Accountability Should Apply to Every California Public School

As we conclude another legislative session, California lawmakers once again made it a priority to advance legislation burdening charter schools and the families they serve. Session after session, proposals are introduced under the banner of “accountability,” imposing new regulations and operational hurdles on charter schools while overlooking many of the governance failures that continue to plague traditional public school districts.

Parents deserve to ask an obvious question: Why does Sacramento devote so much attention to regulating charter schools while showing far less urgency in addressing financial mismanagement, contracting controversies, and administrative failures in some of California’s largest school districts?

The Los Angeles Unified School District offers a sobering example.

Over the past year, LAUSD has been engulfed in controversy. Former Superintendent Alberto Carvalho resigned following months of paid administrative leave after an FBI investigation into district contracting practices placed the nation’s second-largest school district under an uncomfortable national spotlight.

While Carvalho has denied wrongdoing and no criminal charges have been filed against him, the investigation raised serious questions about procurement practices and oversight of public funds.

At the same time, LAUSD has struggled with a worsening fiscal outlook. The district is confronting substantial budget deficits fueled by declining enrollment, increasing union demands and rising operating costs. District leaders have approved layoffs affecting more than 1,000 employees, eliminated positions, and warned of difficult financial decisions in the years ahead. These actions inevitably affect classrooms, student services, and employee morale while taxpayers continue to question how one of the nation’s largest school systems reached this point.

Yet despite these significant governance and financial challenges, Sacramento has shown little appetite for introducing sweeping “accountability” legislation aimed at traditional school districts comparable to what charter schools routinely face.

If lawmakers are truly committed to accountability, they should apply the same standards to every public school. Accountability should not depend on a school’s governance model. It should depend on whether public dollars are managed responsibly, leaders are transparent, contracts are properly administered, and students receive the quality education they deserve.

Charter schools were established to expand educational opportunity through innovation, flexibility, and parental choice. Today they educate hundreds of thousands of California students, many of whom come from families seeking an alternative after their neighborhood school failed to meet their children’s academic or social needs. These schools are already subject to regular financial audits, performance reviews, charter renewals, and closure when they fail to meet legal or academic standards.

Traditional school districts should be held to the same expectations for fiscal stewardship and operational transparency.

Parents are not asking lawmakers to favor charter schools over district schools. They are asking for fairness. Every publicly funded school should be held accountable for how it spends taxpayer dollars and serves students. Every instance of waste, fraud, or administrative mismanagement deserves legislative attention regardless of who operates the school.

In these final weeks of the legislative session, state lawmakers would be wise to reflect on policies that strengthen educational opportunities for all public school students rather than advancing legislation that creates additional obstacles for charter schools and the families they proudly serve. California doesn’t need selective accountability—it needs equal accountability.