Senator Bill Dodd, D-Napa, bills himself a moderate with pragmatic priorities. So, it’s puzzling that he’d introduce Senate Bill 1380. SB 1380 would authorize school district boards to deny charter school applications if it had closed a school within the past five years. It would also gut county education boards’ authority to overrule the local board’s denial.
Elected school board members are politicians. They can be beholden to political donors, and sometimes donors’ priorities don’t align with families’ need for better public school options. Taking away oversight over school boards’ decision-making would grant them excessive power.
Dodd’s rationale is the misguided notion that when parents enroll their child in a public charter school, they drain school districts of funding. But charter schools are public schools: free and open to all. They are part of California’s public school system; they simply operate independently of district bureaucracies.
They’re also more accountable than district schools. If charter school students don’t grow academically, parents leave and the school will close. Unless district schools are severely under-enrolled for extended periods, they’re rarely closed — no matter how poorly they educate students.
No one wants schools to close, but why should Sacramento prevent parents from swapping one form of public education for another that’s a better fit? No one prevents parents from enrolling kids in private schools because it “drains district” funds. School boards don’t berate home schoolers for failing to contribute funds to support districts bureaucracies. They shouldn’t be given carte blanc to do that to public charters, either.
If Senator Dodd doesn’t understand that charter schools are free, public, and open to all, he may not understand that families who choose them often can’t afford private school options. Taking away low-income, usually minority, families’ charter schools through legislation designed to artificially cap their growth is not grounded in Democratic values.
Stanford University has published a series of credible, detailed research studies comparing student learning in public charter schools to demographically matched students in district schools. Because that research was conducted over decades, it credibly demonstrates that charter schools are an excellent education options that have continuously improved since President Clinton signed federal charter school legislation in 1994. Stanford’s research measures academic growth in “days of learning” students gain. Researchers found that nationally, charter school students annually gained reading knowledge equal to 16 extra days of learning in a district, and six additional days of learning in math. In California, it’s 19 extra days of learning in reading, and 10 additional days in math.
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When I attended elementary school in Martinez, which sits in Dodd’s district, my zoned school wasn’t great. A scholarship to a Catholic school saved me, but my mom had to drive 40 minutes to get me there. Not every child has a parent with that bandwidth. Senator Dodd shouldn’t seek to limit those students’ options to get a good education in their own community, just because state funds follow students to free public charter schools.
In a 2022 interview with his alma mater, Chico State, Dodd said that early in his career he didn’t listen enough, but he’s since evolved. He now favors compromise that “appeals to the vast majority of Californians in the middle” of the political spectrum. Well, support for public charter schools in the Golden State is at an all-time high, according to a 2023 statewide poll. More than 2-in-1 California voters view charter schools favorably, with fewer than a quarter of voters reporting an unfavorable view.
Respectfully, it’s time to listen again, Senator Dodd. If your bill passes, it will deprive Black and Hispanic parents of choice in public education. California already has a stringent charter school approval process. Withdraw SB 1380.
A California native, Tressa Pankovits co-directs the Reinventing America’s Schools Project in Washington D.C. She can be reached at tpankovits@ppionline.org