Russlynn Ali, one of  several California  expats in key positions in the U.S. Department of Education, praised and chided charter school reformers in a talk in San Jose.

She said that school districts should be partnering with charters as “labs of innovation we all can learn from.” What distinguishes effective charter schools are commonsense strategies – “more time on task, more parental involvement, strong leadership,” she said Saturday. But Ali,  the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, also called for authorizers of charter school to be more resolute in shutting down schools that aren’t showing academic success.

Bad schools stay open because school boards don’t like to shut down a school – even one that’s failing its children, she said. “Parents feel a sense of loss; there is a visceral reaction when a school is shut down for poor achievement.” But it’s even harder to shut down a failing traditional school, so not renewing the charter of poor performers must serve as the example, she said.

Last month, as part of its Race to the Top  legislation, the state Assembly and Senate failed to agree on revising criteria for revoking charters. However, the state state Board of Education is expected to adopt regulations sometime this spring.

Ali  also said that civil rights division of the Education Department would monitor charter schools to ensure they are not discriminating against handicapped children. Charter schools generally serve proportionally fewer special education students, although it’s not clear that schools are deliberately excluding them.

Before heading to Washington a year ago, Ali was the former executive director of Oakland based-Education Trust-West, which advocates for minority children. She was the keynote speaker at a Santa Clara County Charter Summit, an unusual all-day forum, organized by trustees of the county Office of Education, to explore ways for districts and charter schools to work together and share best practices.

The Obama administration is assuming that charter schools will be a key player in reconstituting 5 percent of the nation’s lowest achieving schools – hundreds of as yet unidentified schools. Ali called on charter school sponsors to step and reconstitute failing schools – and not just start new schools, often beginning with one or two grades and then building out by adding one grade each year.

But Eric Premack, director of the Charter Schools Development Center in Sacramento, questions that assumption. There have been “one-off” instances where charters have successfully taken over an existing failing school, such as Green Dot Public Schools’ transformation of Locke High School in Los Angeles into small academies. But there is no proven model, Premack said during a breakout at the forum. (Perhaps a sign what’s ahead, only one charter school has applied to take over one of 12 failing schools that Los Angeles Unified has opened up to outside bidders,  but a number are competing to operate 18 new schools that will open in September.)

Statewide, 858 charters statewide enroll 4.8 percent of the state’s students. In Santa Clara County, 34 charters comprise 6 percent of students. About a third of those are CHINOs (charters in name only),  traditional district schools that were converted to charter status to gain some flexibility form the state ed code. But the bulk are independent charters serving low-income minority children in San Jose. They include two whose API scors are among the top  for schools serving minority children: KIPP Heartwood Academy in East San Jose and Rocketship Mateo Sheedy Elementary in downtown San Jose.

By John Fensterwald on February 1st, 2010