Kevin Kiley: “yesterday, in my home State of California, the California State Assembly passed one of the most despicable education…”

“yesterday, in my home State of California, the California State Assembly passed one of the most despicable education bills that we have seen in a long time. Assembly Bill 84 is the latest all-out attack on charter school families and students in California. It is part of what has been a war against charters since Governor Gavin Newsom came into office. Indeed, we are seeing that reach a truly concerning level right now, even before this bill. Across California, we are seeing new legislation passed by the supermajority and signed by Newsom used to devastating effect to target high-performing charter schools and to shut them down or to stop new charters from starting up, forcing families to return to neighborhood schools that they had chosen not to attend and that, in many cases, are failing to teach students the basics. We have many examples now of high-performing charters in the State being nonrenewed, but this bill, AB 84, makes things even worse. It specifically targets independent study and homeschool-based charters, which are very important for many families throughout California and which are very important, for example, for students with special needs. It seeks to defund these schools and force them to shut down, taking this option away from those families and forcing them to go back into a system that wasn't working for them.”