Top Takeaways
- Dozens of charter schools face renewal under the long-delayed implementation of the 2019 charter reform law.
- Many will be watching to see if the State Board of Education finds that Oakland Unified abused its discretion in denying renewal to one of Aspire Public Schools’ charter high schools.
- Aspire Golden State College Preparatory Academy argues that Oakland Unified singled out its bad math test scores while ignoring its success in preparing students for college and careers.
In a final attempt to avert closing, a nearly two-decade-old Oakland charter school will ask the State Board of Education on Wednesday to overturn two levels of denial of its charter renewal. In the process, Aspire Golden State College Preparatory Academy hopes the state board will answer a central question: When is closing a charter school in students’ best interest?
The 400-student charter school wants the state board to reexamine the criteria for renewing the majority of charter schools with a record of mixed performance — those that are neither high performers worthy of a certain long-term renewal nor undebatably bad charter schools that should be shut down. Aspire Golden State Prep is in the large middle tier, where the criteria are more ambiguous and subjective.
The board’s action could provide timely guidance, with dozens of charter schools facing renewal decisions in the next several years that were postponed in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. The renewals also coincide with increased financial pressures from declining enrollment facing districts like Oakland Unified and Los Angeles Unified, which have authorized dozens of charter schools.Charter advocates and operators say they suspect that districts worried about declining enrollment’s impact on their budgets may be looking for reasons to justify closing charters like Aspire Golden State Prep. Under state law, school boards can weigh the impact of proposed new charter schools on a district’s financial condition. They can also examine a charter school’s own financial condition.But school boards are precluded from considering the impact on a district’s bottom line for an existing charter school’s renewal…