A former Los Angeles charter school teacher said in an interview that aired Thursday on “Rising” that accountability in the system is lacking.
“In that charter school system, there was a little bit more resources and support in some ways in terms of what our students were able to get,” Judy Arteaga, who currently teaches at a public school in Los Angeles, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball on Wednesday.
“In terms of our class size, it was smaller, but we had no resources. We didn’t have a nurse at all. We didn’t have a librarian at all because we didn’t even have a library on our school,” she continued.
“So you see kind of a dichotomy there in terms of the haves and the have nots in charter schools and that kind of leads into the issue that there’s really good charter schools and there’s not-good charter schools,” she said.
“The accountability and the oversight that’s in place for charter schools is really lacking. They’re not accountable to the school board in the same way that a public school is, and so it creates some issues when there is an issue at one of these charter schools [of] who do you go to? Who do you tell that there’s a problem and how do you get that remedied to have that educational experience that you want for your student?”
Arteaga’s comments come as the Los Angeles charter school network, Accelerated Charter Schools, stands in solidarity with striking public school teachers in the city who are demanding higher pay for themselves and better learning conditions for students.
The move is unprecedented because most charter schools, with the exception of those in Los Angeles, are not unionized.
— Julia Manchester
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