Exposing a 40 Year Education Crime: Why California Needs School Choice

Busting LAUSD and every other school district in the state for negligence should help kids, but it’s anyone’s guess as to when. In the meantime, giving families more educational options would be a great help, but don’t hold your breath, California.

With National School Choice Week underway, we see many positive things happening across the country. In states like New Jersey and Louisiana, governors are taking the lead in proposing ways to break the devastating monopoly that government run schools – their educrat leaders, corrupt and/or inept school boards and the powerful teachers unions — have held for far too long.

As an example of Big Education gone bad, I write in City Journal about a crime that has been perpetrated on the children of California for 40 years and the lawsuit that addresses it:

For nearly 40 years, the Los Angeles Unified School District has broken the law—and nobody seemed to notice. Now a group of parents and students are taking the district to court. On November 1, a half-dozen anonymous families working with EdVoice, a reform advocacy group in Sacramento, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against the LAUSD, district superintendent John Deasy, and United Teachers Los Angeles. The lawsuit in essence accuses the district and the union of a gross dereliction of duty. According to the parents’ complaint, the district and the union have violated the children’s “fundamental right to basic educational equality and opportunity” by failing to comply with a section of the California Education Code known as the Stull Act. Under the 1971 law, a school district must include student achievement as part of a teacher’s evaluation. Los Angeles Unified has never done so: the teachers union wouldn’t allow it. To continue reading “A 40-Year Shame,” go to to http://www.city-journal.org/2012/cjc0119ls.html

However the above case is decided, there will undoubtedly be lawsuits, union pushback, teacher dissatisfaction and who-knows-what-else as the various special interests scramble to do what is best for themselves. And as always, children’s needs are left out of the equation.

One way to transcend big government-union school domination would be to develop a system of universal school choice, including vouchers and tax credits. To that end, Alan Bonsteel and I passionately make the case for choice in an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Daily News this past Friday.

Last July, The Wall Street Journal dubbed 2011 “The Year of School Choice” because of legislation that had been passed all over our nation. For example, North Carolina and Tennessee eliminated caps on charter schools. Maine passed its first charter school law. Twelve states either adopted new voucher programs or expanded existing ones. After first turning its back on the popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, Congress reconstituted funding for it. To continue reading “School Choice Reforms are More Vital Than Ever,” go to http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_19779002

While it would undoubtedly be a boon to education and save taxpayers money, school choice at this time is an extremely tough political sell in the Golden State. The entrenched special interests in California are in control and to make the needed changes will entail a long, bloody struggle. As such, taxpayers and parents must take the lead and force change via the initiative process.

In a future post, I will examine what options families in California do have if they want to remove their children from failing schools.

About the author: Larry Sand, a former classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.