Massachusetts Officials Advocate for More Charter Schools

Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a Democrat, both testified in support of allowing more charter schools to open in low-performing school districts.

Baker testified before the Legislature’s education committee Tuesday that the dozen schools that could be authorized each year would constitute a mere six-tenths of 1 percent of the state’s 1,900 public schools, but would give hope to thousands of families.

“But today, despite all this positive progress, the difference in overall student achievement in underperforming school districts and the rest of the Commonwealth remains too high, while a few 37,000 children sit on waiting lists, trying to get into the Commonwealth’s very successful charter school network”, Baker said in prepared testimony.

Ruth C. Gilbert-Whitner, superintendent of the Whitman-Hanson Regional School District in southeastern Massachusetts, said charter schools have siphoned $309,000 from the district’s budget this year, causing drastic cuts in its library services.

The director indicated a interest in obtain along with Democratic congress, but applied: “The valuable time has become gone to tackle this issue”. Roderick Sawyer (6th) introduced a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion.

“Nothing makes this point clearer than a charter school lottery”, he said.

The Future School of Fort Smith took a big step toward reality on Wednesday (Oct. 14) when a state panel approved the application for the open enrollment charter school. The Recovery School District in New Orleans, the only all-charter district in America, has seen remarkable gains in academic performance for its students at a rate never seen before in Louisiana-nor in any other district in the country.

The legislation technically leaves in place a statewide cap of 120 charter schools – publicly funded schools that often operate separately from local districts – but would effectively nullify that limit and allow the number to grow each year. Numerous bills related to whether or not to lift the cap.

Auditor Suzanne Bump criticized the lack of reliable state data on charter schools.

“It sets up schools for failure”, Walsh said, according to Boston public radio station WBUR. “Vote to raise the cap now, ‘” Rosenberg said. “I am convinced that such dramatic changes would be reckless under the current funding mechanism and unwise under any circumstances”.

But Mary Lewis-Pierce, whose two children attend Boston public schools, said allowing more charter schools will destabilize urban public schools financially.

Charter schools began almost 20 years ago, ostensibly to provide an “alternative” to failing public schools, primarily in the inner city. For every student sent to charter schools, the sending district is obligated, under state law, to pay the charter school an amount equivalent to the district’s average per-pupil expenditure. A new report claims more than $200 million in fraud and wasted taxpayer funds has been lost to the charter school sector (“The Tip of the Iceberg: Charter School Vulnerabilities To Waste, Fraud, And Abuse” by Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools and the Center for Popular Democracy).

Charter proponents are also backing a 2016 ballot question that would ask voters to approve lifting the charter school cap in a similar manner.