MAJOR CRUSADE FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS IS ON GOAL HALF-MILLION BY 2013.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

A new statewide charter schools movement kicked off Tuesday, with leaders determined to enroll an additional 500,000 students in the innovative educational program within a decade.

Charter schools, based on a teacher- and parent-driven curriculum and student achievement, now instruct about 170,000 students statewide.

Former Los Angeles Unified Schools District president Caprice Young and a group of supporters launched the nonprofit California Charter Schools Association at Watts Learning Center in South Los Angeles.

Young, president and chief executive officer of the new group, said she envisioned the construction of up to 300 charter schools for as many as 170,000 students in Los Angeles alone over the next 10 years. Now, the city has 49 charter schools serving about 25,000 students.

``Charter schools offer the best path to the meaningful reform of public education,'' Young told a news conference at the learning center.

In a separate interview, Young said charter schools had a unique but narrow window of opportunity to change California education with the populist election of Arnold Schwarzenegger and growing momentum for locally controlled schools over more centralized bureaucracies.

``The shift in the current political landscape is huge for charter school development, because we fundamentally embrace educators being in charge, with the parents,'' Young said.

She said the association would work quickly to identify funds, school sites and constituency groups to expand the charter system as it continued to improve the performance of existing charter schools. It will also work to unite the state's disparate charter interest groups to meet their building and educational goals against considerable opposition from traditional public school administrations and teacher unions, Young said.

In Los Angeles, the response to charter schools has been mixed. At times, the district has embraced them to help with its overcrowding problems. Other times, it has resisted them, especially when it has meant converting LAUSD schools and facilities to the charter program. The LAUSD board, with a majority backed by United Teachers Los Angeles, for example, has been slow to act on a number of charter applications.

LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer said he backed charter schools, and not only to help the district meet an anticipated 80,000-to-90,000 seat shortage, even after 120 new schools are built. Romer said he also welcomed them as an opportunity to foster new creative approaches to education.

``Anybody that can help us improve instruction by doing schools is a good thing,'' Romer said in an interview. ``I think the creation of new charters is a very good thing.''

But Romer said he had some concerns about whether, or under what terms, existing LAUSD schools would be converted to charters. He said he preferred sharing district space with charters to form what he called ``small learning communities.''

``I'd like to have charters side-by-side with us,'' he said.

The board has not spoken yet with a unified voice on charter schools.

Mike Lansing and Marlene Canter are considered strong charter supporters. Board member Jon Lauritzen has backed away from calling on a moratorium on charters. He has said he's impressed with Granada Hills High School, which wants to extend its one-year charter granted over Romer's objection. Board President Jose Huizar abstained on the Granada Hills charter, but has said he supports startups.

UTLA President John Perez said the union supports charters as experimental schools in limited numbers. He said efforts to greatly expand the charter system were a ``philosophical'' departure from their original intent, to serve as testing grounds for new educational methods.

``These schools should be experimental, but they have morphed until there is a cottage industry around them. It's about having private schools with public money,'' Perez said. ``There is no oversight of charters in the state for fear of being called anti-reform or anti-charter school.''

Beth Barrett, [phone]

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com