fbpx Skip to Main Content

Commentary: California’s public charter schools — and their students — deserve equitable funding

Original EdSource article found here. 

COMMENTARY
By Mala Batra, Aspire CEO

September 19, 2023

In times of crisis, we should be looking for ways to help, not hinder. But in California, the inequities in public school education funding are only deepening the crisis for too many students.

On top of the devastating social-emotional and academic effects of the pandemic, our communities have been dealing with widespread staffing challenges, culture wars and frequent unfair attacks on educators. And in cities across California, projections suggest that public school enrollment will continue to drop — creating a crisis for practically all schools across the state.

Public charter schools face all of these challenges and more. At Aspire Public Schools, a charter school network serving more than 15,000 students in 36 schools across the state, our student population is more than 85% Black and Latino, and the vast majority of our students are experiencing poverty. Yet since the day we were founded, we’ve been forced to get creative with limited resources: Aspire students — like all public charter school students in California — receive less funding than their peers in traditional public schools.

According to new research from the University of Arkansas, the problem remains severe. In the 2019-20 school year, Los Angeles public charter school students received $5,226 less per-pupil funding than their counterparts in traditional public schools. In Oakland, the gap is even larger, at $7,103. This is driven by a lack of public funding. In both cities, public charter schools receive less local, state and federal funding than their counterparts in traditional public schools.

Why? While both public charters and traditional public schools receive the same amount of base funding under California’s Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF, that doesn’t mean the total funding is equal. One reason for this is that schools receive additional funding for higher-need student categories and for higher concentrations of students in those categories, known as “concentration grants.” However, charter school concentration grant amounts are capped based on the average student demographics for the district in which they reside. This means that public charters are, in effect, penalized for serving a greater share of high-need students than their district. There are also a number of local, state and federal funding streams that are only accessible to traditional public schools —for instance, voter-approved local funding for operations or capital projects.

I’m not writing this to complain. We are honored to serve our school communities and our wonderful, talented scholars. It’s hard work, but unequal funding makes it harder. The more time we have to spend fighting tooth and nail for basic resources, the less we can spend educating California’s next generation. Our scholars are the same students whom politicians claim to want to support, especially in the wake of the pandemic, but they are consistently left out because they and their families made the choice to attend a public charter school. Elected officials frequently speak about the importance of equity, and we at Aspire couldn’t agree more. But equity means all students getting what they need — and Aspire schools (as well as many other public charter schools)serve large numbers of historically marginalized students.

This challenge is nothing new. If you talk to charter leaders across California, they’ll all tell you a similar story. Due to this systemic funding deficit, we have had no choice but to try to raise philanthropic dollars to fill critical funding gaps. But that is often turned into an attack against us, with critics saying that public charter schools are bankrolled by private investors. That is simply untrue. Trust me — I would love nothing more than to be able to operate our schools without fundraising. But it’s just not an option.

And new challenges often emerge. Just two years ago we made the choice to go to Sacramento to advocate for all public charter students to fight against legislation that would have penalized charter schools — and not traditional public schools — for following the state’s guidelines for quarantining students who were exposed to Covid-19. While we were able to win that fight, it is illustrative of the larger issue: Charter students are treated as less than others.

But here’s the thing: Despite these challenges, charter schools have been able to accomplish so much. According to new research from the CREDO Institute at Stanford University, California charter students have gained the equivalent of 11 days of reading and four days of math compared with similar students in traditional public schools. Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty had even larger gains. At Aspire specifically, we were proud to have met CREDO’s “gap-busting” criteria in both reading and math, recognizing our ability to reduce opportunity gaps at scale.

So many of our students are carrying so much. They are talented and resilient, and they work hard to achieve their goals. We believe in them, and we tell them that every day.

But this funding gap tells them something different — that because they happen to attend a charter school, they matter less. It’s time that education leaders put childish politics aside and focus on giving all of our kids what they need. They’re all California students. They deserve to be treated as such.

•••

Mala Batra is the chief executive officer at Aspire Public Schools, a charter management organization serving 15,000 TK-12 students across 36 schools in historically underserved communities throughout California.

The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.

To get more reports like this one, click here to sign up for EdSource’s no-cost daily email on latest developments in education.

Aspire Public Schools CEO statement in response to the finalization of the California budget

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                               
August 1, 2022

Contact: Kristin Costa 
(408) 500-8555                                  
kristin@larsonpr.com 

In response to the finalization of the California budget, Aspire Public Schools CEO Mala Batra issued the following statement:

Oakland, Calif. — Through the finalization of the state budget, Governor Newsom and the legislature have agreed to reimburse classroom-based public charter schools with previously withheld funding caused by quarantined-related absences. This victory for students comes after months of educators, leaders and families advocating on behalf of all California public charter school students. 

Each time a public charter school student quarantined for the health and safety of the community, that student lost critical funding for their education. Students and schools lost millions of dollars — all during a time when investment in education and accelerated learning was more necessary than ever. 

We are grateful that Governor Newsom and California legislators solved this urgent education funding issue. Our state leaders have listened to the voices of nearly 30 leaders and over 2,500 parents, educators and community members seeking support.

Because of our collective action, nearly 1,000 public classroom-based charter schools and over 500,000 students will have access to the resources necessary to support student success. 

About Aspire Public Schools
Aspire Public Schools operates 36 community-based public charter schools educating over 15,500 students in underserved communities across California. Founded in 1998, Aspire is one of the nation’s largest open-enrollment public charter school systems serving predominantly students of color from low-income communities. Delivering a rigorous education to students in grades TK-12, College for Certain is the focus for every age group. Teachers and families partner closely to ensure scholars are prepared to succeed in college, career and life. Currently in its 21st academic year, Aspire is one of the nation’s first charter school systems. Learn more about Aspire Public Schools at aspirepublicschools.org.

Oakland charters join chorus calling on California to change how it funds schools

With higher absence rates due to COVID, some school leaders say it’s time to stop tying attendance to funding.

By Ashley McBride  | February 15, 2022
Original article found here.

With public schools across California getting ready to finalize their budgets for the 2022-2023 school year over the next few months, some local charter schools are sounding the alarm on state funding policies that could result in hundreds of thousands of dollars lost next year.

Leaders at Aspire Public Schools and other charter organizations with schools in Oakland started a petition in December to call attention to how the state’s education finance laws could severely reduce funding for charter schools next year, because of COVID-related absences this year.

Public schools in California, including charters, receive state funding based on in-person daily attendance averages. When planning budgets for the following school year, district officials typically use projections based on the current year’s average daily attendance (ADA).

Oakland has 43 charter schools that enroll about 17,000 students. Individuals and groups who want to start charter schools here have to get approval from Oakland Unified School District, and any changes made to their charter after that must also be approved by OUSD, but otherwise charter schools are run by their own boards and charter management organizations.

Assembly Bill 167, passed by the state legislature in 2021, allowed traditional public schools in districts like OUSD to use attendance numbers from the 2019-2020 school year (prior to pandemic shutdowns) to establish funding levels for 2020-2021 and the 2021-2022 school year, so that they wouldn’t lose funding during prolonged periods of distance learning. After that, schools will have to use current attendance numbers.

But public charter schools were not given that option, meaning lower attendance during the pandemic will impact their school budgets next year. Charter leaders and advocates feel the law is penalizing students and schools for trying to stay safe and follow quarantine policies.

The petition, which has about 1,700 signatures from mainly charter school families and supporters, is calling on state legislators to come up with a solution that will allow schools to maintain their current levels of funding for another year.

“We’re all going through a pandemic right now—still, almost two years later—and we need our systems and our financial structure to be more responsive to the state we’re all still in,” said Jay Stack, the principal at Aspire Berkley Maynard Academy, a K-8 school in North Oakland. “I understand they want to make sure kids are in school learning and schools are doing everything they can, but it’s not responsive to the fact that COVID is the reason kids are not in school full time right now.”

Charter schools aren’t the only ones hurting. Despite being allowed to use attendance numbers from 2019-2020, OUSD cut roughly $40 million from its budget last month to address its longstanding deficit and anticipated reductions in state funding over the next several years, and to make room in the budget to raise teacher and staff salaries. Attendance rates prior to the pandemic in OUSD were around 94% each year. But this year, from August through January, attendance rates are averaging around 87%.

State law is becoming a focal point for both district and charter schools

While charter school and public school supporters can often be on opposing sides of local education debates, the need to re-examine California’s attendance-driven funding model for schools is one they can agree on, and some of the solutions being proposed by school and state leaders that have been gaining momentum could benefit all public schools.

Senator Anthony Portantino in southern California introduced a bill last month that would tie school funding to enrollment in addition to attendance, beginning in 2023. State schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond expressed his support for Senate Bill 830 last week.

“This is a system that creates an incredible lack of equity for many California schools,” Thurmond said about the attendance model. “Schools that have the kind of circumstances that drive higher rates of absenteeism find that they lose the kind of revenue they need to actually address the issues that cause chronic absenteeism.”

Thurmond added that if SB 830 passes, Oakland Unified could receive an additional $24 million or more. The bill would enable districts with low attendance numbers to receive supplemental funding based on enrollment, which is higher than attendance. Schools would have to use at least half of that extra funding to address chronic absenteeism and truancy.

Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed allowing districts to average their attendance numbers over three years instead of just one, to avoid drastic funding changes from year to year.

With the pandemic ongoing, student absences at both charter and district schools have been significantly higher this year because of students getting COVID and staying home, policies that require entire classes to quarantine for 10 days after there has been a positive case, and families keeping children home out of fear of them catching the virus. That means schools are expecting serious hits to their budgets during a time when they’ve made extra investments in safety precautions and support for students.

Schools spent extra money this year on PPE and hiring more people to support students

The school year started off a bit rocky at Aspire Berkley Maynard Academy, as Stack and his  assistant principal had to cover classes at the beginning of the year because of staff absences, and school leaders had to figure out how to implement quarantine rules. At the same time, the school had hired literacy coaches to support students who had been learning from home for more than a year, spent money to support students’ emotional well-being and mental health, and bought loads of personal protective equipment to keep students safe. Between September and December, things began to run more smoothly, Stack said.

Then, the omicron surge landed in the Bay Area.

“Coming back to school after winter break, every day is like, ‘How many people are going to be out, and how can we leverage who is at the school to make sure the kids are safe and supervised?’” Stack said.

On a recent Friday in January, 467 students were at school out of about 540 total students, or an attendance rate of about 86%. Attendance rates for previous years hovered around 94 to 96% at the North Oakland school, but this year it’s around 90% so far. That could lead to a loss of about $415,000 next year, Stack said.

Berkley Maynard Academy’s revenues for this year were about $8 million, including roughly $5.8 million in ADA funding. The hires and investments that the school made at the beginning of the year to help students transition back to in-person learning could be at risk with next year’s anticipated budget cuts.

“If they have to do staff cuts and I’m one of them, I think about how that would affect students,” said Monika Ellis, who works as a student support manager at Berkley Maynard Academy and has a daughter at the school. “They’ve already lost so much.”

Aspire Public Schools is a charter network with campuses in Oakland, East Palo Alto, the Central Valley, and southern California. Among the Bay Area schools, attendance this year through December was around 89%. In January, Aspire schools in the Bay Area had attendance rates between 63% and 80%.

KIPP Public Schools, another charter network with schools in Oakland, has also signed onto the petition. At KIPP Bridge Academy, a K-8 school in West Oakland, attendance rates have seen similar declines.

“Right now we are down about 6% from what we would be projected at, and that’s like $200-$300,000,” said Andre Haughton, the principal of KIPP Bridge Academy’s upper school. “How can we continue to give the academic programs that our kids deserve and that they need with a loss like that? It’s difficult to wrap my head around.”

Commentary: Quarantines are costing our students financially

Students at Aspire Arts & Sciences Academy, a charter public school serving grades TK-5 in Stockton, CA.
Students at Aspire Arts & Sciences Academy, a charter public school serving grades TK-5 in Stockton, CA.
Original article here.

By Mala Batra | CEO, Aspire Public Schools

Students at Aspire Arts & Sciences Academy, a charter public school serving grades TK-5 in Oakland, CA. This pandemic has cost us all in countless ways — in physical and mental health, in community, in employment, in hours and minutes with loved ones and in education. Now that we’re facing yet another surge, our schools are worried about new ways this disease is robbing us.

Our state leaders are seeking to address some of the ramifications of Covid-19. Recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a $2.7 billion Covid response plan, which would help schools receive the rapid test kits we need to keep school doors open, communities safe and kids in school.

But what happens when kids can’t be in school? What happens when thousands of students test positive or have a risk of exposure and need to quarantine?

That’s when educators are backed into a corner: By following the state-mandated student quarantine requirements, California’s public schools are losing millions of dollars — money needed for the critical work of supporting our students, keeping our staff safe and rebuilding our school communities.

In California, when a student quarantines to protect the health and safety of their school community, that same student loses money for their education.  Current state law requires schools to mark quarantined students absent, unless students sign up for independent study for the time off, and the district keeps track of their work. The Legislature agreed to hold school districts harmless for Covid absences this year, but that allowance was not extended to charter schools. Unless the law is changed, all public schools will be affected in the coming year.

When students are absent, the school doesn’t receive money for the student that day. At one of our schools, that means for a 10-day quarantine for an entire classroom, a school loses about $14,000 based on the school’s average daily attendance funding. While schools have the option of enrolling quarantined students in independent study, the process to do so is difficult — if not impossible — for families to navigate during a two-week period. Furthermore, students who receive special education services need to have an updated individualized education plan — a process that can take weeks to months — to participate in independent study. These complexities have led most public schools to mark quarantined students absent, resulting in millions of lost dollars for California students’ education.

This problem is reinforcing an issue that predated the pandemic and has been exacerbated by it: It’s disproportionately impacting students of color and those in low-income communities. Since our communities have higher infection rates than white and more affluent communities, they are more likely to need to quarantine and therefore have money taken away from their education.

At Aspire Public Schools, a charter school network with 36 schools serving over 15,000 students across the state of California, we’ve known from very early on in this pandemic that our students and their families were among the most likely to bear the brunt of this disease and its devastating impacts. More than 85% of Aspire’s scholars are Black or Latino and live in communities that are among the hardest hit across our state.

At face value, the financial implications of this law may seem like a small, even logical consequence. But it adds up. In the first few months of this school year, the delta variant wreaked havoc on our communities despite our best efforts to institute policies that would protect our students and teammates. As a result, during this time period, Aspire saw the compounding impacts of this law cost our schools $1.2 million dollars. With omicron now surging in our communities, our schools — and consequently our students — are losing even more.

Reductions in funding force schools to make devastating decisions like eliminating much-needed programming or staff — both of which would have devastating impacts on students and teachers. Educators are going above and beyond every day to support students, all while holding their own feelings of exhaustion and anxiety. We cannot keep expecting them to do more with less.

California schools are steadfastly committed to both prioritizing student learning and protecting student health. As part of protecting our community from Covid-19, we enforce quarantine and isolation protocols as necessary. As rapid tests hopefully become more readily available, we are eager to pilot “test-to-stay” programs as a means to keep more students in our classrooms. But should that enforcement really be costing our students so dearly?

With unpredictable variables, such as the omicron variant, being introduced to our landscape daily, we must ensure there aren’t financial consequences that force schools to make impossible choices between safety and learning.

There should be zero cost — to schools, and most importantly to our students — for a medically responsible and necessary quarantine. Our state leaders can and must develop a solution that allows schools to follow state-mandated quarantine requirements without losing critical funding. This pandemic has already cost our students far too much. It is our collective responsibility to lighten that burden and clear a path for healing.

•••

Mala Batra is CEO of Aspire Public Schools, California’s largest charter school network serving more than 15,000 students in the Bay Area, Central Valley and Los Angeles.

Read more at EdSource.org. The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.

Accessibility by WAH