Honorable Board Members:
Included in the many charter renewal petitions that you will consider on Tuesday, December 8, 2020, is one for CHIME Institute’s Schwarzenegger Community. While the Superintendent has recommended that this item be placed on consent, I strongly suggest that the board discuss this school’s academic performance before voting.
As reported in the LA School Report, CHIME was included as one of the 110 Los Angeles schools that the California Department of Education had determined were the “state’s lowest-performing schools”. According to one education-reform activist, “these schools are underserving students severely.” To approve this school’s charter renewal without discussion would violate your responsibility to the students of Los Angeles, both at CHIME and at LAUSD public schools.
By one estimate, we are diverting $591.7 million from our public schools to publicly finance privately run charter schools. The purpose of doing this was to improve results for all students. Allowing charters that fail at this mission to continue operating mocks the entire system.
It has been reported that charter schools presented their renewals en masse so that the board would not have sufficient time to vet these schools. Please do not let them be successful by not exploring this issue.
Sincerely,
Carl Petersen