A Lesson in the Letter of the Law

At Valley Community Charter School, students follow the principles of philosopher John Dewey, who believed American schools should prepare youths to become active citizens in a democratic society. Children decide how to spend student funds, where to go for field trips, how to solve peer conflicts.

But in a real-world lesson, students and faculty at the 4-year-old North Hills elementary school learned recently they will not have a choice in whether their campus closes this summer.

The Los Angeles Unified School District charter office has denied Valley Community’s charter renewal, citing a new state law that penalizes charter schools that fail to improve test scores.

“Our founding principles are that the people should have a say,” said Scott Miller, co-director of the school, adding, “What we’re being taught is something very different.”

The school’s test scores have dropped for three consecutive years and, on average, are lower than those of similar traditional public schools in the area.

The district grants charters -- publicly funded, independently run campuses free from many state regulations -- in the hope that they will perform as well as or better than regular public schools, said Roberta Benjamin, Los Angeles Unified’s director of charter schools. They are given the opportunity to be more flexible with their curriculum and management, she said, but they also have increased accountability.

“That’s in the law,” Benjamin said. “Unfortunately, right now we are under those guidelines, and those are the criteria. It’s not a human, subjective thing.”

Under the new regulations, which took effect in January, a charter school cannot be renewed if it failed to raise test scores and ranked among the lowest in the state for three years in a row. Charters also must have performed as well as or better than the traditional schools in the district its students otherwise would have attended.

The law was a response to concerns about a lack of oversight at some charter campuses.

It gives charters more flexibility in how they spend their money, but also holds them to higher accountability standards.

“It’s doing what charter schools were intended to do, which is to raise student achievement and to be held accountable for improved student achievement,” said Gary Larson, spokesman for the California Charter Schools Assn. The law shows that charters are “introducing an unprecedented level of accountability into the public school system.”

But other charter leaders say the law discourages the schools from enrolling lower-performing students such as those learning English or with disabilities or behavioral problems.

“Simply setting an arbitrary chalk line is not very thoughtful,” said Eric Premack, co-director of the Sacramento-based Charter Schools Development Center. “We are sensing it gives charter schools a very strong incentive to no longer serve those students for whom the charter option was intended.”

Valley Community, operating in a North Hills church, enrolls about 170 students. Some came from private schools, while others transferred from magnets and traditional public schools in Los Angeles Unified. Nearly half the students are from low-income families; others are still learning English.

Many Valley Community parents said they switched to the charter because they were dissatisfied with the public school system.

Following what is known as a “progressive education” model used at some local private schools, Valley Community immerses students in democratic principles based on social experiences in the community and on campus. Pupils focus on such topics as food, shelter or love. Teachers build a curriculum around those subjects.

In recent years, one class decided to learn about food, so students visited meat markets and met butchers. They went to restaurants and talked to cooks and waiters. They planted a garden. Teachers designed math, science and social studies lessons around those experiences.

On campus, students divide responsibilities. One class runs the lost-and-found center. Another coordinates student activities. A student-elected senate votes on such issues as spending student body funds.

The school does not give suspensions or other punishments. Instead, students themselves settle conflicts.

For example, when a group of girls got angry recently because boys had built sandcastles on a slide, the students sat in a circle and debated the issue. They voted to ban the girls from using the slide.

“As teachers, we held our tongues,” Miller said.

“But they needed to experiment with this.”

Days later, both groups decided it was not a good idea to segregate the play equipment. They voted again, and agreed to share the slide.

Kim Goldstein said her daughter suggested to a teacher that the class visit Chinatown for Chinese New Year. Goldstein said the teacher replied, “Great idea; you guys plan it.”

So her daughter and other students mapped the subway route, found a restaurant for lunch, created permission slips and collected money.

“Learning really comes alive here,” Goldstein said.

But the school’s test scores do not reflect students’ learning, according to parents and school leaders.

After increasing from 650 to 678 on the state Academic Performance Index three years ago, scores have dropped by 45 points.

Of the nine charters up for renewal by the Los Angeles school district this year, Valley Community was the only one that did not meet standards. The district has 68 charter campuses, and 21 others will be up for renewal in the next two years.

Benjamin, of the district’s charter office, said the campus had not aligned its curriculum closely enough to state academic standards, and though its directors are trying to correct the school’s problems, it is too late.

School leaders say they recognize their mistakes.

In their petition to the district, they acknowledged that the school failed to integrate state standards into lessons. Directors said the school also did not focus enough on test-taking skills or preparation, and did not teach students enough vocabulary to help them understand test questions.

The school has implemented a plan to work on all of these goals, said Brenda Buonora, a co-director.

“It would be such a shame to have it shut down after we’ve learned from our” mistakes, she said.