The stakeholders of Micheltorena Elementary are opposed to collocation by Citizens of the World Charter (CWC) for the following reasons:
1. The Micheltorena community strongly believes in protecting the civil right for every citizen to get a free education and to enroll without lottery, tuition, or preferential treatment. The inclusivity of public education is the backbone of our democracy and one that needs to be valued and nurtured by the community.
2. Micheltorena Elementary and CWC have similar mission statements, so we compete for enrollment. If CWC enrolls children from our neighborhood (they need eighty to be in compliance), Micheltorena’s enrollment drops, and our school could close. A school with a one-hundred-year history in the Silver Lake community could face closure within the next decade because the community is supporting charter schools like CWC instead of their local public schools.
3. The idea of community is extremely important to us, and, to this end, the neighborhood’s investment in Micheltorena Elementary– the decision to enroll their children and support the school down the street– builds not just a strong educational environment, but a stronger, closer, safer Silver Lake community: businesses thrive; real estate becomes more valuable; local families have their neighborhood school in common; neighboring families can walk their children to school together. By design, co-location exemplifies the idea of division and models inequality to our children. This is a blatant conflict of interest that is of great concern to our community.
4. Micheltorena Elementary is experiencing a rebirth right now, an exciting, hard-fought renaissance brought to the forefront by a strong principal, dedicated teachers, active parents and community members, and thoughtful students. What the school needs during this critical time is the community’s support. When neighborhood parents give their support to CWC, our neighborhood school loses the insight and enthusiasm these parents bring. When our bilingual education program is threatened by co-location, our neighborhood school loses the opportunity to better serve the community.
When neighborhood families see a divided campus, they will be faced with the doubt that has plagued our neighborhood school for far too long: “Will my child be well-educated here?” The answer is undeniably, “Yes!” Unfortunately, the existence of CWC on our campus judges our school as inferior, however erroneously, and hurts our neighborhood school just at the time when it is becoming great. This tipping point needs to be carefully addressed, because our community needs a proud local public school for the one hundred years to come, and the community needs to support our school looking not just toward the next one or two years, but toward future generations of children. Yes, our children are important, but so are our children’s children and their children’s children. By investing in our local public school, we are empowering generations of Silver Lakers to come.
See below for links to information about collocations:
Citizens of the World Charter Corporation is based in LA, but is looking to expand not only here, but in New York as well. Parent groups are fighting collocation with CWC franchise schools on their campuses as well:
http://www.williamsburggreenpointschools.org/truth-about-charters/citizensoftheworldcharternewyork
You can read here about the damaging effects collocation has had on Logan Street Elementary School, in Echo Park. From the article: “The private, unelected boards of charter schools ignore the needs of communities. More often than not charter schools’ boards have no educators or community members. For example, the fourteen member board of CNCA Charter Corporation, which was awarded the local CRES 14 campus against the explicit wishes of the Echo Park community, is packed with bankers and venture capitalists with no connection to the community or the families enrolled at their school. Likewise, Gabriella Charter Corporation’s board has repeatedly refused to inform community members where or when they hold their board meetings.”
In response to the collocation threat from charter school corporations seeking to open franchise schools on public school campuses, a Facebook group has been formed “for schools, communities and families struggling against the divisive and inequitable law that allows private charter school corporations to seize and occupy space on public school campuses.”
The film The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman also exposes the damage that collocations cause, especially in terms of the charters taking over the best parts of school facilities for themselves while relegating the public school students to basements and other undesirable locations.
Many people say Proposition 39 is the real enemy in this fight. We say, sometimes the law is not right. There is currently a bill proposing an amendment to Prop 39. The California Charter School Association CCSA strongly opposed this bill; it originally failed but it was amended and apparently it is now moving through the legislature again.
Many people argue that charter schools are “public schools.” However, The California Court of Appeals (2007-01-10) ruled that charter-voucher schools are NOT “public agents.” The 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals (2010-01-04) ruled that charter-voucher schools are NOT “public actors.” Moreover, The US Census Department expressed difficulty in obtaining information from charter-voucher schools because the are NOT public entities.
