The Future Is Put On Hold

“Future is Now Schools-Los Angeles’ failure to timely comply with the reporting requirements that apply to nonprofit corporations raises concerns that the Petitioner chose not to comply with, or is unfamiliar with, specified legal requirements.”

– LAUSD Charter School Division

The LAUSD School Board held a public hearing for the proposed Future is Now Career Technical Education Preparatory on December 10, 2024. This meant it could have held a vote for this charter school during the January Board meeting. Instead, the Charter School Division held it until February, delaying its consideration until the last day of the timeline set by state law. Any unforeseen delay would have required agreement from the charter school to prevent it from automatically being authorized.

In anticipation of this vote to approve the Charter School Division’s recommendation to deny the petition for this new charter school, I prepared the following public comment:

Last month the Charter School Division recommended that you reject the requested charter renewal for KIPP Sol Academy due to poor performance. Not only were its Math and Language Arts scores classified as “low,” these scores showed a negative trajectory and were worse than neighboring LAUSD schools.

Before you could vote, the supporters of the charter school came before you and implored you to ignore its low performance. While the school was admittedly failing in its mission to improve public education, its supporters said that its closure would be too traumatic for its students. They argued that for this reason, the law governing charter schools required the District to approve the renewal of the charter.

This provides a cautionary tale as to why you should be reluctant to allow any charter school to open unless you are sure that it has the ability to succeed. Steve Barr’s involvement in the Future Is Now should raise red flags that this charter cannot pass this test.

Reviewing Barr’s past performance in education shows that he was responsible for opening six schools for Green Dot that were later forced to close. One stayed open for only two years. State records show that Barr’s last attempt at opening a Future Is Now school resulted in it closing the same day it opened.

Even worse, Barr seems unable to learn from his mistakes. The website for this proposed school states that he was responsible for the successful turnaround at Locke High School. However, the privatization of this former LAUSD school is widely considered to be a failure, a conclusion backed up by the data.

In the interest of not traumatizing students when yet another Steve Barr school is forced to close, this board should uphold the Charter School Division’s recommendation and reject this charter.

These comments were never presented to the Board since Barr announced before the morning’s closed-door session that the school sought a delay in considering its application. Unsurprisingly, he did not mention the recommended denial in his statement. Instead, he attempted to use the Los Angeles firestorm crisis for his benefit.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”

– Rahm Emanuel

The mission for Barr's proposed charter school is based on providing paths out of poverty, specifically by training students to convert “existing school buses to EVs.” According to the proposed school’s website, its focus will be “on pre-apprentice green job [SIC], electrical workers from the neighborhoods most effected [SIC] by pollution.” However, faced with denial, a disheveled Barr asked for an additional month to show how his proposed school could be used to “build an army” to rebuild the businesses and homes destroyed in the Los Angeles firestorms.

The need for action for those who lost their homes and places of businesses in the fires last month is immediate. If approved, Barr’s school would not even open until August, with students not graduating for several years. According to the stated plan, the students will be trained as electrical workers with an emphasis on green energy projects, not home building. What does the consideration of this proposed charter school, located miles away from affected areas, have to do with the tragedy of these fires? This shameless pandering is a new low for the Charter School Industry.

During his comments, Barr also continued to lie about the structure of his proposed school. Parroting words from the proposed school’s website, he referred to this charter as being an “affiliated model,” which means that while it would run semi-independently, its charter would be held by the District. However, the charter application being considered shows that it would be an “independent charter,” with a separate governing board operating completely outside the district’s control.

The Charter School Division pointed out the discrepancy in its denial recommendation, stating “Petitioners submitted a Community Impact Assessment for that of an affiliated charter school even though Petitioners’ new petition seeks to establish an independent charter school.” The Division also noted that “at the December 10, 2024 LAUSD Board of Education meeting, Petitioner presented information at the initial public hearing in support of an affiliated charter school, as opposed to an independent charter school, which Petitioners seek to establish through the Petition.” It was also apparently dishonest with its proposed partner, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), as the union presented a letter of support for an “affiliated charter” not a new startup independent charter school.

With the deadline set by law, both sides had to agree to delay consideration for 30 days. Superintendent Carvalho should have just allowed the vote to go forward but instead agreed to the delay, giving Barr a lifeline. The voters ignored $6.2 million in spending by the Charter School Industry in the November election to elect a pro-public school majority. The Board Members that were elected in November have a mandate to demand a Charter School Division that is not overly accommodating to these publicly funded private schools.

Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who 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.