Earlier this year the ACLU filed what has come to be known as the PAY TO LEARN class action suit that challenged the widespread and entirely illegal practice of charging students fees for all manner of educational participation—lab fees for science classes, extra fees to enroll in AP classes, the requirement to buy expensive textbooks in order to take a course, ditto workbooks and other equipment that, by state law, is supposed to be available without charge to every student, if such items are required.
On Thursday the statewide affiliates of the ACLU announced the settlement of the suit filed in September.
In brief, the settlement makes it easy for parents and students to lodge a complaint in order to identify, and receive reimbursement for, illegal school fees.
It also puts in place an auditing system, complete with unpleasant penalties for schools and districts that continue to be scofflaws on the fee business.
Plus, it required a letter to go out from the governor to all school districts explaining that such fees are not only in violation of California’s education code but they also run afoul of the state’s constitution, as established by a 1984 CA Supreme Court ruling.
“I’m glad that now students can read books rather than purchase them,” said an exuberant Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel of the ACLU/SC.
Although state officials had, for years, looked the other way when it came to these illegal fees, they seemed relieved when the lawsuit put push to shove, said ACLU attorney David Sapp.
“Almost as soon as we filed, the Secretary of Education, Bonnie Reiss, was very responsive.”
Sapp also said that when the ACLU filed the suit, although they had found many instances of these onerous feels in districts all over the state, it wasn’t until after news of the lawsuit hit the newspapers that Sapp and the other lawyers began to have a real idea of the magnitude of the problem. “I’ve now spoken with scores of parents and students, each with a new story,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”
I had my own experience when I included a question about the lawsuit on the weekly news quiz I give to my USC journalism students at the beginning of class. After we corrected the quizzes, students brought up the lawsuit and expressed astonishment that such fees were forbidden. In fact, nearly kid in the class who went to high school in California seemed to have his or her own academic fee story. Usually several of them.
I suddenly thought of the time that my now-25-year old son was required to purchase a fancy $70 or $80 calculator in order to take his advanced math classes when he was a 9th grader at Pacific Palisades High School.
“It’s gone on for years,” said Sapp. “Years.”
Rosenbaum agreed. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “They all knew that they were breaking the law. They just didn’t do anything about it.”
Now, thankfully, state officials have no choice but to do something about it.
AND IN OTHER EDUCATION NEWS: MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA CALLS OUT THE LA TEACHER’S UNION (UTLA) AND SMACKS THEM—REALLY, REALLY HARD
The LA Times’ Patrick McDonnell and David Zahniser report on Antonio unloading on UTLA (which, quite frankly deserves it):
Here’s a clip:
With a hard-hitting speech that branded the city’s teachers union as an unyielding obstruction to education reforms, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa set the stage this week for a new battle over control of the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest.
In a Sacramento address to state leaders, Villaraigosa — himself a longtime teachers union employee before launching a career in public office — declared that education in Los Angeles stands at “a critical crossroads,” and he assailed United Teachers Los Angeles for resisting change.
During the last five years, the mayor said, union leaders have stood as “one unwavering roadblock to reform.” He called for change in contentious areas such as tenure, teacher evaluations and seniority — all volatile arenas in which teachers unions have balked at proposals for reform as eroding their rights.
“At every step of the way, when Los Angeles was coming together to effect real change in our public schools, UTLA was there to fight against the change and slow the pace of reform,” Villaraigosa declared at a forum of the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank.
There’s a lot more. Evidently AV was just warming up with what I’ve reproduced above.
So read on.