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FREE LANCE
MAY 10, 2019
OPINION GUEST OPINION EMMA TURNER
Are charter schools best alternative?
GUEST OPINION DAN WALTERS
California’s poverty puzzle
C
alifornia, as we all should know by now, has the nation’s highest rate of poverty as measured by the Census Bureau’s supplemental—and most accurate—methodology. The primary reason is California’s horrendously high cost of living, particularly for housing, that overwhelms the relatively meager incomes of millions of California families. Even more troubling is a calculation by the Public Policy Institute of California, using similar methodology, that another 20 percent of Californians are living in nearpoverty. Thus, about 40 percent of the state’s population, some 16 million of us, are in deep financial distress. Two other pertinent data points: A third of Californians are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the statefederal system of health care for the poor, and 60 percent of California’s K-12 students are deemed at risk of academic failure due to poverty, lack of English skills or both. Only a few million Californians receive welfare, so the vast majority of our poor are in working families, giving rise to another feature of California’s economic stratification—big gaps in incomes. Jonathan Lansner, an economics writer for the Orange County Register and its sister newspapers, plumbed that phenomenon by feeding 2018 federal data on wages and salaries into a spreadsheet. His findings, published last month, were that wages for those in the 75th income percentile “ran 72 percent greater than the median in California, a spread that topped all states ahead of No. 2 New York at 68.1 percent and No. 3 Virginia at 67.7 percent. And it was far above the 50-state median of 57 percent.” Furthermore, Lanser wrote, “this wage gap is rising, especially in California. A decade earlier, the 75th percentile job statewide paid 66 percent more than the median wage.” Lansner’s research underscored the irony
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of a deep blue state, whose politicians constantly express sympathy for the poor, having the widest income disparity in the nation, far more than those in more conservative states. The political response to California’s income gap has largely been confined to efforts to raise incomes of the poor through such gestures as raising the minimum wage and creating a state-level “earned income tax credit” that sends checks to low-income working families. But Lansner’s data indicate that the gap is still widening and another new report implies that raising the minimum wage may be backfiring by reducing job creation. The UC-Riverside’s Center for Economic Forecasting and Development studied recent increases in the minimum wage at the behest of the California Restaurant Association and concluded that it has markedly slowed job growth in that industry. “Data analysis suggests that while the restaurant industry in California has grown significantly as the minimum wage has increased, employment in the industry has grown more slowly than it would have without minimum wage hikes,” the report concluded. “The slower employment is nevertheless real for those workers who may have found a career in the industry. And when the next recession arrives, the higher real minimum wage could increase overall job losses within the economy and lead to a higher unemployment rate than would have been the case without the minimum wage increases.” Christopher Thornberg, the center’s director and author of the study, said the rapid pace of minimum wage increases “is creating certain negative consequences for smaller businesses and people who need the most help rising out of poverty.” That captures the dilemma of California’s persistent poverty and demonstrates the unintended consequences of trying to reduce it by political decree, rather than by encouraging job creation and work-oriented education and reducing housing costs.
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In education circles in California and nationally, the fundamental question is this: How do we ensure all public schools are high quality? In Sacramento, much of the debate focuses on charter schools, as the Legislature considers several related bills related to them. What’s too often lost in the discussion is the fate of California’s 6.2 million public school students. For too long, public schools have underserved segments of our student population. The shortcomings of the public school system have created a void, one which others have tried to fill. The results have been decidedly mixed. But the mere existence of charters highlights the desire for strong schools that capably serve and provide equitable access to a diverse student population. California has more charter schools than any state in the union. Yet our haphazard charter laws force school boards to grapple with loopholes and unintended consequences, too often creating havoc in our state. Can charter schools be part of this solution? Absolutely. But that solution should be strategic and consider the health of the entire public education system. School board members and county office of education trustees are the primary authorizers for charter school petitions. They also act as stewards of the districts and county offices that are impacted by charter schools. Schools have insufficient resources to begin with. So it’s critical that school board members have the authority to consider the district as a whole. They must be given the power to focus on school quality, access, equity, opportunity and good governance. However, existing charter law compels authorizers to ignore critical factors such as the financial impact on existing schools. In some districts, multiple charter schools are approved on appeal, overriding the denial by the local school board. In others, districts are forced to accept charters within their boundaries that have been approved by school boards in different towns or even different counties. This is compounded by the growing pressure districts face, given that funding hasn’t kept up with sharply rising costs. As a result, districts must make difficult tradeoffs that potentially hurt some of the very students the Charter Schools Act was intended to help. Trustees have an invaluable perspective on charter legislation that, if passed, would need to be implemented by school boards. In a recent report, the California School Boards Association argues for: • Prohibiting changes to the charter petition on appeal; • Providing districts with more time to act on a petition; • Requiring that petitioners demonstrate why their proposed model cannot be accomplished within the school district structure; • Evaluating charter school impact on districts; and • Limiting out-of-district charters in which one school district approves charters located in another district. The study has gained additional resonance as pending legislation intensifies the debate over charters. We must recognize that quality charters have a role in public education. But we also need to insist that California correct the shortcomings of the charter authorization process and account for the impact of charters on students in neighboring schools and throughout the district. If we let the quest for better student outcomes guide our work, we will find the answers everyone is seeking. Emma Turner is California School Boards Association president and vice president of La Mesa-Spring Valley School District in San Diego County. She wrote this commentary for CALmatters, a non-profit journalism project in Sacramento.
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