I don't trust Grace Mah one bit, never did...pretty sneaky. I don't like sneaky and people who are beholden to out of town specials interests rather than the local community. Enough is enough. Vote her out already. Need some new blood.

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Mah, a Republican, also drew criticism this week after sending out a mailer with a complimentary quote from Ro Khanna, who's endorsed Baten Caswell, both Democrats, and the image of a kicking donkey that looks like the Democratic donkey logo. In a press release, the Santa Clara County Democratic Party blasted Mah for the "misleading" mailer and the contributions she's received from "out-of-town PACs."
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The voice article omits details that matter. The mailer in question had 2 sides. One side had endorsements from 6 local Democrats. That's where there was a donkey of a sort. On the other side was a large appreciative quote for some specific work Grace Mah has done with Ro Khanna. It wasn't a formal endorsement, but it was a positive comment. Some of Melissa's campaign is orchestrated by powerful wealthy Democratic contributors who have a personal issue with the charter school in Los Altos. They portray this as deceptive, but the truth is they are just dismayed that many Democrats recognize positive achievements by Grace Mah.

If you don't know that the Teacher's Unions are dominated by Democrats, maybe you'd be deceived. But the mailer was clear in what it said. It quotes appreciation from Ro Khanna for something specific, while the other side has actual overall endorsements from SIX Democrats, identified as such, and as leaders. One is Sam Liccardo, the Mayor of San Jose. It doesn't say the party endorses Grace, but rather that the 6 named Leaders do, NOT Ro Khanna.

[Post removed due to being off-topic]

We are witnessing a massive power play by the anti-charter Establishment. The dollars and political levers in play are astronomical for what has until now been a smallish local race.

Why would the Establishment do this? Why spend all this money and mobilize a political army and attack with a smear and disinformation campaign unless it's worth it to them? What would they get out of this?

Sadly that's how important killing charters is to the education Establishment. This is a perversion of progressivism, using the power of The Man to protect what is now the Establishment.

Did anyone notice that the article is filled with quotes from anti-charter people without any fact checking? Steve Brown - a fierce charter opponent - claims BCS is "not serving" disadvantaged communities despite the fact that BCS admission is determined by lottery and is open to everyone. Shouldn't that statement have been checked? And they also quote Sangeeth Peruri's claim that Melissa has "no intention of shutting down BCS" when he and most of her supporters have spent years trying to shut down BCS. Why not investigate that statement?
The author also uses misleading statements that favor Melissa (i.e. teacher's unions are "perceived" as being anti-charter, when they have spent tens of millions of dollars electing anti-charter politicians, and Grace's flyer was "misleading" without explaining the facts). The choice in this election couldn't be any clearer: the interests of our kids vs. the interests of the education establishment.

Grace Mah received:
79% ($242,000) from Out-of-County PACs, mostly for pro-charter groups.

LET THAT SINK IN PEOPLE - 79%!!

Only 14% from locals.

That is all you need to know.

At the end of the day, who do YOU think Mah will be beholden to? Take a wild guess.

We don't want Bullis taking over the whole county. They can stay in Los Altos. The parents fought back Bullis and Mah's their power grab in Mountain View, but they will be back, they said. MV parents, beware!! They have Mah's complete backing. Vote Mah and her charter PAC money out while you have the chance!

Lots of boogie man comments about the “Establishment.” What’s that? Do you mean teachers and students with parents who care about their children’s schools? Nothing scary about that.
What everyone should be frightened about is losing local control of schools as charter corporations come in with their private boards to replace locally elected school boards. Would you like to take your children’s education away from control by the local community and put it in the hands of the charter industry: wealthy individuals like Bill Gates or the Walton family, who don’t have children in public schools; Betsy DeVos, whose home state charter school advocacy has ruined Detroit with low-quality charter schools; greedy FOR PROFIT charter management organizations that run “nonprofit” charter schools; any random person the charter school says should be on its school board. Do you honestly believe that the charter industry and charter school corporations are on a MISSION to save under-privileged, struggling students? While the Waltons treat their own employees like dirt, can you possibly think they are going to have deep concern for some far away child who is not doing anything for them?

This is a county wide office, so out of town means nothing. Charters are not out of the county. There are thousands and thousands of students in charter schools in the county. There are over 1000 in Los Altos alone but most are in San Jose. San Jose's mayor endorses Grace Mah. PAUSD is indeed selfish in that it may be a good school district and serve around 10,500 students, but even more depend on charter schools for their education. They need to have their schools make the most of the lmited state funding. Charter schools get $10,000 or $11,000 per student whereas PAUSD has funda of $25K per student.

So Charter interests are representing the needs of our county residents. Melissa Baten Caswell doesn't understand the education system in the county, and neither do her 5 figure donors from Los Altos, even if they do live in the county. San Jose is a world away from these elite residents.

The CTA seeks to SHUT DOWN educational opportunities for the less fortunate residents of our county. They are the true party with the ulterior motives.

Talking about OUTSIDE MONEY, how about today's latest mailer from the Mountain View Firefighters Union Political Action Committee once again pushing its 3 city council candidates? The money appears to come from out-of-town MV firefighters paid by the city. Public employee unions often offer political support for financial support. In fact, this mailer says: "YOUR NEIGHBORS SUPPORT THESE CANDIDATES BECAUSE THEY SUPPORT MEASURE C AND FULL FUNDING FOR PUBLIC SAFETY." So now the firefighters' union is also campaigning for Measure C? And still no FPPC disclaimers.

@LongResident, do you mean that Grace is running to represent the interests of charter students in San Jose? If so, this raises a number of issues, including most obviously that perhaps Grace should move to a San Jose trustee area and run for SCCBOE from there. Also, to evaluate the worth of Grace's service for San Jose charter schools, we would need to dig into how charter schools are working (or not) for San Jose students. You are right that folks in this area don't know much about that because it's not our trustee area and, again, maybe Grace should re-locate. Grace has claimed great performance for under-privileged students at San Jose charters, but many San Jose district teachers and administrators who receive rejected charter school students claim that the charters are just retaining high-performing students, discouraging students with greater educational needs (and costs) from applying and encouraging / leveraging students to leave if admitted, crushing the students' self-esteem in the process.

The San Jose Mercury Newspaper interviewed the candidates and reviewed all these issues including the funding and decided that “Mah is the better choice” and endorse Grace Mah on Oct. 20. At this point, both the Los Altos Town Crier and the San Jose Mercury News have endorsed Trustee Grace Mah. In their words, Trustee Mah was endorsed because of her diligent work on the board, being fair minded, and being focused on improving education outcomes for ALL students.

Melissa Caswell has received most of her contributions from wealthy Los Altos anti-charter people with deep pockets and the teachers’ unions well before even announcing her candidacy three months ago. This month, the San Jose teachers’ unions made large donations to Melissa as well as other candidates in SCC districts and this money was from the California Teachers’ Union. Most charter schools are NON UNION, which is why the teacher's UNIONS are opposing them despite the fact that charters are a minor part of what the Santa Clara County Board of Education does. It is clear that Melissa is in the pocket of the anti-charter people and the teachers’ unions and cannot be trusted to be independent.

Meanwhile Grace Mah has received donations from well over 200 people in Santa Clara County who do not have deep pockets. Trustee Mah’s donations came later to defend her against the Teachers’ Unions and wealthy anti-charter Los Altos Hills residents. In the words of the San Jose Mercury Newspaper, “Mah is the better choice, given her proven track record of evaluating charters on the strength of their applications." While charter schools are a small part of the responsibilities of the county board of education, it is an important one, particularly for low income families in traditional unionized public schools.

Both the San Jose Mercury News and the Los Altos Town Crier have well-known pro-charter biases, so it’s no surprise that they backed Mah and are promoted by all the pro-charter posters here. In their endorsements of Melissa Baten Caswell, the Palo Alto Weekly and Mountain View Voice presented far more information about the candidates and their sources of funds, and drew the more reasonable conclusion that Grace Mah will have a very difficult time ignoring $200K in charter contributions. In fact, Mah is receiving $200K from the charters BECAUSE she has served charter interests for her entire long tenure on the SCCBOE and they know she will be a solid vote for charter schools, no matter what they do to public schools or students. Mah is a Republican and dislikes teachers’ unions (even though they’re just a group of teachers who have organized to get fair treatment in the workplace). As a Republican, Mah doesn’t believe we need public institutions like neighborhood public schools, run by our local communities. Mah thinks it’s just fine to have a bunch of corporations running our schools. Would you like Jeff Bezos or Donald Trump in charge of your kid’s school?

Deja Vu all over again?

Seems likes every time there is a viable contender, the out of town Charter School lobby opens its deep pocketbook.

See Mercury News article from Halloween 2012

"PAC money floods local school board races"

Web Link

I am a parent and I'm advocating for students, teachers, schools (especially the public variety), education and community.

The education Establishment claims to _be_ those things, and therefore anything outside the Establishment's control doesn't count, and must be cast out.

I'm 100% in favor of labor organizations advocating for workers against abuse of power (sadly common). My uncle's teachers union was exactly that.

I am 100% against the behavior of any powerful organization abusing its own power toward its own self-interest. Labor organizations are not magically exempt from this when they engage in abusive behavior. Nor are charter schools magically exempt.

Abuse of power is exclusionary politics (try running for school board without the blessing of the local Establishment). Abuse of power includes negative campaigns of disinformation and misrepresentation. Abuse of power includes incentivizing administrative bodies (e.g. school districts or county offices of education) to thwart perceived rivals.

Those who abuse their political power have earned their place in the Establishment.

All you need to know: 27 out of 30 school board members in our trustee area endorse Melissa Baten Caswell for SCCBOE. They are the best-positioned to know what kind of help they need and they choose Melissa Baten Caswell, while rejecting Grace Mah, whom they know well from her 13-year record.

Grace Mah has now taken $300K of out-of-county charter PAC money. She will continue to serve the charter industry above all others, including local voters, families, and students.

Vote Melissa Baten Caswell for SCCBOE! Help our school districts and give local school board members the SCCBOE representative they want. Help them deliver the best education possible to our children.

Having the school boards support one of their own fellow school board members is not that surprising considering that charter schools are competition to the school boards. Competition helps improve schools and Bullis Charter (BCS) is a good example of this. An examination of the student performance from the California Dept. of Education shows that the students from BCS show that BCS outperforms both LASD and PAUSD by statistically significant percentages in most categories and most subgroups. The four year trend (2015~2019) showed that on average, 13% more combined 3rd-8th grade BCS students exceeded the CA state standards as compared to the Los Altos School District (LASD) over the last 4 years. In addition, a full 18 to 21% more BCS 8th graders exceeded the CA state standards as compared to the LASD over the last 4 years. This shows that when a student graduates from 8th grade at BCS, they will have completed an excellent education program. Grace Mah supports successful schools of all kinds, but she will hold failed school accountable. Her opponent has never stated this, but rather wants to rein in the competition for the school district and the teachers’ unions.

All alternative “choice” and “magnet” programs disaggregate a district’s student performance data. Once you introduce a selection bias, you can’t compare student performance metrics and conclude anything about the value add of the pedagogy. This is really basic stuff, but charter apologists stand behind their cooked numbers without fail. It’s a separatist crusade, not educational innovation

I just got done watching the documentary called "The Great Hack".

And after my experience with the MV Voice there are a couple of things I need to plead to this Newspaper and website.

I admit I for years posted under the name The Business Man, BUT I never withheld who I was. And I was VERY transparent about it.

I have come to an understanding now that any use of an anonymous identity regarding the discussion of any news article should be prohibited.

As an IT Security Expert, I find the lack of accountability to be the biggest reason.

The idea that people can write what is in effect press releases under the guise of an anonymous fictional person, especially where they have a financial conflict of interest, just cannot be allowed anymore.

The idea that people use a platform to attack people personally, use insults, and make false claims about them requires that anonymity cannot be allowed. The language can inspire real life consequences, like inspire possible criminal acts by others.

If you have a valid argument with solid unbiased evidence to support it, WHY not own your argument?

The idea that someone can use multiple identities on this service is abused.

There should be a means where to register and post one has to provide proof of identity, like having a credit card validated, so that if any issues arise, like cyberstalking is investigated, a proper trail can exist to identify the offender.

Does Bullis Charter School really have some kind of magically good educational program, as they claim? Of course not. They are just selecting out the easiest and cheapest to educate kids from LASD. LASD letter to SCCBOE describing segregation by BCS, which resulted in SCCBOE requiring BCS to delete its Los Altos Hills lottery preference: Web Link

Thoughtful opinion piece by a prominent California historian regarding how charter schools harm California public schools:
Web Link

I really do not understand why you claim that BCS "selects" their students? BCS holds a RANDOM lottery for their students and cannot select them. This needs to be flagged as misinformation. There was a historical LAH preference at one time because of the closure of the elementary school at LAH, but that preference was phased out and eliminated.

As for the performance of students at BCS, I did the calculations myself using the California Dept. of Education website because I wanted to ensure that BCS was the right choice for my child. It was not cooked numbers from BCS as you suggested.

All this money spent on the county race, if only it actually meant a real chance to debate the role of charter schools in Santa Clara County.

Both candidates contributed negatively in how they've campaigned. Caswell's focus on her endorsements and Mah's Republican affiliation gloss over just four years ago, Caswell's own campaign manager, Sangeeth Peruri along with Barry Groves and Fiona Walters, and Democrats: State Superintendent Jack O’Connell, Joe Simitian, and Rich Gordon all endorsed Mah.
Web Link Nor did Mah help raise the caliber of discussion with her multiple misleading ads. Though worse is what surrogates of these campaigns are saying online.

By and large, most county education services happen regardless of any one board member, but charter approval, that is accurately a county school board member's greatest influence, all the more so after Gov. Newsom sign into law the ability for school boards to take financial impact into consideration in approving charters.

Whether charter schools help or hurt a system deserve real discussion, and this isn't about Bullis, the charter issue is far bigger than that. This is really about San Jose, and charters there like Rocketship and ACE that serve 100% at-risk students, and whether their mere existence, undermine nearby schools, despite the wonders they do for the students, enrolled in those charters, or if their existence spur innovation over time in local schools. If you've visited these urban charter schools, you'll know these groups aren't throwing money into this race because they want to profit, but because they fear their existence is at risk. Equally important, if you visit local schools nearby these charters, you see the real negative impact they have on families that did not enroll in those schools. Resouce hoarding is a true problem, as is true, that many local charters are truly innovative.

Both candidates care about children, they wouldn't have served this long on their respective boards if they didn't. A shame $400,000 didn't buy us a real policy debate on charters with experts on both sides making their case to the voters. Since that's what this is really about.

It takes 2 candidates to make a comparison and an endorsement. Four years ago, Mah may have been the superior candidate. This year her challenger is overwhelmingly preferred by the people in her service area. She had a good run, but now she obviously relies on her warbucks charter industry sponsors to be competitive

@Christopher Chiang: As an award-winning educator, your uncritical repetition of charter industry marketing is surprising. Charter schools aren’t innovating; they’re >selecting.< The mere existence of all of the registration forms, and in many cases some lottery process (triggered by applications of families living far away, with no preference to have any chance at all of gaining admission), discourages many families (exactly the less English able families and less organized families that the charters don’t want) from applying, which introduces a non random selection bias. Then, the charters offer the lowest level, bare bones special education program possible, to discourage special education families from applying: another selection bias. Then, if some “undesirables” slip in, there’s always subjective disciplinary procedures to move those students out: more selection bias. Charters aren’t working miracles with children, they are managing their student populations. You can’t even see what effect the charter’s educational program has on students because the children who begin at the school are not the ones who finish at the school.

I urge you to dig into the Rocketship story because that particular corporate charter chain has a very bad reputation in San Jose for sending back badly educated children to public districts (naturally, only after it has gotten the annual funding for those students). You should consider how Rocketship damages the self-esteem of the students it ejects to public district schools, along with the learning gap left to those students to make up. If your idea is that we need Grace Mah so she can approve more of these charters, that’s just plain nuts.

In our area, if Bullis Charter School had some super special program and were so willing to serve as beacons of innovation and guides for the rest of us, don’t you think they would have been clamoring to share their wisdom with LASD and LASD would have been eager to get the lowdown on their educational wizardry? Newsflash: BCS hasn’t got anything that an excellent district like LASD needs. LASD is doing a fantastic job and serves all students, not just the easiest to educate kids.

New CA law permitting authorizing bodies to take into account the financial damage to districts in approving new charters is an acknowledgment that charter schools financially harm public districts, but won’t have much practical effect beyond the larger urban districts that have already been devastated by greedy charters. That the law is anything else is just more charter PR — don’t fall for it and don’t promote it. These laws only apply when districts are basically on the brink of financial insolvency.

It’s interesting and sad that you set your post up to equate the “bad campaigning” of both candidates. You used the deceptive ads of Grace Mah on the one hand (which actually really is bad campaigning) and then you attempted to smear Melissa Baten Caswell’s promotion of her endorsement by 27 out of 30 local school board members. Baten Caswell’s overwhelming endorsement by local school board members who are the key stakeholders and customers of the SCCBOE is entirely relevant and also has the benefit, in this comparison to Mah, of being true and appropriate. MBC’s statement is just called “campaigning”, whereas Mah’s use of deceptive ads is called “cheating.”

Your decrying the huge sums of $ spent on this race seem like crocodile tears when you fail to note that the overwhelming majority of it is out-of-county charter industry pac money coming in to support Grace Mah. It is very hard to defend against the charter industry that can spend millions on statewide races and will always spend big to defend a solid charter vote on SCCBOE like Grace Mah. I hope you will re-consider your support and advocacy for charter schools, charter marketing, and charter candidates like Grace Mah.

The last guy with the campaign slogan as a user name is wedged in more than one way. Chris Chiang was neutral and accurate in his comments. He did not take one side or the other. Anyone reading the comments can see that. That's sort of an easy thing to identify.

But then he claims BCS hasn't shared its methods with LASD schools. They have absolutely been copied by LASD's own programs. BCS tried them out and LASD got to put them into their own program after they had been tested. It's not ALL such methods that have been copied, but quite a few. #1 Each School in LASD now has a science teacher doing a STEM program across all grades. This is EXACTLY what BCS did from early days, only of course, they do need more than one such STEM teacher. BCS augmented their STEM program to become STEAM (look it up as a term), and has operated this way for several years. No doubt LASD will copy this too but admittedly that is one thing not yet copied. #2 BCS used project based learning in a way to tailor the program to the specific interests of each student, including providing both remedial-like and enrichment oriented tuning per student. Here again, LASD has absolutely attempted to duplicate similar. LASD did this because they watch why students switch to BCS. LASD learns from this. #3 LASD has attempted to offer an optional after school Mandarin language class in response to BCS's successful long time approach of offering each student a choice of Spanish or Mandarin as a 2nd language class in grades K-6, not just 7 and 8, but of course
that too. I could go on, but it's interesting that the slogan guy got this so very wrong.

Slogan guy is wrong about another thing. AB1505 doesn't mean that by appealing a denial of a charter on financial impact grounds, a charter program can bypass that consideration. This would just mean a review of that contention by the local school board doing the denial. If a local district truly has a case for this type of denial, it should stand up on appeal as well.

What's interesting as well as some of what this means. California's school funding is increased for disadvantaged kids. A Charter school serving 100% disadvantaged kids will get more for a class of kids than the local school district ONLY if the kids in the traditional schools are not disadvantaged under the local control funding formula. What does this mean? It seems to me that it means the case for a district needed the extra funding to serve the non-disadvantaged goes against the entire point of LCFF funding increments for disadvantaged students. Locally we have seen this in MVWSD where the district hasn't reserved such extra funding for the disadvantaged students.

Take the case of LASD. Both it and BCS have a good fraction of disadvantaged kids under the LCFF rules. What this means is that BCS gets a bit more than the minimum funding per student. Of course MVWSD on average gets a lot more such extra funding, by way of comparison.

But even with this being true, the fact is that for LASD, the district provides to BCS about 15% of the total available public funding and BCS then educates 25% of the total students in grades K-5/K-6. In other words, the existence of BCS frees up 10% of the available public funding for LASD to use as it chooses. They'd have a very tough time proving any sort of financial hurt from BCS. It's the opposite!

To It takes 2. I'd beg to differ from your assessment of the likely vote for Grace Mah vs Melissa BC. It seems to me to be a CLOSE race, or why do you think anyone would dump money on the problem? Money is not going to spruce up a far lagging candidate.

Consider the Melissa Baten Caswell has been in PAUSD during times which have been a scandal for the district. She barely won reelection 4 years ago facing strong competition. She is not regarded all with love by PAUSD residents. In Los Altos there is a strong element of racism in the criticisms of BCS by some donors to the Melissa campaign. It's not just an anti-BCS sentiment, but sad to say, there's a bit of prejudice against some racial characteristics allegedly found different between the charter and some of the other schools. There are those who find this offensive and support Grace Mah as a result. Also the irrationally anti-BCS song sung by some of the supporters is well perceived by many in the district as not ringing true. They would prefer that LASD turn its attention to business at hand and excellence in education, rather than fixating on BCS....

Not all school districts are the same. LASD has an incredibly high average family income, even compared to PAUSD. The idea that LAH is where it's all it is just plain wrong. First of all, only about 1/7 of the district is from Los Altos Hills. From Los Altos there are certain areas which have just as high of an income average as is found anywhere in LAH.

BCS is not drawing its students from the HIGHEST income levels in LASD. It's a broad cross section. What's true is the EVERY LASD area is well off. The 7 elementary schools will raise as much as $300K per year just for the school-specific PTA programs. Beyond that the district wide Foundation raises over $3M per year. In non-Covid times, parents fund and pay for a wide array of expensive after school activities that rotate for a few weeks at a time through the year. LASD's kids have a lot spent on their education. The kids are also big customers of private tutoring programs like Kumon Learning, Mathnasium, Fusion Learning, etc. Most people see BCS as just another form of the same type of program enjoyed by all the LASD students, but better for some kids.

I would say that a lot depends on the vote in Sunnyvale. In Sunnyvale there are actual charter schools operating to serve low income kids. Like in Los Altos, the funding per kid in those charters, coming from the Sunnyvale Elementary School District, is noticeably lower than what the district itself spends. The charters are not the same type of program as BCS, but hopefully they are perceived as suiting the needs of the kids choosing the charter.

Oh look, this week another 46 thousand dollars from charter PACs for Grace Mah. Good thing she isn’t rabidly pro-charter or this would look pretty base

Interesting observation. I have not seen more ads from Grace Mah recently. I'll bet they are concentrating ads on Sunnyvale where there are real operating charter schools attempting to address the massive achievement gap in the Sunnyvale Elementary School District. It's a big area, this Trustee Area I.

Note that Mountain View illegally constrained a valid charter proposal seeking to do the same type of remediation for low income students in MVWSD.

All this emphasis on BCS locally is misplaced. BCS is a wonderful school and it helps increase funding for the LASD schools. That's an unusual situation because LASD schools operate with so many extras that their programs resemble what happens at the private schools in the area. BCS has every right to develop its charter program which is helping LASD schools improve as well. But the terrible fact is that the wealthy elite campaigning for Melissa Baten Caswell are oblivious to the good done by charter schools, including right over in Sunnyvale, population 155,000 about double the population of Mountain View. Those voters have real world experience to use in making their decision. I say good for the charter school supporters donating to highlight the good done by charter schools. It would be a shame if the messaging from Melissa undermined the charter schools in Sunnyvale.

Wow! $46k more in outside charter PAC money for Grace? Is she up to $400k in charter PAC money now? The charter industry has really revved up the $, along with the PR you hear in these posts.

Do you think the charter industry is being almost sacrificially charitable to deliver this kind of political money to save the poor kids in Sunnyvale and San Jose? You’re right: they’re not. The charter industry is about grabbing control and education funding. The charter industry’s political contributions are just an investment to get even more money in per student funding, the best kind that renews every year, no matter what you do, with little oversight, no obligation to serve all kids, and no public accountability (charter schools have private school boards with unelected members). Don’t let them take control of our district or county school boards or our schools. Follow the money, know your candidates, and vote accordingly.

It is scarey.

When "Charter" school operate with their own rules and are not bound by public laws and regulations.

I would only feel better if the transparency was the same as a "public" school. They had to take in the same types of students that they are located in. And participated in any desegregating programs.

This "industry" seems to be able to collect from public money without the same public responsibility. That is my major problem regarding "Charter" schools.

I went to a small town school growing up, I have really ugly emotional problems myself. But the school did manage to "mainstream" me before graduating high school.

And even though I was not a good student compared to my peers, I think I was in good shape. I just need more maturing because of my problems.

I can almost guaranty that no "Charter" school would have done what that town did. The school system was resistant at first, and I had some issues with some group participation.

I was part of a traveling performance for Circus World, Sea World, and Walt Disney World my senior year. The Administration wanted to block me from going, they were right to be concerned. But my teachers said NO WAY I was GOING to go.

I did have an emotional crisis, but I never did anything stupid. In fact I think the way I was given so much understanding I was able to collect myself and nothing went wrong at all. I eventually didn't realize that I was doing so much good stuff at school, I got an multiple award for excellence in the Dramatic Arts. I was so scared I was making too many mistakes.

So you now know why I am scared of "Charter" schools.

Unlike how they skim students from LASD, Bullis told MV they wanted to educate typical students, with a bias toward underserved students, but when MV asked them to put that commitment in writing, Bullis cried foul. Always the victim, pobrecito Bullis

We'll never know what would have happened with that Bullis Mountain View program, but what we do know is that MVWSD is not making any progress at all in addressing the achievement gap between the haves and the have nots. Charging that the BMV recruitment would have not drawn in the right number of low income kids are ridiculous given that the trustees there were too scared to let them try. It was only a 2 year approval and I think they would likely have gotten close to an accurate representation of the district demographics. The results from the school would only be meaningful in that case, and MVWSD knew that. They were scared that the program WOULD work.

What is CLEARLY illegal under state law is any sort of quota system shaping admissions.

Don’t be ridiculous, @LongResident. BMV folded its tent and walked away, angry and sputtering because MVWSD had the audacity to hold them to their marketing.

Web Link

Sadly, all of this nonsense cost MVWSD a lot of money and administration time dealing with them, and boogered up the facilities planning for the next academic year.

BMV didn’t apologize for the public resources they wasted — a metaphor for the entire charter industry’s disregard for its negative impacts on district public schools.

The quote in the article has Supt Rudolph flat out admitting that the so called approval process was a sham. He said they had to go ahead on opening even though it was a sham. But, apparently, like about so many other things, he was WRONG!