Orange Campus Could Be Head of a New Class

More than two years after its reinvention under a charter of independence, Santiago Middle School remains the first and only school of its kind in Orange County--funded by tax dollars but free from school district regulations.

Here, there are fewer students per teacher than on surrounding campuses. All parents must log at least 12 volunteer hours each year--chaperoning field trips, making pizza in the cafeteria, planting trees or, sometimes, substitute-teaching in classrooms.

Here, too, reform proposals quickly become reality without waiting for approval from Sacramento or the school board. Educators have put students in uniforms, sought competitive bids for contracts and stiffened grade-to-grade promotion standards. Both the principal and a top official of the district that ceded control of the school say the school is “doing great.”

If a Silicon Valley businessman has his way, such experiments in public education will soon proliferate across California.

Reed Hastings, a software millionaire turned education graduate student, is promoting a voter initiative for the fall election that he believes would spawn hundreds more so-called charter schools.

Hewing to limits set by a 1992 law, California has granted just 134 charters so far. That’s a tiny number in a state with about 8,000 public schools.

“There’s a demand for many times that,” Hastings contends. “What we want to do is put as much control in the principals’ hands, and the teachers’, as possible. Everybody agrees that local is better.”

This month, the charter-school initiative, proposed as a constitutional amendment, gained wide public notice after Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren endorsed it. Many groups are taking Hastings seriously, in large part because he is wealthy and is talking about a $15-million campaign chest. He aims to collect 1.1 million voter signatures by May 1 to put the measure on the November ballot.

Charter schools have bipartisan political appeal. President Clinton and a number of Republican lawmakers champion them as an answer to parent demands for “school choice.” Nationwide, more than 780 have been established since Minnesota passed the first charter-school law in 1991, according to the Center for Education Reform, a conservative policy group based in Washington, D.C.

In California, charters have been granted in 31 of 58 counties, including 21 in Los Angeles County and 20 in San Diego County.

Some charters have been withdrawn or revoked. A notable failure was Edutrain Charter School in Los Angeles, shut down in 1995 after piling up large debts.

Indeed, there are plenty of skeptics. Some say charter schools lack fiscal and academic controls; others fear they could feed the movement to privatize schools through vouchers. And in a state where standardized testing has been in flux for years, there are few reliable yardsticks for comparing charter schools with their district-run counterparts.

In December 1997, SRI International, a research group based in Menlo Park, Calif., reported on charter schools for the nonpartisan state legislative analyst’s office. Researchers said they were unable to draw “definitive conclusions” about charter schools’ performance, in part because “the available data are insufficient.”

Without such data, some education groups argue, the state should proceed cautiously.

“The truth is, we don’t oppose charter schools per se,” said Tommye Hutto, communications manager for the 280,000-member California Teachers Assn. “But we want to be sure that the students, teachers and taxpayers will be protected.”

Hutto said the union, a major player in education politics, has several concerns about the ballot initiative, including language that would exclude teachers from the charter-approval process.

Hastings said he expects union opposition.

The initiative is co-sponsored by Don Shalvey, superintendent of San Carlos Elementary School District in the Bay Area, site of the state’s first charter school. Among its key provisions:

* Removal of limits on the number of charter schools allowed statewide and within a given district. Current law allows the state to exceed 100 charter schools only with approval from the state Board of Education, and it limits most districts to 10 such schools.

* Removal of a requirement that half the teachers in a school, or 10% of the teachers in a school district, sign petitions in support of a charter school.

* A proposal to spur the creation of charter schools in areas served by public schools ranked in the state’s academic cellar, the bottom 10%, according to standards to be established by the state Board of Education.

The initiative also would allow charter schools to incorporate as nonprofit institutions, beef up teacher standards, prohibit the promotion of religion, require gains in student achievement and limit the use of charters by home-schoolers.

Hastings, 37, of Santa Cruz, said the initiative is the fruit of five years of thinking and research prompted by the 1993 voucher initiative. He said he opposed Proposition 174, defeated that year in a statewide vote, which would have allowed publicly funded vouchers to be spent on private education.

Hastings made his fortune through a software company recently taken over by a rival. He is now a graduate student in education at Stanford University.

A schoolteacher before his software career, Hastings said his new life ambition is “to fix the public school finance system.”

But some observers, even a few who support charter schools, say they are wary of rich men who want to fix things.

Mary Ann Owsley, principal of Santiago Middle School before and after it won state charter No. 66, said some of Hastings’ ideas make little sense. In particular, she said, schools that reorganize under charters ought to have faculty approval. Thirty-two out of 34 teachers backed Santiago’s petition in 1994. The school opened under its charter in September 1995.

“You could no more have had success for this charter without the support of these teachers than you could flying,” Owsley said.

The principal acknowledged that there is little testing evidence to show that her 1,025-student campus has been better off under its charter. But she insisted that the school has used its money wisely. A 13-member governing board of parents, educators and community members oversees a $4-million annual budget. Class size, Owsley said, is 28 students per teacher, lower than the Orange Unified School District average. Owsley said, too, that parent surveys indicate strong support.

“This particular charter, as far as I’m concerned, is operating very effectively and meeting most people’s needs,” she said. “Not 100%, I can assure you, but we have over 90% approval ratings.”

Nick Anderson can be reached at (714) 966-5975. His e-mail address is nick.anderson@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

In a Class by Itself

What’s a charter school? Under a 1992 California law, charter schools are publicly funded but operate independently of most state regulations. School districts may revoke a charter for mismanagement. Here are details about Santiago Middle School, Orange County’s only charter school:

City: Orange

Grades: 7 and 8

Students: 1,025

Percentage of students with limited English skills: 20

Percentage qualifying for free/reduced-price meals: 34

Charter granted: July 1994

Opening date: September 1995

Charter length: Five years

Governing board: 13 members--principal, four parents, three teachers, curriculum manager, business manager, high school principal, district official and community representative

Annual budget: $4 million

Number of charters granted in neighboring counties (some have been discontinued):

Los Angeles: 21

Riverside: 5

San Bernardino: 11

San Diego: 20

Sources: Santiago Middle School, California Department of Education; Researched by NICK ANDERSON / Los Angeles Times