Bargain Basement Teachers?

“We recognize that our staff, particularly our teachers, are the cornerstone of our schools and our most valuable asset.”

– Citizens of the World Charter School

Charter schools not only receive funds from the same sources as LAUSD schools, but they also have access to funding sources that our public schools do not have. For example, during the pandemic, Congress created the Payroll Protection Program as a way to help small businesses get through the crisis but then allowed charter schools to receive this money. While public schools could not take advantage of this program, Citizens of the World Charter Schools received $2,000,000.

Many charter schools also have access to donor networks of people who want to do everything possible to ensure that these publicly funded private schools "win" the competition against public schools. If these schools can attract the right benefactors they can provide programs to draw students away from their neighborhood schools. This is especially advantageous when the charter takes space on the public school’s campus, creating a culture of the haves and the have-nots and providing a way to recruit students from their “host.”

The Citizens of the World (CWC) chain of charter schools has proven adept at drawing support from the education privatization movement, particularly from Hollywood. A gala was held last year on the Paramount Studios lot to support these private schools with a guestlist that included actress Kristen Bell and producer Mark Gordon. At one point Bell served on their governing board.

However, according to a teacher at one of the chain’s franchises, CWC is “not meeting [its] fundraising goals” and “has been undergoing financial strain for many years”. This is unsurprising as the chain has been rocked by a series of scandals almost since its founding. This reached a crescendo last year when first-grade teachers at the East San Fernando Valley campus went beyond advocating for innocent citizens in Gaza and made “the disturbing suggestion that Jews should leave the region”.

Short on funding the chain has been balancing the budget on the backs of teachers. According to the employee referenced above, “veteran teachers [at CWC] have been quietly absorbing lower and lower pay compared to other…teachers in LA”. The chain’s management even admits that a “market analysis showed that [its] teachers, on average, are paid at the 23rd percentile when compared to…competitors.” Under the previous pay scale the most experienced teachers stopped getting any increases after ten years of teaching.

Under a new scale approved by the chain's board, more tenured teachers will continue receiving raises until their 13th year of teaching. However, this will come at a cost to teachers who have sought to expand their skills. The school will transition “away from a compensation model based on ongoing education credits,” a system that was “largely based on LAUSD’s”.

Teachers speaking out against the new pay scale risk their continued employment. Like most charter schools in Los Angeles, employees at Citizens of the World are not unionized, which is why they are so popular with the billionaire class that floods elections with cash in support of candidates who will not put their operations under the microscope of regulators. Considering the charter chain’s past actions to silence opposition, firing a meddling teacher seems like a plausible step.

Facing a paycheck that does not represent the cost and time of their academic accomplishments, it is likely that these teachers will look for employment at a school where their diplomas are appreciated. This will leave CWC’s students with less-educated teachers who have not learned about cutting-edge methods for ensuring academic success.

Even before this adjustment in how CWC pays its teachers, the charter chain already showed signs of distress. In the 2022-23 school year none of its franchises achieved the enrollment predicted in their charters with the Mar Vista site having almost half of what was specified. The last time the LAUSD updated the public on overdue PROP-39 overallocation fees, the chain had a past-due balance of $156,453. If using less-prepared teachers further reduces enrollment, these problems will multiply. Is the Charter School Division paying attention or will they once again ignore their responsibility of oversight?

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Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.