Pressure for More Charter Schools Rises : Education: Watchdog group is studying whether to urge end to 100-campus cap. But opponents say there is no overwhelming demand and slots remain unfilled.

Pressure to increase the number of charter schools in California appears to be mounting, as a watchdog group that oversees education is considering asking state officials to lift the 100-school cap limiting participation in the program.

The Little Hoover Commission will not make its final recommendations until February. However, Commissioner Angie Papadakis, who heads the state group’s charter subcommittee, said at a Los Angeles hearing Wednesday that expansion is essential.

“That’s the only way to put pressure on the other public schools to change,” she said.

When the law allowing the charter school experiment was enacted in 1992, allowing campuses to petition their school districts for autonomy, supporters expected a rush to fill the 100 slots--10 of which are in the Los Angeles Unified School District. But three years later, at least seven openings remain, one in Los Angeles.

“You want to create supply when there is no demand,” former Assemblyman Mike Roos told the commission. Roos now heads LEARN, a Los Angeles Unified reform program that also offers schools more autonomy.

That lack of demand, along with insufficient data on the performance of charter schools, defeated a spate of bills aimed at raising the cap in April.

But Maureen DiMarco, Gov. Pete Wilson’s secretary of education, said the governor supports increasing the number of charters and expects that the state Department of Education will do so “whenever school 101 comes looking.”

Charter backers blame the flagging interest on the continued strangulation of charters by the education bureaucracy, which they concede results partly from vagaries in the legislation. Many charters continue to have their budgets and many of their programs controlled by school boards or the state Department of Education.

“There’s always a temptation [for school boards and the state] to take the most narrow or conservative approach when there’s a gray area,” said Eric Premack, a charter consultant who is to testify at the second commission hearing Nov. 16 in Sacramento. “That can--and does--seriously compromise the intent of the legislation.”

Schools interested in becoming charters are turned off, Premack said, by the prospect of so much work for so little return.

Waving handcuffs at the commission to underline her point, the principal of a San Fernando Valley charter school described her uphill struggle, and said that adding more schools would give charter campuses the clout to cut through district red tape.

“We feel so disloyal to our district and it’s hard,” said Yvonne Chan, principal of Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, which became a charter two years ago. “It is important to lift this cap . . . so we can create a critical mass” of charter schools.

Those still on the fence about lifting the cap say the difficulties encountered by the existing charters, particularly the failure of Edutrain Charter School in Downtown Los Angeles, have had a chilling effect on other applicants.

Edutrain, which focused on teaching dropouts and potential dropouts, was closed by Los Angeles Unified this year after state and local audits uncovered chronic problems with financial and attendance record-keeping.

In addition, some have questioned whether the need for charters has been reduced by the introduction and expansion of other reform efforts, such as LEARN in Los Angeles and a new state program known as Challenge districts being touted by state School Supt. Delaine Eastin.

LEARN takes a more gradual approach, giving schools control of 85% of their budget over time, but only after providing them with extensive budgetary training. Charter schools receive no such training, a point frequently made by skeptics.

Challenge districts, as envisioned by Eastin, would be freed from state Education Code requirements in exchange for a commitment to a set of goals covering things such as campus safety and student academic performance.

Jeannine English, director of the Little Hoover Commission, said she sees no conflict among the various reforms, that the popularity of one does not diminish the role of another.

“Having options that fit into different communities is crucial,” English said.

Whether one reform program becomes dominant or all operate together, commissioners were told Wednesday that the efforts must be backed by frequent student assessment.

Although individual charter principals have documented successes, there are no statewide tests that adequately monitor the progress of reforms since the death last year of the California Learning Assessment System. And it will be four years until the new statewide testing program signed into law this week takes effect.

“I have yet to see a charter petition that was questioned [by districts] about how it planned to assess and monitor student outcomes,” said James Catterall , professor of education at UCLA. “Someone has to concentrate on whether results are being delivered.”