LAUSD Violating Public Charter School Law, Triggering Protests by Thousands of Parents and Teachers

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-charter6-2008jun06,0,1911004.story

Public charter school advocates in Los Angeles say that the district is violating the provisions of Proposition 39, a measure passed in 2000 that requires school districts to provide space for public charters. Last week Senior Deputy Supt. Ramon Cortines wrote a memo reaffirming a decision to deny space in district schools to seven public charter schools, claiming shared space would hamper the traditional schools' ability to function. According to Caprice Young, a former L.A. school board president who is now head of the California Charter Schools Association, public charter operators organized a march of several thousand public charter school families and faculty because "the only way to be heard at the L.A. Unified School District is with a stampede or a lawsuit." Interviewed later, Cortines said that he disagreed with Young on some specifics, such as the right of the seven schools to space on district campuses, but that he agreed with her point that public charter schools deserved equity. "I don't see them as charter school students or L.A. Unified students; I see them as students of Los Angeles, and we need to make sure that there is proper, adequate space for the education of all the students," he said. California's public charter school community also is launching a new organization, Families That Can, which is designed to organize the families of the 240,000 students who attend public charter schools statewide. More than 100 public charter schools representing tens of thousands of students in the state have already joined the movement.

Source: LA Times (free registration required)
Date: 06/07/2008
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