As the dust settles on the California general election we can begin to see what it means for education reform advocates in the near future.
The majority of the reformers put their financing and influence behind Marshall Tuck’s failed run for Superintendent of Public Instruction.
This was the second time that reformers challenged the current Superintendent as they spent heavily to back former Senator Gloria Romero when she ran against Tom Torlakson four years ago.
Torlakson, then a State Senator, easily defeated Romero and Larry Aceves who was supported by the state’s Administrators Union.
As a result Torlakson’s first term as Superintendent of Public Instruction was rocky at best for education reform advocates so you can imagine what it will be like now that they are 0-2 against him.
It remains to be seen how reformers will go about mending fences with Torlakson but they have to come up with something now that he will control the Department of Education for another for years. If they do not then they will not be able to proceed with any reforms or initiatives that involve the Department.
From a legislative perspective things will not change much for supporters of education reform.
The Democrats are still firmly in control of both houses of the legislature but they failed to attain a 2/3 majority in either house. This means that they will have the final say in all legislation and budgetary matters in the state legislature and that the Republican party will be witnesses and not participants in the process.
However, it also means that they cannot override a veto by the Governor. So if like in past years the legislature passes anti-charter school legislation the Governor will still serve as the ultimate back stop because he has vetoed those bills in the past.
Where reformers will be stymied is in their attempts to pass any legislation giving parents and students more school choice options. These measures will most assuredly be dead on arrival.
Category: California Charter Schools
After the polls closed in California and a long night of counting ended most of the state’s legislative and state-wide contests are complete. Overall the Democratic Party was victorious in every state-wide contest. Though several races were very close, Democrats swept each race.
The toughest, most expensive race was for the Superintendent of Public Instruction where the current Superintendent, Tom Torlakson, was seeking a second term in office. He was opposed by Marshall Tuck, a former charter school operator and education reform supporter back by numerous individuals who play heavily in education reform. Torlakson was supported by the California Teachers Association and some of the state’s other unions.
The race became the most expensive race in the state as total spending exceeded $30 million; this was more than triple the total amount spent on the race for Governor where Governor Brown cruised to an unprecedented fourth term. Both sides were well funded and were able to present their case to the voters; in the end the Superintendent will serve four more years.
In the State Senate the Democrats lost a race in Orange County where moderate Democrat Lou Correa was termed out of office. He will be replaced by Republican Janet Nguyen who defeated former Assemblyman Jose Solorio by 20 percentage points. The Republicans were able to hang on to their only ‘targeted’ seat as Senator Andy Vidak beat back his Democratic opponent Luis Chavez.
In a move of musical chairs three State Senators were elected to Congressional seats which will create three vacancies and require three special elections set by the Governor. This will be added to the current vacancy that exists in the 35th Senate district where an election has been scheduled for December 8th.
The 35th will elect a Democratic State Senator, one of the other vacancies will also add to the Democratic side of the aisle and the other two will go Republican. This leaves the State Senate breakdown as 25 Democrats and 11 Republicans; the Democrats currently sit two votes short of a 2/3 majority.
In the State Assembly the Democrats lost four seats but did pick up one vacancy. The Republicans picked up more seats in one election cycle than they have in the last few cycles combined.
The Democrats lost the 16th district where the California Teachers Association fielded one of their former employees Tim Sbranti. After defeating a moderate Democratic candidate in the June primary he lost to Republican Catharine Baker who ran a tremendous race.
In the 36th Assembly district Republican Tom Lackey defeated Assemblyman Steve Fox. Fox’s earlier election had been a surprise to legislative Democratic leaders and he was always considered a ‘target.’
In the 65th Assembly district Republican Young Kim defeated Democratic Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva and in the 66th Republican David Hadley defeated Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi for the Republicans fourth pick up of the night.
The Democrats did pick up Republican Assemblyman Jeff Gorrell’s seat as he vacated it to run for Congress. That leaves the Assembly breakdown 52-28 in favor of the Democrats again leaving them two votes short of a 2/3 majority.
To view complete election results go to www.sos.ca.gov and hit the election results tab.
The last day of September was officially the close of the 2013 – 2014 legislative session.
Though the legislature adjourned at the end of August it was the last day for the Governor to sign or veto bills.
The Governor acted on the remaining bills sitting on his desk, signing several hundred of them while also vetoing a fair share of bills. As he has since he began his third term as California’s Governor, the Governor stood firm in his belief of local control, opposed the creation of ‘new programs’ and supported charter school flexibility. He vetoed a number of bills that would have created new regulations in a number of policy areas in the state and, to the surprise of some, he also vetoed a package of ethics reform bills that the legislature passed in response to the indictment of three sitting State Senators (one has been convicted, sentenced and resigned his seat) and an ever growing staffing scandal that has engrossed the Senate and come to light through the testimony of several current Senate staffers in a robbery/murder trial playing out in Sacramento. The trial has provided the public with a rare insight into how the legislature operates and how power is wielded inside the State Capitol.
For charter schools, the end of the legislative session saw no significant changes, but significant victories.
The Governor vetoed the two most egregious bills impacting charter schools (SB 1263 and AB 913) and there was no other negative legislation that passed.
AB 913 was another attempt to create conflict of interest policies and governance accountability for charter schools but the Governor correctly stated that the measure went too far. It was typical legislative overreach as we have seen this type of legislation introduced almost every year for the last decade and a half. Even though AB 913 was vetoed, the discussion is playing out much differently at the local level throughout the state. There are a number of authorizers, especially the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles County Office of Education, who are using conflict of interest issues to revoke charter schools. LAUSD and LACOE are reacting much more aggressively than other districts and county offices of education to conflict of interest issues. Some of these cases are ending up in court and some are winding their way through the process and will end up before the State Board of Education, but it has become the new attack line for many authorizers. Charter schools must be prepared for this new frontal assault. Additionally, we will see our opponents introduce a new version of AB 913 when the legislature reconvenes in January.
View the Governor’s veto message on AB 913.
Welcome to Charter School Capital’s weekly round-up where we feature charter school news about operations, policy, funding for charter schools, charter school facilities financing, and other trends.
It’s officially the first week of fall, and with school back in full-swing we’ve compiled a few updates including one from California and Florida. Tell us your thoughts and leave a comment.
Tell Your Students: CA State Board of Education is Looking for a Student Member
The California State Board of Education (SBE) is looking fora public high school senior to serve as a Student Board Member. Does your charter school have a student who might be a candidate?
From the application page: “Any student who is a California resident and enrolled in a public high school, will be a senior in good standing in the 2015–16 school year, and will be available to attend a statewide student leader conference November 11-14, 2014 in Sacramento, is eligible to apply.”
For more information, including the 2015–16 Student SBE Member application, please visit the SBE Student Member Application Web page, or contact the SBE by email at sbe@cde.ca.gov or by telephone at 916-319-0691.
Applications must be received by the SBE by 5:00 p.m., Monday, October 20, 2014
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Join Charter School Capital for a Webinar on Charter School Facilities Financing
We’re excited to be partnering with Procopio to lead a discussion on various charter school faciltiies options.
Presented by our president and CEO, Stuart Ellis, and Chip Eady, a lawyer with Procopio who specializes in education facilities and land development, this webinar will cover various financing options and best practices for facilities planning.
If you’d like to register, we recommend doing so as soon as possible, as we only have a few seats left, and registration closes on Monday, September 29th.
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Florida Board of Education Adopting New Charter School Contract
When the Florida Board of Education meets in Tampa at the end of September, they will be moving forward with adopting a standard charter school contract.
According to an article in the Tampa Bay Times, “The recommended new rule makes clear that the standard contract would serve as the basis for an initial draft contract. Both charter applicants and districts would be allowed to modify the document, but would have to indicate clearly how they changed it and why.”
If Florida adopts the standard contract, it would go into effect in November 2014.
On Friday, California Governor Brown began taking action on education related bills that were on his desk and he vetoed SB 1263, a bill that would have impacted charter school facility options.
SB 1263 started out as a local dispute between several school districts in the Santa Clarita Valley, the Acton-Aqua Dulce School District and the charter schools that they have authorized.
It ended up being a bill that restricted charter school facility options state-wide and threatened to shut down the Albert Einstein Academy in the Santa Clarita Valley.
As Governor Brown explains, “this bill seeks to reverse the application of a limited exemption in law that allows a charter school petitioner to locate a single school site outside of its authorizing school district, under specific circumstances. This bill would instead require the charter school to first get permission for the host district where it intents to locate.”
The retroactive nature of the legislation would have punished Albert Einstein even though it is the highest performing school in the area.
As he has shown in the past, the Governor continued to be a strong advocate for charter schools and charter school facility options by vetoing the measure.
Additionally, the advocacy efforts of Albert Einstein and their authorizer, the Acton-Aqua Dulce School District, have to be noted. Together they were able to get thousands of letters and phone calls in to the Governor’s staff opposing SB 1263. They also had several Democratic members of Congress weigh in opposing the measure while it was on the Senate Floor and on the Governor’s desk. For that they must truly be commended.
In his veto message below, Governor Brown says,”while this bill attempts to solve a real problem, I am not comfortable with the retroactive language that could force existing charter schools to change locations. I have assembled a team to examine this situation and come back with solutions that minimize disruption to students and parents.”
In June of this year, we announced a $500 million facilities fund, and the formation of American Education Properties (AEP), a collaboration between Charter School Capital, the nation’s leading provider of working and growth capital to charter schools, and American Infrastructure MLP Funds (AIM), a leading private investment firm specializing in real property, infrastructure and natural resources businesses.
We’re excited to announce that just months later, the first $75 million in charter school facilities funding has been distributed to 11 schools across six states as part of the $500 million in innovative charter school financing to meet schools’ demand for facilities.
The distribution of the first $75 million marks one of the largest charter school facilities financing deals to date. This investment supports facilities at nine schools in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and Washington, D.C., which educate roughly 4,550 Imagine Schools students, as well as students at two charter schools run by independent operators in Arizona and California.
With growing enrollment and nearly one million students on charter school waiting lists nationwide, charter school leaders need to find facilities that meet their needs, both now and in the future. AEP launched in June of this year, addresses this increasing challenge.
AEP enables school leaders to determine their long-term facility needs and retain control of their buildings, so they can focus on their mission of educating our children. With facilities financing in place, charter schools can expand their enrollment and academic offerings with confidence, knowing they can access and maintain the facilities to sustain their ongoing programs and growth.
“We are supporting one of the top needs charter schools face – facilities,” explained Stuart Ellis, President & CEO of Charter School Capital. “Charter School Capital has committed more growth capital to support the movement and now we are able to ensure that charters have the best facilities to meet their educational goals. With $500 million to invest over three years, we are dedicated to providing charter schools access to the capital they need to thrive.”
“We are pleased to have an organization that focuses on charter schools supporting our efforts and mission,” said James McFadden, Vice President and Treasurer of Imagine Schools. “Having a landlord who partners with us and others in the charter school movement to support the growth of schools makes our collaboration more meaningful.”
Imagine Schools is one of the nation’s largest and most highly regarded charter school networks. Their unique, full-service model currently administers a single, multi-state “school district” with 67 schools across 11 states and the District of Columbia. With total enrollment at approximately 36,000 students, the network is larger than each public school district in Tacoma, Boise and Cincinnati. The model has been successful. Imagine was one of only three school districts in the nation to be named a “2013 National District of Character” by the Character Education Partnership for promoting positive character development in a school environment.
Charter schools often have difficulty accessing funding and affordable credit. Recently, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgraded the value of charter school transactions, and Fitch Ratings downgraded the value of charter bonds. With its committed pool of capital, AEP enables schools to get the funding they need when they need it, without strings or fluctuating interest rates. Charter School Capital facilitates all origination and sourcing, underwriting, asset administration and property management for the fund.
“At a time when many are turning away from the needs of charter schools, we look forward to putting more dollars to work for charters of all sizes that will enable school leaders to focus on what they do best – educating students – while alleviating concerns about their schools’ facilities,” said Ellis.
To find out how we can help you with your charter school’s facility needs, give us a call at 877-272-1001 or email us at GrowCharters@charterschoolcapital.com.
Albert Einstein Academy for Letters, Arts and Science, a California charter school, has been ranked one of the Top 10 High Schools in America, according to Newsweek. The Santa Clarita charter school is listed #2 out of the top high schools in the country.
This year, Newsweek took an innovative approach to ranking high schools, taking students’ poverty levels into account in their scoring.
“The question, What Are America’s Top Schools? has different answers depending on whether or not student poverty is taken into account. We realized that rather than trying to make an all-encompassing list, we could reward more great schools by examining performance from more than one vantage point. For this reason, Newsweek has published “America’s Top High Schools,” a ranking of schools based solely on achievement, and “Beating the Odds,” a ranking of schools that factors in student poverty. To measure student poverty levels, we used the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch at each school.”
Congratulations to Albert Einstein Academy for Newsweek’s recognition of the school’s great program. Charter School Capital is proud to support the school’s efforts.
At the start of 2014 the California Teacher’s Association, the state’s largest teachers union, made a decision to focus on organizing the state’s charter schools.
They see the more than 1,100 charter schools as a good opportunity to secure new dues-paying members that can grow their union. They are making this a focus even though the California charter school law allows charter schools to unionize if they want to do so and over 30% of current charter schools have collective bargaining agreements in place.
The union has really focused their efforts into organizing the 11 schools that the California Virtual Academies have in the state and in Alameda County. Although, the union has stumbled with their initial efforts they have doubled their efforts and hope to be successful by the end of this year.
We will need to keep our eyes on their efforts to see if this venture will begin to pick up speed.
Note: Edweek blog recently did a piece on CTA’s efforts.
Bad news was delivered to a number of education advocates hoping to place a California school bond on the November ballot.
During the Senate Appropriations hearing on Monday, the California Department of Finance came out opposed to AB 2235 by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan. AB 2235 was the vehicle for the school bond.
The California school bond measure subsequently went to the Appropriations suspense file which means there will be no immediate action taken on it.
This kills the hopes of it reaching the ballot as the legislature has created a deadline of Wednesday to pass measures to be placed on the November ballot.
This is all occurring while there are crucial negotiations going on over placing a water bond on the ballot. While there is no consensus on the language for the water bond, there is a mad rush to meet the Wednesday deadline meaning negotiations are constantly ongoing.
Though there was never administration support for a school bond, supporters made a strong push in the press over the last two weeks to shore up support and refine their message.
But pressure to do a water deal and the administration’s unwillingness to add more debt to the state coffers finally sunk the measure.
As the legislature gets ready to reconvene next week for the last week of the legislative session, the State Assembly will be taking up SB 1263.
SB 1263 originated from a local dispute between superintendents in Santa Clarita and the surrounding area. Concerns were raised about why one school district, Acton-Aqua Dulce, authorizes charter schools even though they are vehemently anti-charter school. Since the local districts couldn’t stop Acton from authorizing charter schools they went to a legislator who was favorable to their position, Senator Fran Pavley.
Senator Pavley’s responded by authoring legislation that forces communication between the rival factions but, in typical legislative fashion, the measure has morphed into legislation cutting off an option of authorization for charter schools.
Last month in the Assembly Education Committee, Chairwoman Joan Buchanan added amendments to the legislation to limit the bill to only impact one school, the Albert Einstein Academy (which Acton authorizes).
Amazing as it may be for the state assembly to champion legislation affecting only one school but with a state-wide impact; the amendments were drafted so broadly that other charter school groups are still opposed.
Even the Southern California Tribal Chairman’s Association has come out in opposition to SB 1263 because of the possible negative impact it could have on the charter schools that they work with.
This reinforces the notion that charter school advocates better keep their eyes open because the legislature is capable of enacting all sorts of negative legislation on their behalf.
Click here to view SB 1263.