Dive Brief:
- A new report from the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University shows that in Massachusetts, 31% of charter school board members are affiliated with the financial and corporate sectors while just 14% are parents.
- Leigh Dingerson, the lead author of the report, says this balance means that parents do not have enough influence regarding how the schools are managed.
- Some 60% of charters were also reported to have zero parents on their school boards.
Dive Insight:
Accountability in charter schools and school systems at large has long been a thorny issue, and the new Annenberg report will add fuel to that fire. In Massachusetts, charters rebutted the report, saying that their schools are among the highest-performing in the country. Yet as compared to traditional public schools in the state, where parents vote for school committee members or the mayors who appoint them, charters whose boards are disproportionately influenced by corporate interests could certainly find themselves catering to the needs of the market instead of those of students.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles Unified School District, the Broad Foundation's push for district-wide charter saturation aims to triple Los Angeles' charter school enrollment in the next eight years. And new legislation in the city also seeks to limit the reach of the Office of the Inspector General, an agency currently tasked with oversight for all district schools. A bill, AB 2806, would restrict how much time and money the office is able to spend on charter investigations, Ed Source reports. The bill's backer, the California Charter Schools Association, says that the independent inspector general should adhere to the same laws that govern the district instead of continuing to secretly investigate, as it now does.