LOS ANGELES – In a move heralded by charter-school proponents, the Los Angeles County Board of Education last week overturned the L.A. Unified School District’s decision to shutter two highly successful charter schools.

The Board of Education’s unanimous vote on April 15 reversed L.A. Unified’s licensing revocation for Aspire Antonio Maria Lugo Academy and Aspire Ollin University Preparatory Academy, which occurred in February.

From a student, family and taxpayer point of view, there was no good reason whatsoever to try to close the schools.

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Maria Lugo Academy (an elementary school) and Ollin University Preparatory Academy (a middle school) score “100 to 150 points higher than non-charters in their neighborhood. More than 90 percent of their students are low-income, and 99 percent are Latino,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Despite this measure of academic success, L.A. Unified board members revoked the schools’ charters because both outsourced special education programs. According to WSJ’s Allysia Finley: “The board members wanted Aspire to subscribe to the district’s more expensive special-education plan in order to procure more state funds for the district and its unionized workforce.”

The Aspire academies were allocated funds to assist special-education students with dyslexia, speech challenges and emotional problems requiring psychiatric care.

Rather than use L.A. Unified programs – for a fee – Aspire instead opted to contract with El Dorado County Charter. As reported by KPCC Public Radio’s Annie Gilbertson: “Denying a charter based on its failure to contribute revenue to the general fund of the sponsoring district violates the education code, L.A. county Department of Education documents state.”

So the LAUSD was willing to shut down two schools that provide great service to a population that desperately needs it, just because the schools didn’t cooperate with the district’s union labor/revenue scheme.

The citizens of L.A. should be outraged.

Better services, less money

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Writing for National Review Online, Lance Izumi, senior director of education for the Pacific Research Institute, notes: “At Lugo Academy, an elementary school where 99 percent of the students are Hispanic and 94 are disadvantaged, an amazing 91 percent of third-graders scored at or above the proficient level on the state math test in 2013. At Ollin… which has the same student demographics as Lugo, seven out of 10 eighth-graders scored at or above the proficient level on the state Algebra I exam.”

Izumi quotes L.A. School Superintendent John Deasy assessment of the charter schools’ performance as “unquestionable and unassailable.” Nevertheless, Izumi writes, the school board “ignored their impressive performance and denied the renewals based on the charters’ sins of not contracting for special-education services with the district’s special-ed agency.”

In her April 16 story, Gilbertson quotes from a staff report presented to the L.A. Unified board:

“The Division of Special Education and the Office of General Counsel believe that the District cannot ensure that the charter school participating in an out-of-District (special education service) is offering a sound educational program for students with disabilities.”

However, Izumi notes, “Since state law doesn’t require charters to use district special-ed services, the two Aspire schools contracted with an agency in El Dorado County in Northern California, which provides the same amount of oversight and better data services for less money.

“In ham-fisted retaliation for not using district services, the LAUSD board voted down the schools’ renewal applications, even though the district’s own special-ed chief could find no problem with the services being offered by the charters.”

Union gets what it paid for

Predicting that the Aspire schools will face further LAUSD opposition, Finley writes: “Teachers unions and their allies on the school board are intent on stopping the erosion of the public-school monopoly. Protecting special-needs students from a purportedly unaccountable, outside agency just happened to be the excuse du jour in February.”

The United Teachers of Los Angeles – according to Izumi – has a deep antipathy against charter schools. He reports that LAUSD board member Bennett Kayser was endorsed by both the UTLA and the L.A. County Democratic Party.

“The union spent almost $620,000 on his 2011 election,” writes Izumi. “When Kayser voted against the high-performing Aspire charter schools in his own district, the union got what it paid for.”

“The actions of the anti-charter ideologues on both coasts demonstrate that the future of our children remains in jeopardy. For all the talk about education reform, too many Democratic leaders like (New York City Mayor) Bill de Blasio and Bennett Kayser are cheerleaders for or beholden to the agendas of the powerful teachers’ unions.”

California native Victor Davis Hanson, writing for National Review Online, states: “For the elite who send their kids to prep schools and private academies, public charter schools for the poor are bad, given that they undermine the dream of progressive, union-run education that has turned into a nightmare for those forced to enroll in it.”