Advocacy

Independent. Consistent.
Member-Sustained.

The nation's first charter school support and advocacy organization, CSDC's advocacy work brought the charter schools concept to California in 1991, and has continued to be a consistent and trusted voice for the California charter school movement ever since.

Advocacy Overview Recent Successes Support Our Advocacy Efforts

CSDC played a pivotal role in the California charter school movement, starting with the movement's inception in 1992.

We helped write California's first charter school law.

CSDC staff, including Executive Director and Founder, Eric Premack, were among the primary proponents advocating for the passage of California's first charter school law in 1992 and have played a critical role in the rapid spread of charter school legislation in over 25 states.

We assisted with a major overhaul to the Charter
Schools Act in 1998.

CSDC assisted with major upgrades to Charter Schools Act in 1998, including lifting the cap on the number of charter schools that could be authorized, as well as strengthening the appeals process for charter denials.

And we have been busy ever since.

Whether fighting for equitable funding, playing an important role in the state budget process, defending charter schools from legislative attack, or supporting charter schools before regulators and state agencies, CSDC has spent the last 25+ years furthering the California charter school movement. See where we stand on active bills in legislation through our CapitolTrack reports.

We are fiscal experts who fight for equitable charter funding.

We were the architects of the "block grant" system.

CSDC served as the architects of the "block grant" funding system, which later became the framework for the new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) system. While helping to build these systems, CSDC has constantly advocated for substantial equalization of charter school funding vis-à-vis school district funding.

We help secure funding for new and growing charters.

CSDC was the sole sponsor of the federal law requiring states to ensure that new and growing charter schools receive full funding from key federal formula grant programs (e.g., Title I).

CSDC also played a key role in drafting the law creating the federal charter school grant program, which is the primary source of start-up funding for the overwhelming majority of California’s charter schools

We play an important role in the state budget process.

CSDC has a successful record of advocacy in the state budget process, including:

• successfully defending increases in charter funding rates, netting hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding for California’s charter schools;
• successfully advocating for the expansion of charter exemptions from cash flow deferrals;
• successfully supporting efforts to substantially expand state facilities aid funding and defending this program from proposed cuts; and
• successfully advocating for charter schools that need to gain access to numerous funding sources, including Common Core Standards and Mandated Cost Block Grant funding.

We defend charter schools from legislative attack.

CSDC vigorously defends charter schools from legislative attack. In the last couple of years, charter schools have seen unprecedented attempts to homogenize schools and to impose more burdensome charter petition and renewal requirements. CSDC has been on the front lines as California’s sole consistent voice fighting against these efforts.

Through our Leadership Update Conference we’ve taught charter leaders how to advocate on behalf of their own schools and the charter school movement, and we’ve encouraged many leaders to run for office themselves creating a new wave of charter support at the local level.

We vigorously support charters before regulators and state agencies.

CSDC is especially known for its vigorous and successful track record for supporting charter schools in front of the State Board (SBE)/Department of Education (CDE), Advisory Commission on Charter Schools (ACCS), and Education Audit Appeals Panel (EAAP).

CSDC is unique among charter advocacy organizations in its extremely deep and broad expertise and foresight in a huge range of key regulatory and bureaucratic issues that are vital to the success of charter schools, ranging from special education matters to key funding and facilities matters.

We represent charter interests in regulatory law.

CSDC successfully advocated for regulations strengthening charter schools’ rights during the charter renewal and revocation processes.

CSDC was the primary advocate in beefing-up “Proposition 39” facilities regulations, resulting in a fairer charter share of school district-owned facilities.

CSDC has also been a primary and consistent advocate for nonclassroom-based charter schools, advocating for numerous amendments to the nonclassroom-based regulatory process, as well as blunting proposed audit regulations that would have multiplied the auditing and oversight burden.

We spot unseen—but critical—bureaucratic matters.

CSDC interacts extensively with CDE and SBE staff on a huge range of vitally important but often unseen bureaucratic matters, including funding and apportionment issues, categorical programs management and oversight, state charter appeals, numerous legal issues, and other matters.

We have helped to win over 1 billion in grant funding for California charter schools.

CSDC worked closely with the SBE, the CDE, and the State Treasurer’s staff to successfully apply for over $500 million in federal start-up/implementation grants and over $200 million in federal facilities grants for charter schools.

We support innovative school
models of all types.

We are a strong advocate for blended, virtual and independent study charter schools.

CSDC successfully advocated for numerous amendments to “nonclassroom-based” regulatory process in order to reduce burdensome oversight.

CSDC also blunted proposed audit regulations that would have multiplied the auditing and oversight burden for nonclassroom-based schools.

We're not resting on our laurels.

We continue to be California’s hardest-hitting charter school advocacy organization and the “go-to” source for charter school support, technical expertise, and leadership development. Some of our key recent accomplishments over the past year are summarized below.

We successfully advocated against numerous pieces of anti-charter legislation.

CSDC successfully advocated the Legislature to defeat (or the Governor to veto) anti-charter legislation on multiple topics.

In 2021 we worked hard to derail an egregious targeted attack on charter schools. With the help of our members, we sent 473,087 letters written by 12,125 individuals to the 120 members of the California State Legislature, proving beyond a doubt that there is power in membership.

Additionally, two years in a row we led the charge against legislation that would have required charter schools (including existing charter schools) follow specific and onerous siting requirements when evaluating schoolsites for emissions or waste.

We successfully advocated for extensive amendments to the Local Control Accountability Planning (LCAP) regulations and template, including:

• exempting charter schools from the extensive process and stakeholder involvement requirements that govern school district LCAP development; and
• allowing charter schools to adopt a streamlined LCAP Federal Addendum in lieu of the more complex Local Education Agency Plan formal.

Become a CSDC Member

CSDC is California and the nation’s sole charter school advocacy organization whose work is supported exclusively through membership dues paid by our member schools.