Six years ago, two school executives from the now defunct A3 charter school were embroiled in controversy. The executives conducted an elaborate scheme that funneled millions of public dollars into their own pockets. The scam had several angles and included enrolling thousands of students who never took any classes.
While this case achieved national attention—and left a stain on our public education system—efforts to prevent such abuse should be focused and not used to usher-in wide sweeping changes that would harm charter schools that provide powerful educational alternatives to nearly a million students of all backgrounds.
An example of a proposed sweeping change is Assembly Bill 84 by Assemblyman Al Muratuschi, D-Torrance.
AB 84 would impose cumbersome and unprecedented restrictions on charter school authorization renewals by giving local school districts—whose board members are not subject to campaign finance contribution limits and are often conflicted by financial incentives—expanded authority to block or shut down a charter school.
The bill would also reduce per-student funding for nontraditional charter schools by 30% and prevent charter schools from allocating funds to support home-schooling students.
What’s more. According to an Assembly analysis the bill could potentially cost California’s 1300 charter schools $650,000 per year in new compliance costs, taking away valuable dollars from schools at a time when the state is grappling with a stubborn literacy crisis that is disproportionately impacting students of color.
This onerous legislation would also grow government by creating a statewide education inspector general costing the state tens of millions of dollars per year at a time when the state is staring down a $12 billion budget deficit and faced with continuous threats of funding reductions from the federal government.
Thousands of families in California rely on charter schools for flexibility and specialized learning. Many of these charters have found unique ways to address critical learning gaps, are high-performing, and serve diverse student populations. Subjecting charter schools to what will eventually become an overtly political process would only result in closures of schools that have historically delivered results.
When fraud or misuse occurs at other public agencies—such as the alleged misuse of Proposition 28 funds by Los Angeles Unified School District— the response is typically to investigate, correct, and move on. The system stays intact. The assumption is that the system isn’t broken, just that a person made the wrong decision.
More recently, it was revealed during a budget hearing that during the rapid expansion of Universal Pre-K (UPK), the state misallocated millions of dollars in early education funding. This misallocation went undetected for at least two years and was only flagged during the 2025–26 budget planning cycle. So far, heads haven’t rolled.
Charter schools, however, are rarely afforded the same level of grace. In fact, there has been a sustained effort that has escalated over time to ruin the formula for charters that have produced educational success.
In 2019, lawmakers passed AB 1505 and AB 1507, which restricted where charter schools can open and made renewals more difficult, even for high-performing programs. Then came AB 1316 in 2021, a sprawling bill filled with costly and bureaucratic mandates targeting non-classroom-based (NCB) charters. That bill was eventually defeated due to massive public outcry, but its intent was clear.
Now, AB 84 picks up where those efforts left off, aimed at banning vendor-based instruction, slashing flexibility in independent study programs, and limiting educational options that families rely on. This bill isn’t narrowly focused on correcting fraud; it’s part of a broader strategy to legislate non-classroom-based charter schools out of existence.
To be clear, we should be open to reasonable reforms. But reform can be achieved without eroding the flexibility and innovation charters were designed to offer. Thousands of California families hope cooler heads prevail, and that lawmakers will reject an opportunistic attack on non-traditional education.
Windi Eklund is founder of Legislation Take Action and a charter school advocate. She can be reached at windi4schoolchoice@gmail.com.
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