More charter schools approved in SCC than any other county in the state
By Steve Betando
Steve Betando
After hours of intense discussion from parents and Morgan Hill Unified School District administrators and teachers at the County Board of Education’s Nov. 19 board meeting, the trustees, against the county board’s own staff recommendation and against the MHUSD’s board’s decision, approved a new charter school for our community.
The academic program at Voices College-Bound Language Academy is not supported by research. The Association of Two-Way and Dual Language Education, a national association based in San Jose, wrote a lengthy letter to the county trustees after reviewing the application of the petition and urged the county board to reject the charter proposal. The letter stated that Voices “lacked the basic understanding of how to implement a powerful Dual Language program option that develops high levels of bilingualism and bi-literacy for all their students.”
Students at Voices have not yet entered high school much less been accepted into college. Yet Voices markets itself as a college-bound academy. They haven’t proven their mission for one school, but intend to triple their size of their corporation by opening two new charter schools, one Morgan Hill and the other in the Mount Pleasant School District.
Voices represent a corporate rapid expansion trend going on across America. This is a dangerous trend. Charter school law is enabling corporate take-over of public education and using students for the private financial interests of entrepreneurial activities. The charter industry says the competition breeds innovation in education when in fact it is breeding divisiveness and segregation of the community.
Parents need to be informed and question the substance in the charter school models of education. The API accountability scores that have been used to measure the merits of charter schools are flawed and now obsolete. The state assessments that were used to support the API were found to be culturally-biased and were not aligned with new Common Core standards
Tapping Silicon Valley investors, charters have also gained access to the $6 billion endowment in the well-intended Silicon Valley Community Fund. This fund was built from corporate and private donors receiving tax benefits for their donations to support all our students.
The Silicon Valley charter movement has been sustained and supported by the Santa Clara County Office of Education. The county trustees have approved 43 charters schools, more charter schools than any other county in the state of California. Los Angeles County has only approved 12 charter school petitions.
Santa Clara County is a hotbed for start-up entrepreneur corporate charters. The charter industry’s political action is backed by investment funds filtered through nonprofits such as Innovate Schools, the Charter School Growth Fund, the Walton Family Foundation, California Charter School Association, Innovate Schools, Startup: Education, and many other front fund organizations who have secured nonprofit status.
The charter proponents have also leveraged social justice nonprofit agencies such as People Acting in Community Together to lobby elected officials and recruit students from districts with a goal of charter takeover. Charter parents and PACT members from other communities are granted volunteer credit to go door-to-door recruiting signatures for new petitions in the communities and to show up at meetings to criticize the local schools.
Some of the nonprofit agencies also use these funds to campaign for charter friendly candidates. The money trail goes from the corporation as a tax deduction, to foundations, to advocate associations, then to campaign financing, all under the façade of nonprofit status. In south Santa Clara County in the Nov. 4 election, the California Charter School Association spent more than $200,000 to promote charter-friendly school board candidates.
Additionally, the many charter cooperatives solicit investors get land use bonds passed in government oversight bodies, and blaze a trail of hedge funds alliances, investments, and loans which transfer millions of tax deductible donations annually for land use and rent back agreements.
I’ve asked Innovate Schools administrators to dedicate resources toward MHUSD’s proven programs such as our focus academies (Jackson Academy of Math and Music, P.A. Walsh STEAM Academy, and San Martin/Gwinn Environmental Science Academy). They have expressed no interest.
Much corporate money is going into the charter school movement, and this is especially true in Santa Clara County where it has become an aggressive focus for entrepreneurs. This money is really to support the takeover over public education for private interests. This trend will hurt the future of our community and our students.
Steve Betando is the superintendent of the Morgan Hill Unified School District and wrote this for Morgan Hill Life.
