Stopping An Injustice

The Issue
In 2005, San Diego Unified School District’s Board of Education ignored its legal obligation by denying close to 90 percent of facilities requests made by its start-up charter schools. The actions by the District created severe hardships on all of these charter schools, and even led to the closure of one charter school.

The Solution
Larson spearheaded the public awareness campaign in support of two charter schools that filed a lawsuit against San Diego Unified. Larson led the way by issuing a series of press releases and media pitches to reporters that helped tell the story of the plight of these schools. In addition, Larson worked to place several key editorials in the San Diego Union-Tribune and the online Voice of San Diego, and also organized a major rally of parents and school stakeholders, which brought with it significant media attention.

The successful public relations effort, which generated a firestorm of media attention, had the strategic effect of forcing the school district to drop its discriminatory Prop 39 policy and begin making strides towards housing the charter schools in district-owned facilities. At the conclusion of the media campaign, close to 80 percent of the charter schools had received facilities offers and thousands were adequately housed in classrooms.

Managing Negative News

The Issue
The American Federation of Teachers, a vocal charter school opponent, released a report in August of 2004 that tried to make the case that charter schools weren’t doing as well as traditional public schools. The report was covered prominently in the New York Times, which was syndicated in several California newspapers and in several broadcast news reports, and cast a negative light on charter schools.

The Solution
The day the AFT report was released; Larson quickly analyzed it and discovered that, despite its negative tone, California’s charter schools were actually performing better than traditional public schools. Seizing the initiative, Larson issued a press release the following morning to a statewide and national audience, showing how the AFT’s own report found that California’s charter schools were actually outperforming. Larson also issued a public fact sheet which summarized other, more thorough reports which supported the charter movement’s case.

These efforts garnered headlines and favorable editorials in papers around the state. The Los Angeles Times editorialized, “…charter students did as well, or a bit better, than their public-school peers. And that's without taking into account the schools' more disadvantaged population.” The Sacramento Bee editorialized with a headline, “Charters Remain Best Hope for Public Education,” while a Chronicle columnist led with, “A Charter on Success.”

Holding Questionable Programs Accountable

The Issue
In 2004, the charter school movement had already felt the legacy of policymakers who were questioning charters’ effectiveness based on a limited number of high-profile ‘bad apple’ charter schools. The environment was less than positive: Anti-reform interest groups had been lining up to further regulate charters, who depend on their autonomy to be effective. The movement needed to demonstrate that the vast majority of charter schools are accountable.

In the fall of 2004, California Charter Academy (CCA), the state’s largest charter organization which was generally regarded as a ‘bad apple’, abruptly shut its doors before the start of the school year, stranding up to 10,000 students. State and national media stories ensued, jeopardizing public confidence in all charter schools.

The Solution
Faced with this crisis situation, Larson led the media campaign to demonstrate the movement’s high level of accountability. He developed a fact sheet that documented everything the charter school movement did to hold CCA accountable, which summarized how the California Charter Schools Association raised awareness of CCA’s questionable practices, embraced tougher standards to hold them accountable and then called for their public investigation. A comprehensive fact sheet was issued, along with a press release, to statewide and national media. Both pointed out where the school district authorizers, and not charter schools, had failed to do their jobs.

Larson led the communications efforts to nearby charter schools to take in displaced kids, and then spearheaded the efforts to publicize the fact that 80 percent of the students were placed in nearby, higher-quality schools. Positive news stories and editorials ensued, including in The San Jose Mercury News, The Los Angeles Times and in the national trade publication Education Week. All of them noted the charter movement’s effort to hold this school accountable, while lauding it for going further to find kids nearby schools prior to the school year. As The Los Angeles Times noted, “The episode marked a breathtaking change of tone for the state's charter-school association…”

The public relations strategy worked. Public confidence was maintained in charter schools, as subsequent polling found, and political support was maintained, as no restrictive legislation was proposed.