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  • Buffeted by change, California charter schools continue to grow amid scrutiny

    Buffeted by change, California charter schools continue to grow amid scrutiny


    A student at Rocketship Public Schools in San Jose works on a math problem.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    Top Takeaways
    • Charter schools’ enrollment has grown slowly since the pandemic; they now serve one out of eight TK-12 children in California.
    • Most charter schools will seek renewal within the next three years under new rules.
    • High-profile cases of fraud have led to calls for tighter controls, with bills now before the Legislature.

    California charter schools are having a strong year — at least by one metric: enrollment. As the state’s traditional public school population continues to decline, charter school enrollment has risen to nearly 728,000 students, accounting for 12.5% of all public school students across 1,280 campuses and independent study programs.

    Most charter schools are also performing well academically. In the 2023-24 California School Dashboard, 16.5% of charter schools earned the highest performance rating, qualifying them for renewals of five to seven years. An additional 76.8% are eligible for five-year renewals, while just 6.7% face closure.

    However, this growth comes amid increasing scrutiny. State lawmakers are pushing for stricter financial oversight following high-profile fraud cases, while local districts now have more authority to reject charter petitions. Teachers unions are gaining influence within charter schools.

    Looming is the potential for another religious charter school case making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, adding more complexity to the already politically charged environment. If the court rules in favor of taxpayer funding of religious charter schools, it could have significant implications for public education funding and policy at the state level. Combined with the uncertainty over the future of the U.S. Department of Education and the Trump administration’s support for private school vouchers, the charter school sector faces political challenges not unlike those of 1992, when California enacted its charter school legislation.

    The tension is annoyingly familiar to Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). Despite charter schools’ successes in academic achievement, dual high school and community college enrollment, and competitive admission rates to the University of California and California State University for Black, Latino, and low-income students, Castrejón described the current political climate as a “bare-knuckle” fight.

    “Every year we have to rally our troops and tell our stories and speak to legislators about who we are and who we serve and why our mission is so important,” said Castrejón. “I can’t sit here and say charter schools are doing great and the politics are better — they are not. Make no mistake, we still have opponents who are not going to stop until they strip out our autonomy entirely and/or cripple us.”

    Fraud and oversight

    A key focus of that anger is Assembly Bill 84, introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee. The bill aims to enact sweeping anti-fraud reforms proposed in a trio of reports released last year, following the largest charter school fraud in California history.  

    Muratsuchi, who is running for state superintendent of public instruction in 2026, told EdSource that he has no intention of “going after the charter schools that are acting responsibly and providing good educational services for their kids.” AB 84, he added, “is about going after the bad actors that are committing fraud and engaging in corruption through the current lack of transparency and accountability that we have with our statewide charter oversight system.”

    The most notorious case involved A3 Education, a network of 19 virtual schools whose operators stole over $400 million in public school money by falsifying student enrollments. A3 exploited “a completely failed system not designed and operated to protect itself from theft,” said Kevin Fannan, a former San Diego County deputy district attorney who worked on the case. While this was an extreme case, charter advocates acknowledge the sector’s vulnerabilities and are among those calling for stronger safeguards.

    “We are not in denial that we have a problem,” said Eric Premack, founder of the Charter Schools Development Center (CSDC). “It’s extraordinarily painful for us to have even a slow drip of these.” But Premack, Castrejón and other charter advocates believe that Senate Bill 414, which they sponsored, offers a more targeted solution than AB 84, which they view as imposing onerous administrative provisions that have nothing to do with fraud. Both bills have passed their respective houses and will ultimately be amended before a final version is approved and sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    Nonclassroom-based schools’ rapid growth

    The rapid expansion of “nonclassroom-based” charter schools presents challenges in regulation, but the term itself is a “misnomer,” according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) and the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) in their anti-fraud report commissioned by the state Legislature. Under state law, a charter school is classified as nonclassroom-based if less than 80% of instruction occurs in a traditional classroom. As a result, hybrid programs, like those that require students to attend classes three days a week, fall into the same category as entirely virtual schools.

    For example, Northern Summit Academy (NSA) in rural Shasta County converted a former grocery store in Anderson into a dynamic learning hub for its 200 independent study students in transitional kindergarten through high school. The school offers optional in-person instruction in core subjects like math, social studies and science, as well as an enviable maker space with career technical education in fields such as digital embroidery, video production and robotics.

    The academy also provides career pathways in nursing, cosmetology, energy and power, and has a veterinary assistant program with state-of-the-art equipment that has a 100% employment rate for graduates. Students meet weekly, in person or online, with their teacher of record. Despite this hands-on learning, NSA is classified as nonclassroom-based. The LAO-FCMAT report found that nearly two-thirds of nonclassroom-based schools in 2023-24 used hybrid models where much of the instruction was in person.

    That still leaves more than 100,000 students in schools that are mainly virtual, and more are expected to seek authorization when a legislative moratorium on new nonclassroom-based charters ends on Jan. 1, 2026. These schools have attracted the most scrutiny due to their disproportionate problems with oversight, especially when authorized by small districts that stand to receive substantial income in oversight fees, which “raised some red flags for us about whether we can have quality authorizing in that situation,” explained Edgar Cabral, the LAO’s deputy legislative analyst for K–12 education. The LAO-FCMAT report identified 14 small districts in 2022-23 that authorized virtual charters whose enrollment far exceeded their district’s own, including most of the six districts conned by the founders of A3 schools.

    AB 84 seeks to limit enrollment in nonclassroom-based schools authorized by small districts, but critics argue this could undermine well-run programs and stifle the innovation that is a hallmark of the charter school movement.

    Kevin Humphrey, superintendent of Guajome Park Academy, based in Vista in Central California, notes that hybrid programs are essential for students who cannot thrive in traditional settings, offering flexibility for those facing anxiety, health issues or bullying. “These programs don’t just protect our students — they give them a future,” Humphrey said.

    Local vs. county

    About 84% of charter schools are authorized by local school boards. Nearly all the rest are under county offices of education. A few dozen that are authorized by the State Board of Education have until 2028 to find new authorizers under Assembly Bill 1505. Approved in 2019, AB 1505 was a sweeping charter reform aimed at giving local districts more control over charter authorizations. But there is growing concern among charter critics that more petitioners will bypass local school boards and turn to county offices, which are seen as more charter-friendly.

    Adam Weinberger, president of the California School Employees Association, the union representing school staff, decried it as a “blatant end run around local school boards,” undermining the intent of AB 1505.

    Adding to the pressure, more than 1,000 charter schools are due for renewal over the next three years due to a pandemic-era pause. This renewal process is a highly detailed and time-consuming task that will strain both local school districts and county offices of education. The rigorous evaluations required for renewals will assess each school’s academic performance, financial stability and legal compliance.

    Shrinking enrollment, increasing competition

    Ten to 15 years ago, large urban districts saw charter schools as a solution to overcrowded classrooms and split sessions. Now, with statewide enrollment at 5.8 million and declining, districts are competing with charters for a shrinking pool of students. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which once enrolled nearly 672,000 students, now serves fewer than 517,000, with charter students making up a record 28% of that total, costing the district about $2.8 billion in state funding. In recent years, the LAUSD board has become more wary of charters and is currently in a legal battle over its efforts to restrict charter schools from sharing campus space with district schools.

    Assemblymember Muratsuchi recognized that some districts with declining enrollments have “significant consternation with local charter schools taking away enrollment and enrollment-based funding.” But he also acknowledged that many families choose charter schools and “that is a reality that school districts need to deal with.”

    To win back and hold onto students, some districts are expanding choice programs, such as magnet schools and independent study programs. During the 2023-24 school year, more than 277,000 students in transitional kindergarten through 12th grade were receiving at least half their instruction through independent programs run by districts and county offices of education, according to the California Department of Education.

    While charter enrollment is still rising, the pace has slowed, as has the number of new schools; only 12 opened in 2023 compared to 53 in 2019. Some long-running charters are closing due to enrollment declines. Downtown College Prep, which opened its first charter high school in San Jose in 2001, shut that campus and its two middle schools last month, citing a $4.5 million budget shortfall and a 35% drop in enrollment in six years.

    Pondering this trend, Tom Hutton, executive director of the California Charter Authorizing Professionals, wonders if there will come a point in declining enrollment environments “where, even though choice is impactful, there just are too many schools — both district and charter — creating more risks of making all of them weaker instead of strengthening public education overall.”

    At this time, the organization’s most pressing concern is helping authorizers as they face political and public pressure to improve authorizing practices. Its mission is ensuring that charter students receive a high-quality education.

    “Charter schools were introduced to inject some new energy into addressing persistent challenges in California’s education system, especially for students with unique needs and those in underserved communities, and in many ways they have succeeded,” Hutton said.

    But, as the nation’s largest and second-oldest charter system, he added, “We’re experiencing growing pains and challenges in finding the right balance between continuing to innovate and committing to greater accountability. We see that as an opportunity to strengthen the system.” 

    Kathryn Baron is an education reporter based in California.





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  • Future farmers grow real-world skills at Cal State’s working farms

    Future farmers grow real-world skills at Cal State’s working farms


    Fresno State animal science major Toi Johnson givies a bull an oral dewormer on Feb. 20, 2025, to help prevent fungal infections like ringworm from infecting and spreading to the rest of the herd. Adjunct faculty Ryan Person oversees her while other students practice giving shots to the animal.

    Credit: Jesus Herrera/EdSource

    In the heart of California’s bountiful Sacramento Valley lies Yuba City, a small town of about 68,000 people that is rich in agriculture and community.  

    This is where Taryn Chima, a fourth-year animal science major at California State University, Chico, grew up.  

    Growing alongside her were orchards of peaches, walnuts and almonds. Born into a third-generation farm family, Chima knew she wanted to pursue a career in agriculture from a young age. In 2021, Chima began her animal science education at Chico State. 

    Of the 23 campuses of California State University, just four have a college of agriculture: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Chico State, Fresno State and Cal Poly Pomona. This also means they have working farms that provide food for their campuses and research opportunities for ranchers and farmers in areas like regenerative agriculture, which aims to keep growing systems healthy and effective.

    Students working the land

    Most importantly for the students attending these schools, working on their campus farms enriches their classroom learning with hands-on experience.

    Max Eatchel, a senior majoring in plant sciences at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, had few familial ties to farming, and instead found his passion for gardening while looking for a new hobby during the Covid-19 lockdown. 

    “I got super into all this regenerative agriculture, sustainable agriculture, permaculture stuff, and I just went deep down that rabbit hole,” said Eatchel, who has worked on the school’s organic farm for over a year. “When it came time to apply to college, I thought, ‘Why not try plant science?’”

    Until he worked on the farm, Eatchel didn’t realize how much he still had to learn in the practical application of his education. But with his graduation in June, he now feels “super prepared” for the professional world because of his hands-on experience.

    “I’ve been talking to this orchard back in Utah, and they were looking for someone who could repair tractors. I really hadn’t had any experience with that,” Etchel said. “So I just asked my boss, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, we’ll get you a shift right now.’ So it’s very fluid, and it helps you build the skills you want to build.” 

    Similarly to Eatchel, an agricultural education wasn’t in Anthony Zaragoza’s sights at all. Zaragoza got his associate degree in biology and was planning on eventually attending medical school. That was, until a revelatory six-month experience with the Western Colorado Conservation Corps gave him a new vision. 

    But even when he got to Cal Poly Pomona as an agribusiness and food industry management major, he wasn’t certain how he could turn his education into a career path. Getting his first job with the student farm eased his mind.

    “Out here in the city, we aren’t surrounded too much by a lot of agriculture,” Zaragoza said. “So it could be a little disheartening when we’re not having a chance to get out on an operation and see that what we’re learning is actually a feasible future for us.”

    Zaragoza started as a maintenance technician at the equine center and is now the harvest assistant lead, a new position in which he works with farm operations director Jeremy Mora on the business and marketing side.

    He has noticed peers in his major with the same confusion he had about how their studies translate to the working world. That is why he strongly recommends pursuing a job with the campus farms.

    “They have that passion, but they really need that connection,” Zaragoza said.

    For Chima, that connection and passion are enhanced at Chico State’s University Farm. “If I was not a part of a working farm, I would not be where I am today,” said Chima, who works as the lead student herdsman at the Chico State sheep unit, overseeing daily operations and supporting student research projects. “I’ve developed confidence, and I get to see a lot of different perspectives within the industry.”

    Growing up in Salinas, Karla Ahumada was always surrounded by agriculture and knew she wanted to pursue it as a career. The fourth-year plant science and agribusiness major at Chico State has been grateful for her hands-on experiences at the university’s farm. 

    In a class last semester, Ahumada and her classmates were each assigned a crop to grow at the farm and were graded on how well they took care of their plots.

    Since freshman year, Ahumada has also been offered paid research positions at the university farm. “It is something very unique about our farm, that we can cater to students pursuing both industry and academic focuses,” Ahumada said. 

    At Fresno State, agriculture education sophomore Emma Piedra works in the dairy unit doing milking and maintenance while also learning veterinary skills. The milk is used to produce cheese and ice cream sold by the school. 

    She has no plans to go into the dairy industry after graduation. Rather, Piedra wants to use her time at the farm to help improve her knowledge about how it works and give her future students connections to work there, just as her teachers did for her. 

    “Ever since getting into dairy, I’ve wanted to help students raise dairy heifers someday when I’m a teacher. So this has given me a lot of hands-on experiences of what to do and how to help them,” Piedra said. 

    Another Fresno State student is putting this thinking into practice at the neighboring swine unit. Hannah Williamson is a student manager and graduate teaching assistant while finishing her final semester of her agricultural science masters in animal reproduction. 

    Williamson grew up around the swine unit alongside her father, a professor at Fresno State. Though she worked in a few different farm units during her undergraduate years, it was her experience as a teaching assistant for the swine lab class that helped her realize she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and teach at the college level.

    As for students considering taking some agricultural courses, she said, “I will say that the more you get involved, the better it is for you, because it opens a lot more doors. You have a lot more opportunities.”

    Operating, financing student farms

    Though each of these farming operations is different, they all give students experience in numerous areas of agricultural production, from cultivation and conception to marketing and accounting.

    The schools have lab classes where professors can make use of the facilities for the general student population. Research opportunities and paid student positions help students gain advanced knowledge and hands-on skills.

    “We hear often from employers that they really like our students because they can actually do stuff,” said Jim Prince, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s associate dean of the College of Agriculture.

    The San Luis Obispo campus has a range of farms and production facilities, including a vineyard, beef production and ornamental operations, among others. This may sound expensive to operate, and though Prince says it is a “complex mix” of funding, most of the farms are self-supported through their food production businesses.

    Among the products they sell are cheese, ice cream, jam, meat, organic produce, plants and wine. Most of these are available through their online shop as well as the campus markets, and some are available through local retailers. The organic produce is sold directly at local farmers’ markets and during the farm’s U-pick hours.

    The Chico State University Farm has a similar mix of financial support. It consists of 14 units and employs 18 full-time staff and 40 students. 

    All four universities were each awarded $18.75 million in a grant from California’s 2022-23 budget. For Chico, $11.5 million of that is funding the Agricultural Teaching Center and Farm Store, which is expected to be operating by this fall, according to College of Agriculture interim associate dean Kevin Patton. Amid statewide CSU budget cuts, Patton believes this money will not be touched.

    Chris Van Norden graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a plant sciences degree and continued working on the campus farm until he became the agronomy farm coordinator, overseeing 125 acres. His brother, Bryan, also an alum, runs the orchard, organic farm and sales. 

    California agricultural production variety is extremely diverse, and Van Norden said their 700 acres of farms are well-suited to familiarize the student assistants with a wide range of career possibilities.

    “We’ve got (year-round) overlapping egg production, vegetables, permanent trees (and) subtropical, growing everything possible in California,” Van Norden said. “And showing the students that, ‘Hey, you could do any of this with agriculture,’ it’s a … giant, wide spectrum of agricultural potential.”

    Vincent Roos, the farm operations manager at Fresno State, emphasized the school’s unique position in the Central Valley, which allows for the growth of nearly 400 different crops.

    He noted the importance of hands-on experience in preparing students for diverse agricultural careers.

    “In other words, they can take anything, any kind of circumstances that you’re in, and make it work,” Roos said.

    Jesus Herrera is a third-year journalism student at Fresno State; Layla Bakhshandeh is a senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in journalism and graphic communication; and John Washington is a senior journalism student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. All are members of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.





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