Oakland school closure raises statewide questions over charter renewals

A state decision that will force an Oakland charter school to shutter has raised questions about vague standards and left charter advocates concerned that it could have far-reaching implications.

Last week, the 18-year-old Oakland charter school Aspire Golden State College Preparatory Academy requested that the State Board of Education overturn the decisions by Oakland Unified School District and the Alameda County Office of Education to not renew its charter in the first state-level appeal since new charter school legislation, Assembly Bill 1505, passed in 2019.

But the state board voted to “take no action” on the appeal in a 7-2 vote, with one recusal and one abstention, exhausting Aspire GSP’s options for reversing the decision and avoiding closure without litigation — and leaving many charter school leaders across the state with even more questions.

The decision gives the first indication of how the board may treat similar appeals and could influence how hundreds of charter schools are evaluated as they face renewal in the coming years.

“This hearing today is about more than one school. It’s about the message this board sends to every charter school authorizer in California,” said the managing director of regulatory affairs at the California Charter School Association, Nicolas Watson, during the hearing of Aspire GSP’s appeal. “The question today is new to this board and one for which there is no precedent: When is closing a middle track charter school in the best interest of students? Your decision will help define what that standard means for every future renewal.”

in October in a 4-3 vote, determining that students would be served better in neighborhood schools. The district cited students’ declining math and English language arts proficiency and a drop-off in the number of graduates attending college — despite Oakland Unified Office of Charter Schools staff recommending renewal.

Oakland Unified used the California School Dashboard data to point to a “significant decline” in the charter’s math proficiency and “inconsistent” English language arts proficiency.

According to the dashboard data, Aspire GSP students were 92.6 points below the math standard in 2019 and 144.6 points below the standard in 2024, and students were 36.8 points below the English language arts standard in 2019 and 69.8 points below the standard in 2024.

But Aspire GSP countered that the district’s decision relied on a narrow interpretation of academic performance data and selectively compared the school to other schools that would make Aspire GSP seem weaker. Advocates argued that among socioeconomically disadvantaged youth — 95% of the school’s student population — the charter school actually outperformed Oakland Unified in 5 of 6 metrics, including English Language Arts test scores, English learner progress, college or career readiness, chronic absenteeism and graduation rate.

Under AB 1505, charter school performance is evaluated using the California School Dashboard, which displays the performance of local schools and student groups across a variety of metrics, including academic performance, graduation rates, chronic absenteeism and English learner progress.

The new legislation splits charter schools into three “tiers” — high-performing schools, which are generally streamlined for renewal; low-performing schools, which are generally not renewed; and middle-performing schools, which may be renewed or denied renewal. Local school boards must provide evidence showing the school has failed to make academic progress and that closing the school is in the “best interest of pupils.”

Aspire GSP is one of 916 “middle-performing” charter schools in California, which make up more than 75% of the state’s charter schools.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown criticized AB 1505’s heavy reliance on the California School Dashboard — which Brown helped create and launch in 2017 — as the primary basis for evaluating a charter school’s academic performance.

“This dashboard was to help teachers and families and parents make better decisions and was intended to help schools and help the kids,” Brown said in a phone interview. “Not act as a form of capital punishment. … That’s a complete abuse of the dashboard and totally against what was intended by its authors.”

Brown said the dashboard’s explicit design was to ensure that no single data point can fully capture a school’s impact on students.

“This is an organic institution that has grown up in Oakland, is supported by hundreds of parents and kids, and to abolish it like that, it’s a disgrace. It’s a real tragedy,” Brown said. “A key element in the public school system is charter schools. Both the charters and regular districts should work together in honest and creative competition.”

Upon denial by Oakland Unified, Aspire GSP appealed the decision to the Alameda County Board of Education,

Running out of options, Aspire GSP turned to the State Board of Education to overturn both denials. But AB 1505 also significantly shifted charter oversight and renewal authority to local school districts, curtailing the power of the State Board of Education to only be able to overturn a local district or county board denial if it finds that local boards “abused their discretion” in denying a charter renewal.

State board members, facing a narrow legal scope and a lack of guidance on how to determine students’ best interests, ultimately voted to take no action on Aspire GSP’s appeal.

“How do we know what’s in the best interest of students? Because that’s at the heart of the criteria for not renewing a charter school,” said board member Sharon Olken. “And at the same time … we have a narrow lane of jurisdiction and one that maybe doesn’t sit well with me.”

“I think we need to raise the questions for those who will be thinking about this down the road about the need for clarification of what really does constitute a fair, open, transparent, evidence-based process,” state board President Linda Darling-Hammond said.

Daniel Soleimani, general counsel for Aspire Public Schools, which operates 32 schools, said the company is considering a lawsuit against Oakland Unified to reverse the decision and hopefully provide guidance for other charter schools that could soon face a similar fate.

“Many other charter schools have reached out to us, very concerned,” Soleimani said. “They don’t know what to do to prepare for renewal. Some of them had actually called in and said, ‘There’s no way for us to predict if we’re going to be renewed or not based on this law.’”

Myrna Castrejόn, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, argued in a letter to the state board members earlier this month that the statutory requirement that closure of a school be “in the best interest of pupils” lacks specific guidance or a statewide precedent.

“This appeal presents an important statewide policy question that extends far beyond a single school,” Castrejόn wrote. “Across California, we are seeing an increasing number of non-renewal decisions involving middle-track charter schools. In many of these cases, local authorizers have interpreted the required finding that ‘closure is in the best interest of pupils’ so broadly that it risks becoming little more than a restatement of the authorizer’s concerns about the school itself.”

Created in 2008, Aspire GSP serves about 403 students in East Oakland in grades 6-12. Many of those students spoke out in support of the charter school at last week’s State Board of Education meeting.

“At GSP, teachers and staff don’t just support our academics; they support us as a whole person. For many students in East Oakland, access to opportunities and supported communities can change the trajectory of our lives,” Michelle Hernandez, a recent graduate of Aspire GSP, said at the meeting. “When decision makers close schools like GSP, it sends a message to students that spaces where we find belonging, encouragement and opportunities can be taken away at any moment.”

Aspire GSP will not reopen in the fall, and families will now have to find a new school for their children, Soleimani said. He said if the charter school decides to pursue litigation, it could be a “multiyear fight.”