Readers React: Don’t put the freeze on charter schools

To the editor: As the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education takes on the challenge of finding a new superintendent, I hope it solicits input from the wide spectrum of students and families it serves. While I agree with Stanford education historian Diane Ravitch that our next schools’ chief should go to the mat for small class sizes and arts education, a moratorium on new charter schools would be detrimental to learning. (“The survival of public education is at risk. Here’s what LAUSD needs to do,” op-ed, July 23)

The next LAUSD superintendent should embrace multiple learning environments — from charters to magnets to co-located schools — and hold all schools accountable for learning and spending outcomes. No matter where we find innovations that help our neediest students make gains, the new superintendent should focus on scaling those solutions across the system.

More than anything, the next superintendent should view students in all schools authorized by LAUSD as his or her students.

Lida Jennings, Los Angeles

The writer is executive director of Teach for America in Los Angeles.

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