'This isn't right': California teachers question priorities, track record of Learn4Life charter schools

"California taxpayers send hundreds of millions of dollars every year to Learn4Life, one of the state's largest charter school networks, with 65 locations that serve about 20,000 students each year. For 24 years, Learn4Life schools have catered to some of the state's most vulnerable young people - students behind on graduating, foster youth, students who are homeless, pregnant or living in poverty, students who just didn't find traditional schools to be working for them."

"More than a dozen current and former Learn4Life teachers and employees interviewed by The San Diego Union-Tribune said they think Learn4Life's educational model has systematically failed many of its students. They said such a model takes students who arguably need the most support and structure and gives them an education with little of either - one where they don't have to see a teacher more than once a week, and where they learn on their own using take-home assignment packets."

""They needed more school, not less school," said Kirsten Travis, who taught at Learn4Life's Assurance Learning Academy in Wilmington, in Los Angeles County's South Bay, before she says she resigned in 2022; she's now a school district teacher in Orange County. "It just felt like I'm perpetuating this problem of this kid falling further and further behind even when they're trying. I remember feeling at the time, 'This isn't right, it shouldn't be this way.'""

Learn4Life operates 65 charter locations and serves about 20,000 students annually, focusing on students behind on graduation, foster youth, homeless students, pregnant students, and those in poverty. The network emphasizes independent learning via take-home assignment packets and often limits teacher contact to infrequent in-person meetings. State funding channels hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the network. Some teachers and staff criticize the model for providing minimal support and structure, arguing that many vulnerable students require more consistent, in-person instruction and resources to catch up and graduate successfully.

Read at The Mercury News