“No question about @MagnoliaSchools academic superiority - questioning your reading skills.”
-Alex Johnson, VP LA County Board of Education
- LA County Office of Education Staff
As the LAUSD prepared to take the unusual step of not renewing the charters of three Magnolia Science Academies last October, their chief executive claimed that “it would be wrong to punish kids [for poor management] by closing strong schools.” After the vote, the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) released a statement complaining that charters were no longer “evaluated mostly on the degree to which they were helping students learn.” Ignored by both parties was the fact that the CCSA itself had ranked one of these schools as a one out of ten, which in no way can be considered “strong”. The other two were at best average with ranks of four and six.
The Magnolia organization appealed the LAUSD’s decision to the Los Angeles County Board of Education. In a meeting right before Christmas, this Board ignored the findings of both the LAUSD and their own staff and renewed these charters. This means that they will continue to operate within the borders of the LAUSD without any oversight by the District, will be eligible to use District facilities under Proposition 39 and will continue to offer an inferior education to their students.
In a recent exchange on Twitter, I asked the VP of this Board, Alex Johnson, why his Board had approved an academically inferior school. His response was as follows:
I provided him with the information that the CCSA had reported and he replied:
I followed his suggestion and looked up the staff report.
The first thing to stand out in the report is that the staff found that none of these schools had “Sound Educational Practice”. This was based on findings such as:
The staff also found that “the program provided to EL students has not demonstrated positive results”, “the school’s program for EL students does not contain the legally required ELD instructional components” and that “while the school’s mission emphasizes Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM), a review of the school’s academic program, including the current master schedule, does not reflect that focus. Specifically, there are no course offerings relative to engineering.”
The problems at these schools were not limited to academics. The county staff found that “the charter petition presents an unsound educational program for Students with Disabilities and ELs based on evidence that the program involves activities that would present the likelihood of physical, educational, or psychological harm to the affected pupils.” This was based on findings such as the following:
Johnson has refused several requests to explain how these findings represent “academic superiority”.
The members of the Los Angeles County School Board are appointed by the County Supervisors. In Johnson’s case, he failed upwards after losing to Dr. George McKenna in an LAUSD special election where the CCSA registered $80,781 as independent expenditures for his campaign. Rejected by the voters, he was appointed to represent them anyway by Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Under consideration in the state Senate is a bill that would change the way that county boards can interfere with the decisions of elected School Boards. Under SB-808, rejected charters could still appeal to the county if they felt that “the school district committed a procedural violation in making its decision”. However, instead of taking control of the oversight, the County Board would “remand the charter school back to the school district to reconsider its decision to revoke the charter.” This bill would also prohibit local districts from authorizing charters that operate in another school district.
Like most other attempts to increase local oversight of charters, The CCSA is opposed to SB-808 and is lobbying heavily to defeat the measure. They and their supporters are also spending millions on the campaigns for LAUSD School Board candidates Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez to ensure that schools like Magnolia are not subject to oversight by the District. Melvoin is already giving them a return on their investment by also opposing this bill. On Tuesday, voters will get a chance to tell the CCSA and our representatives in the state Senate that they want the doors shut on failing charters like Magnolia by voting for Steve Zimmer.