Contact Assembly Leaders, Panel on Charter Bill
Despite CTA's intense efforts, an opposed charter school measure that would undermine K-12 school districts has cleared the Assembly Higher Education panel and is on its way to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. We need your help to mobilize local chapters, administrators, and school board members to defeat AB 2764 (Bates). Please generate phone calls, e-mail, and letters.
AB 2764 could come up at any time in the Assembly Appropriations panel. AB 2764 would let colleges and universities approve charter schools. As amended, the bill would let UC, CSU, and the community colleges authorize 20 state higher education campuses to approve a K-12 charter school for a total of 60 schools. Although this is a pilot, it could rapidly become much larger.
If you need any more information, please contact Legislative Advocate Sharon Scott Dow or GR Communications Consultant Len Feldman at 916.325-1500.
Thank you again for your hard work on behalf of your colleagues on this key issue.
Urge Assembly to Defeat AB 2764, CTA-opposed Charter Bill
CTA is urging all members of the California Assembly's Appropriations Committee to defeat a CTA-opposed charter school measure. The bill, AB 2764 by Assembly Member Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Nigel), is slated to come before the Appropriations committee within a matter of weeks. The bill would allow the University of California, the California State University, and the Community Colleges to designate up to 20 campuses that would be empowered to authorize a charter school as part of a "pilot program."
If the measure survives efforts to kill it in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, Contacts should be prepared to ask all members of the Assembly to defeat the measure.
A Very Bad Idea
- AB 2764 (Bates) would change the mission of our public higher education institutions to one of overseeing K-12 education, taking such authority away from publicly elected school boards. Imagine the reverse: a K-12 district trying to set up and oversee a college campus using UC or Cal State funding, facilities and students.
- Current law already provides exceptional opportunities for the creation of new charters.
- Universities already sponsor charter schools by applying for a charter through a local school board. There are already many examples of these types of sponsorships operating under the current charter law, including the Preuss Charter, sponsored by UC San Diego.
- There are already 1,114 authorized chartering entities. Every school district, county office of education, and the State Board of Education currently has the authority to approve charter schools. This is the highest number of authorizers in the nation.
- California law also provides for an appeal process, in case a school board unreasonably rejects a charter proposal. No other state has two appeals on a set of minimum standards.
- Universities would be stuck having to authorize minimum standard charters, just like school districts. They could not select the best applicants - only those applicants that get there first and meet the minimum standards.
Contact Legislators, Allies Quickly
It is crucial to kill AB 2764 in the next committee, Assembly Appropriations. Contact members of that committee as quickly as possible. Contacts should also get in touch with Assembly leaders - Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Assembly Members Dario Frommer, Sally Lieber, and Leland Yee. Please urge lawmakers to oppose AB 2764. To help generate as many letters and phone calls as possible quickly, contacts should
- Urge their lawmakers to oppose AB 2764.
- Get in touch with CTA Chapter Presidents in their area and have them mobilize their Chapters against the bill.
- Urge Chapter presidents to get in touch with their local superintendent and school board members and urge them to mobilize their forces against the Bates bill.
Both the Association of California Administrators (ACSA) and the California School Boards Association (CSBA) also oppose AB 2764.
Contact members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee today.
For more information, contact CTA Legislative Advocate Sharon Scott Dow or GR Communications Consultant Len Feldman at 916.325-1500.