Charter School Makes The Case Against Its Renewal

“There are several inaccurate legal and factual assertions” in Crete’s letter to LACOE.

– Sarah Ziegenhorn, LAUSD Charter School Division

In today’s political environment, it should not be surprising when a public figure feels comfortable making statements that have no basis in reality. Still, the ease with which Brett Mitchell distorted the facts as he addressed the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) board was remarkable. Even more incredulous was that the actual data was readily accessible, sometimes in the very paperwork he had submitted on behalf of Crete Academy.

As co-founders of the charter school, Mitchell and his wife make a combined $390,982 annual salary running a school that focuses on the needs of homeless and economically disadvantaged students. Seeking to protect this income stream, he stood before the unelected LACOE Board on March 18, 2025, and asked them to reverse the LAUSD’s decision to reject Crete’s application to renew its charter. With the data not on his side, he presented different information.

“As acknowledged in our charter petition, Crete falls into the low-performing category”

– Brett Mitchell, January 10, 2024 [SIC]

“we are not a ‘low quality’ charter school”

– Brett Mitchell, February 13, 2025

One data point Mitchell repeatedly cited was that in previous years, oversight visits by the District’s Charter School Division (CSD) found that his school was “Middle Performing.” This was surprising, especially since the CSD does not include “Middle Performing” in its ratings. With four levels of performance on the scale (Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, and Unsatisfactory), there is not even a middle position.

It is also clear that while trying to persuade the LACOE Board that the concerns of LAUSD regulators were new, Mitchell knew the reports generated after its Annual Performance-Based Visits told a much different story. Just two months earlier he wrote in a letter to the LAUSD Board that stated: “The District also relies on Crete Academy’s Annual Performance-Based Oversight Visit reports for the last seven years, in which the Charter School did not earn a rating higher than 2 (Developing) in Student Achievement and Educational Performance and earned a rating of 1 (Unsatisfactory) in 2023-24.”Crete has been mired in mediocrity for its entire existence.

The LAUSD CSD’s findings are similar to those of the California Department of Education’s Dashboard. Its first entry on the Dashboard in 2019 showed that the school’s students scored 114 points below standard in both English Language Arts and Math:

The State suspended the Dashboard in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic. It resumed publication in 2022 but with a different coding system. In both English Language Arts and Math Crete was deemed to be performing “very low:”

In 2023, the school’s students showed a slight increase in their performance in English Language Arts but fell slightly in Math. This resulted in the lowest possible rating:

In the last report published, Crete lost most of the gains in English Language Arts and even more ground in Math. Not only did it land in the red for both categories, U.S. News ranked it as one of the lowest-performing schools in California. This data directly contradicts the school’s claim that it had above-average growth in 2024:

Mitchell says the LACOE Board should ignore these results because the school is serving a high percentage of unhoused students, but as with his presentation to the LAUSD Board, the exact percentage served by the school is constantly changing. In his letter to the LACOE Board, he claimed that it is 35%, but his presentation stated that it is 30%. The renewal petition claims the number is 15.2%. The SARC report submitted by the school has been updated since the LAUSD hearing but the number of students classified as “Homeless” remained at 21.%.

While the inability to cite an accurate percentage speaks to the poor management of the school, there is no doubt that no matter what number is used, the school serves a large percentage of students who are burdened with homelessness. Since this skews the school’s test results, they can participate in the Dashboard Alternative School Status (DASS) program. However, since they did not apply to be a part of this program, this was not included in the consideration of their charter renewal.

Unbelievably, Mitchell blamed the LAUSD for his failure to participate in DASS. Not understanding that the CSD is a regulator, not a consultant, he stated in his presentation that the District should have told him to apply. He has said that he deserves his $148K salary because he holds two degrees in law. Then why was he unable to understand the regulations that cover the charter school he founded? The school’s law firm, Young, Minney & Corr, LLP, says they “are passionate about the mission of school choice” with many of its clients operating “in low-income areas,” but did not recognize this opportunity? Doesn’t the California Charter School Association (CCSA), the Charter School Industry’s trade group, assist with charter applications?

Public figures like Mitchell lie because it works. The Los Angeles affiliate of NBC covered the hearing but did not bother to question any of the information provided to them by the charter school. They blindly reported the school’s assertion that it has “20 mental health specialists on site every day” without noticing that the renewal paperwork states that the school has no psychologists or social workers on staff. Hopefully, the LACOE Board will do a better job when they consider the renewal on May 13, 2025.

Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, and serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.