EL CAJON, Calf.— When it comes to California’s charter school system, the spotlight often lands on scandals, enrollment spikes, or test score comparisons. But one issue rarely gets its due: the structural flaws baked into how charter schools are authorized and overseen. These flaws aren’t just procedural—they shape the educational landscape for tens of thousands of students and dictate the financial priorities of school districts statewide.
The recent scrutiny of small, rural authorizing districts has revealed a fundamental tension: districts are incentivized to approve and expand charters they do not physically serve, because doing so brings in oversight fees ranging from 1% to 3% of a charter school’s public funding. Meanwhile, those same districts struggle to provide quality education to the students actually enrolled in their own brick-and-mortar schools.
This isn’t about anti-charter sentiment. Quite the opposite. Charter schools have, in many cases, offered educational lifelines to students underserved by traditional systems. From project-based learning environments to independent study models, charters have created meaningful options. But the system that governs them—one that allows tiny districts with under 100 students to authorize programs serving tens of thousands of students across the state—is unsustainable.
The harms are real. Oversight becomes performative. Public school students in host districts are neglected. Charter families have no say in the electoral process that determines whether their programs survive. And all of this is happening in the shadows of a system designed for checks and balances, but driven by dollars and desperation.
So what’s the solution?
Regional Oversight with State-Level Accountability
One of the most promising models is the establishment of Regional Authorizing Authorities (RAAs). These would function as independent public bodies tasked exclusively with evaluating, approving, and overseeing charter schools within a defined geographic boundary, such as a county or multi-county region. Unlike school districts, RAAs would have no competing interest in maintaining or growing enrollment in traditional public schools. Their sole function would be to ensure that approved charters meet academic, fiscal, and governance standards.
The appeal of this approach is twofold:
Neutrality — No inherent financial bias toward expanding or denying charters.
Consistency — Regional bodies could establish and enforce a uniform set of oversight expectations across all schools within their jurisdiction.
To ensure transparency and democratic legitimacy, these bodies could be governed by boards elected not by district residents, but by charter stakeholders: families with children enrolled in charters within the region. This creates a representation mechanism that currently does not exist. Right now, if you enroll in a charter authorized by a district you don’t live in, you have zero voting power over the board that controls your school’s future.
Redirect Oversight Fees to Public Benefit
Another structural reform involves redistributing oversight fees. Under the current model, authorizing districts retain 1–3% of a charter’s funding as an “oversight fee”—despite often doing the bare minimum to earn it. In some cases, this amounts to millions of dollars.
Instead, those funds could be pooled at the county level and distributed equitably among all public schools in the region—district-run and charter alike. Allocation could be based on ADA (average daily attendance) to ensure that funding follows students, but without rewarding districts simply for serving as authorizing entities.
This model would eliminate perverse incentives and ensure that every child in the region benefits from the presence of high-performing charters.
Decouple Charter Authorization from Local Political Volatility
A third issue involves political stability. In today’s system, a charter can be thriving academically, financially sound, and serving thousands of students—yet still be at risk of closure if a new school board majority takes office in the authorizing district. This isn’t hypothetical; it happens regularly.
By transferring authorizing power to independent RAAs or COEs (County Offices of Education), charter schools would no longer live at the whim of local electoral swings. This ensures stability for families and staff, while keeping the focus on long-term outcomes, not short-term political gains.
Accountability Without Local Capture
There’s also the matter of conflict of interest. When a district that oversees a charter also competes with it for enrollment, resources, and reputation, impartiality is a myth. As one parent put it, it’s like Pepsi regulating Coke. And when those oversight dollars become a lifeline for struggling districts, it’s not hard to see how that oversight quickly becomes compromised.
Independent regional or state authorizers are not immune to political influence, but they are structurally insulated from direct financial dependence on charter expansion. That distinction matters.
Build Representation into Governance
True accountability requires representation. Families who enroll in charters should have a say in how those schools are governed. That doesn’t mean displacing current systems, but creating dual layers of accountability: one at the school site through charter boards elected by families, and one at the oversight level through regional boards elected by charter stakeholders.
This would mirror existing democratic systems without subordinating charter communities to districts that don’t represent them.
Missed Legislative Opportunities
In recent years, lawmakers have made efforts to address these structural issues through legislation. AB 84 proposed significant reforms to restrict authorizing power and ensure stronger oversight mechanisms. Though introduced with strong intentions, the bill was ultimately moved to the inactive file in the Assembly and did not pass.
Another attempt, SB 414, would have introduced stricter accountability and transparency requirements for authorizing entities. However, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill on October 13, 2023—a disappointing move in light of the well-documented fraud and abuse that have plagued the system, including the infamous A3 Education scandal that siphoned over $80 million in public funds through a web of online charter schools.
Both AB 84 and SB 414 represented key steps toward establishing a fairer, more accountable system, and their failure underscores the urgent need for continued reform.
Restoring Integrity Through Competitive Incentives
One of the most overlooked benefits of removing school districts as charter authorizers is the restoration of natural market incentives. When districts are no longer able to profit off the success of the very alternatives that threaten their enrollment, they’ll be forced to do what they should’ve been doing all along: compete.
In a system where authorizing is independent and oversight is meaningful, public schools can no longer rely on passive revenue streams from flex-based charters they don’t serve. They have to earn back students. That means innovating, improving academic quality, listening to families, and building trust.
Right now, struggling districts are incentivized to give up — to hand over enrollment to charters in exchange for a cut of the revenue. It’s not competition; it’s collusion. “If you can’t beat them, authorize them.” That’s not a strategy. That’s a surrender.
But with structural reform, the free market principles that charters were designed to embody could finally be activated in a way that benefits all students. Public schools would have to step up or risk falling behind — not just financially, but reputationally. The end result? A better educational ecosystem for everyone.
What We Stand to Gain
Fixing charter oversight isn’t just about plugging leaks or reacting to past scandals. It’s about unlocking a system that actually works — for students, families, and taxpayers alike.
We gain representation. Families who choose charter schools currently have no vote, no voice, and no recourse when authorizing districts make decisions that affect their children. Shifting to regional oversight bodies with charter-family representation restores basic democratic accountability.
We gain integrity. Oversight fees would no longer serve as a passive income stream for districts barely involved in the schools they authorize. Instead, those funds could be tied to actual performance, redirected toward regional educational needs, or eliminated entirely in favor of cleaner, more transparent models.
We gain trust. When authorizing decisions are made by neutral, independent entities—not districts trying to balance their own books—the system feels fairer. Conflicts of interest diminish. Litigation and public distrust recede.
We gain stability. Charter schools would no longer live or die by the swings of small-town school board elections. Families and educators would be free to plan long-term, knowing their programs aren’t vulnerable to the politics of a place they don’t even live in.
In short: what we stand to gain is a system built on equity, accountability, and sustainability—rather than on loopholes, desperation, and financial self-dealing.
The Path Forward
These solutions aren’t simple. They require legislative will, administrative infrastructure, and cultural shifts within both the charter and district worlds. But the alternative is to continue down a path where:
• Rural districts become charter mills
• Public school students in those districts are neglected
• Charter families are voiceless in key decisions
• Oversight is traded for access fees
If California wants to preserve the innovation that charter schools offer, while protecting the integrity of public education and ensuring fair democratic representation, the current model must be replaced.
It isn’t enough to ask whether charters work. We must ask: Who do they work for? And who gets left behind?
It’s time to build a system that answers those questions with equity, integrity, and the long game in mind.
If you believe in these reforms, write your local legislators. Call your state senator. Demand a model of oversight that puts students before systems—and fairness before funding flows.
