Published: 1 years 123 days ago
Sacramento Bee: Opposition is mounting against a proposal to create a network of charter schools in Sacramento County.
Area school board members and union representatives say their concern is that local control is being thwarted by Margaret Fortune petitioning for 10 charter schools with the Sacramento County Office of Education and not individual school districts.
The financial implications stem from how schools receive state aid based on average daily student attendance. If students leave district schools to attend independently run charters, the districts would lose thousands of dollars in state aid for each student.
Sacramento County schools chief Dave Gordon said Fortune came to his office because she plans to open charter schools in the Twin Rivers, Natomas, Sacramento City, Elk Grove and Folsom Cordova school districts.
"If they want to operate in more than one district then they are not obligated to go district by district," he said. Gordon and his staff will make a recommendation Friday to the county Board of Education.
The Sacramento County charter proposal calls for one school to open each year for the first six years. The schools will have longer school days, use non-union teachers and each be named after a living African American icon, Fortune said.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/20/3337346/charter-school-network-proposed.html
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