"Do your students say the Pledge of Allegiance?" That was the question I posed in several ways to Marcos Aguilar, a founder and now the Tlayecantzi or "school guide" at Academia de Semillas del Pueblo Xinaxcalmecac. You see, it's charter school renewal season in Los Angeles and Semillas del Pueblo ("Seeds of the People"), a 318-student, K-7 charter in El Sereno, is one of 18 schools whose contracts will soon get a thumbs up or thumbs down from the Los Angeles Unified School District. ... But what about the trickier, more philosophical, some would say irrelevant: "To what extent do...