opment to move their schools forward . We provided training and assigned appropriate consultants when needed .
Charters take off
As schools looked for more autonomy , it was inevitable that the charter movement would begin in Minnesota in 1991 . The first charter would arrive in California in 1997 . In 1998 , L . A . Unified opened its charter office and authorized its first school . Not yet 20 years later , Los Angeles is home to a larger number of charter school students than are educated in any other district in the United States .
In Los Angeles , there are three major types of charters : affiliated charters , conversion charters and independent charters . These range from the least autonomous schools to the most autonomous schools .
I worked in some of the early affiliated charters , which were district schools that applied for select waivers from district policy and / or Education Code . Schools did their own staff selection and could be more flexible with budgets , curriculum and scheduling . They were mainly clustered on the west side of Los Angeles and have proved to be very successful , even to this day .
Conversion charters are schools that convert from a regular comprehensive high school to a charter high school . They need a majority vote of teachers to write a charter and get approved by the Board of Education . Some of them include Granada Hills , Palisades High School and Birmingham High School .
Lastly , the independent charters are developed by a group of educators or a nonprofit that write a charter petition to be approved by the Board of Education . Some of the more successful ones have expanded into a group of schools called a charter management organization ( CMO ).
I spent six years , as superintendent of a CMO in Los Angeles – Aspire Public Schools – that included 12 schools . I learned a great deal , as I did in L . A . Unified for 38 years . I worked in both the district and for a CMO , and am a strong believer in joining forces and working together for a common goal .
For the first time , L . A . Unified has a majority of school board members who want to work collaboratively with the numerous charter schools in Los Angeles . They share the belief that if we all unite and work jointly , we can improve public education in Los Angeles . If the goal is to improve the public education system , we should be open to the involvement of anyone who will add value to the work . Let us not fear changing the educational landscape in Los Angeles .
Resource
• National Alliance for Public Charter Schools ( 2015 ). “ A Growing Movement : America ’ s Largest Charter School Communities .” Access at www . publiccharters . org / wp-content / uploads / 2015 / 11 / enrollmentshare _ web . pdf .
Dr . Roberta Benjamin Edwards is a retired administrator from Los Angeles Unified and a professor of school leadership at CSU Dominguez Hills . Additionally , she is the former superintendent of Aspire Public Schools of Los Angeles for six years . 32 Leadership