Union demands and political speech
In a July 2020 episode, a Los Angeles school board member described the demands made by UTLA, the union representing teachers in Los Angeles, which the speaker identified as the second largest school district in the country. Among those demands, in connection with opening schools during COVID, was the elimination of all charter schools, alongside defunding the police. The speaker stressed that neither demand had anything to do with COVID-19. The same speaker described being constrained in discussing such issues by a law the speaker called “3550,” which the speaker said prevents board members from sharing their opinions on union matters; the speaker said the board and district were advised to avoid comment on the Janus decision and to be careful about what they said, or risk an unfair labor practice lawsuit that could be devastating to a district on a tight budget California’s New Union Gag Order Violates 1st Amendment (2020).
Charters as a small but growing alternative
In an October 2020 episode on ethnic studies curricula, Bob Zadek asked Williamson M. Evers about the role of charter schools, private schools, voucher schools and religious schools, given that they sit outside direct government control. Evers replied that in principle such schools could serve as an independent market, but that they remain small: private schools are less than 10% of the school-age population, and vouchers and charters are very small, though growing. Evers said charter and private schools are largely stuck with the existing textbooks, and noted Wilfred McClay’s Land of Hope as a new American history book pitched at college or AP level, adding that there is not very much out there California’s Ethnic Studies Curriculum vs. Trump’s Patriotic Education (2020).
Structure, pandemic response and funding portability
A September 2021 episode with Matt Welch examined the structural differences between government-run schools and private and charter schools. Zadek framed the question around why private schools seem better able to meet their customers’ needs, and why losing enrollment matters financially to public schools. Welch explained that in most jurisdictions, though not all, a big chunk of school budgeting is per-student, so a school dropping from 948 students to roughly 770 stands to lose a big chunk of funding, though federal emergency money—close to $200 billion to K-12 over two years, against a typical $40 billion a year—could bridge the gap for a year. Welch said that in practice that money went almost entirely to personnel Parents Voting With Their Kids’ Feet (2021).
Welch described charter schools as public schools funded by government money but not run by governments, generally not unionized, and much more nimble. In New York City, he said, charters educate 10% of the K-12 student population, and an artificial state cap on the number of physical charter schools has not prevented growth. Even though charters were as closed as normal schools under pandemic rules, parents—especially poorer and more minority families—had the intuition that charters handled remote learning better and were more sensitive, creative and flexible. Private schools, by contrast, were open: Welch said New York was one of the places where private schools were open the entire year across the street from public schools that opened perhaps twice a week, and that California had the least open schools in the country. He noted that homeschooling doubled, with Black families the biggest growth element Parents Voting With Their Kids’ Feet (2021).
In the same episode, Zadek observed that where charter schools appeal to the same customer base as government-run schools, the quality of the government-run school improves because it faces competition and customers have an alternative. Welch answered that positive reforms are more likely to come from without than from within, and pointed to legislation in roughly 25 to 30 states during the pandemic providing that state education spending should follow students rather than school buildings. He called this a huge shift that institutionalizes the charter school system nationally, noted that state education spending is one out of every five dollars at most states, and said 95% of union money goes to Democrats. He cited Bill de Blasio saying he hated charter schools, which Welch said teach 10% of his city’s kids. Welch said these backpack funding bills—covering homeschooling too—are catching fire, and that schools will face a force-fed situation of change. He also warned about what happens when families en masse flee big-city school systems, citing the 1960s and 1970s, and said the change is not necessarily the greatest for those who cannot or will not leave Parents Voting With Their Kids’ Feet (2021).
The skim myth and lottery admissions
In an August 2022 episode, Zadek asked Corey DeAngelis about the claim that charter and private schools skim the best and brightest, leaving public schools with the dregs, and about how the lottery system that has evolved where demand exceeds supply debunks that myth. DeAngelis argued that advantaged families already have school choice through residential assignment, and that school choice programs are typically targeted to disadvantaged families by income, by the quality of the residentially assigned school, or by the child’s special need. He said charter schools must accept all comers and use random lottery admissions when oversubscribed, making them in a sense more public than traditional public schools, which he said discriminate based on zip code—citing families who went to jail for lying on applications about their address. He noted that magnet schools have selective admissions without complaint because they are government-controlled, that traditional public schools can expel students, and that out-of-district placement and court orders under the IDEA federal law sometimes send students with special needs to private schools. DeAngelis said random-assignment evaluations net out selection bias, like a medical trial, and that the majority find statistically significant positive effects; that eight of nine studies find private school choice leads to racial integration; and that 26 of 28 studies find positive effects on the children who remain in traditional public schools, with five studies finding school choice competition leads to higher salaries for public school teachers. He called competition a tide that lifts all boats Students, Not Systems (2022).
Zadek added his own analogy: listeners who doubt the effect of competition in schooling should think of the US Postal Service before and after FedEx and UPS encroached on its turf, saying there is no dispute the Post Office got better service because of competitive pressures Students, Not Systems (2022).
Across episodes
The topic recurs across four episodes spanning 2020 to 2022, and the treatment shifts with the speakers. In 2020, charters appear first as an object of union political demands in Los Angeles and then as a small, growing sector largely stuck with existing textbooks. By 2021, Matt Welch treats charters as a functioning competitive alternative whose pandemic performance drew poorer and minority families, and as the model that backpack funding bills would institutionalize nationally. By 2022, Corey DeAngelis reframes charters as more public than traditional public schools because of lottery admissions, and supplies the empirical case that competition benefits even students who remain behind. The through-line is competition and parental exit; the change is from charters as a threatened small sector to charters as the template for funding portability.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the founding date or legal origin of charter schools, the terms of any charter statute, or the name of the California law the school board member called “3550.” They do not give the outcome of any litigation over union speech restrictions, the holding of the Janus decision, or which amendment the case turned on. They also do not state the specific states that passed backpack funding legislation, the names of those bills, or the identity of the school board member who described the UTLA demands.