published in the Nov. 12-25, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United corruption of our elections is one reason we are deeply concerned by the independent expenditure money poured into the Nov. 4 general election by the Sacramento-based California Charter School Association Advocates in local education races.

The CCSAA spent $185,000 on Julia Hover-Smoot and $35,000 on Darcie Green’s campaigns for re-election to the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Hover-Smoot lost the race to Claudia Rossi, perhaps showing that voters rejected the outside money put into the local campaign. Labor unions also provided independent expenditure money to Rossi and other candidates they supported in this month’s education races, but at vastly smaller scales.

The county board of education at its Nov. 19 meeting will consider petitions by Navigator Schools and Voices College-Bound Language Academy to open charter schools in Morgan Hill next year. The MHUSD trustees voted in September against allowing these schools into the district.

Despite what some people argue, the MHUSD is not anti-charter. It supports locally-controlled Charter School of Morgan Hill, which focuses on project-based learning.

Charter schools were originally intended to collaborate with public schools to find innovative solutions that could be applied to public schools. They were also created to find students at risk and drop-outs and help them get back on track to achieving a good education. Instead, with No Child Left Behind and Race for the Top, the funding of school systems has been politicized based on test scores. In 21st century schools, test scores have become the be all and end all of education, and many charter schools have swayed their Academic Performance Index scores by weeding out students who have special education needs, are English learners, or have behavioral problems that disrupt the classroom environment. These students often return to public schools.

Despite this advantage, the biggest national study on charter schools, published last year by Stanford University, showed that charter schools perform more poorly than public schools, with only 17 percent of charter schools outperforming public schools. A study published by the Center for Popular Democracy shows rampant abuse of public finances at charter schools, with more than $100 million in taxpayer money lost in fraud and waste in 15 states.

Charter schools also tend to lack accountability to the public good. They are not regulated and publicly supervised in the same way that public schools are, allowing for abuse. Hedge-fund managers and other Wall Street types see the billions of dollars in public money pouring into charter schools as a lucrative investment opportunity. We are worried about the growing privatization of American education for corporate gain. We do not want corporations taking over our schools and running them for the benefit of the bottom-line, placing the futures of the students behind financial profits and providing a substandard learning environment. This endangers American democracy because our republic is based on having well-educated citizens as voters and leaders.

We encourage the county board of education to consider when they make their decision on the Navigator and Voices petitions that under the leadership of superintendents Wes Smith and Steve Betando, the MHUSD has been developing innovative ways to raise its standards. These include the creation of magnet schools such as the Jackson Academy of Math and Music as well as the science focused P.A. Walsh STEAM Academy and San Martin/Gwinn environmental science school. The dual immersion program started at San Martin/Gwinn is also showing success in helping Latino children excel.

We ask Hover-Smoot, Green and other county education board trustees to remember that they are elected to represent the best interest of the students of Santa Clara County.

We hope they weigh the findings in the Sept. 23 MHUSD report which found both petitioners present “an unsound education program” for the students in their charter schools. We encourage them to consider the petitions of Navigator and Voices charter school carefully based on facts and not campaign money influence, weighing the standards and criteria for their petition review in respect to the best educational experience for all Morgan Hill public school students.