BALLOT QUESTIONS ARE blunt instruments. The ballot question on charter school expansion is no exception. It has a very narrow focus, targeted only at increasing the number of students in charter schools. Both pro- and anti-charter groups have pledged tens of millions of dollars to support their efforts, leading to a divisive and costly public debate that is fundamentally constrained. Children in our public schools deserve a comprehensive and nuanced discussion. If the ballot question passes, more charter schools could be created in the next five years than were created in the prior 20, with a price tag exposing the Commonwealth to $1 billion and impacting less than 10 percent of students.
A more comprehensive piece of legislation would provide better educational opportunities for students in all forms of publicly funded schools. Massachusetts is known to have some of the best public schools in the country, but our job is far from done. We have a responsibility to ensure a sound education for every single one of our students.
The Massachusetts Senate made the decision to have an exceptionally thorough discussion about public education with various stakeholders, from parents to folks on both sides of the charter ballot question. Appointed by Senate President Stanley Rosenberg, a working group made up of Sens. Sonia Chang-Diaz, Pat Jehlen, Karen Spilka, and Dan Wolf participated in countless hours of discussions and stakeholder meetings.
The result is a bill, called the RISE Act, that would increase innovation, transparency, accountability, and access for all students in the Commonwealth, not just a select few. Recognizing findings that the Commonwealth is underfunding public education by over $1 billion, the legislation provides a safeguard for proper funding by proportionally reducing the cap lift if the Foundation Budget Review Commission recommendations for Chapter 70 investments are not fully funded (beginning in FY19). The cap lift contained in the bill is a targeted cap lift focusing on the lowest performing districts. In those districts, district net spending will be raised, at most, from 18 percent to 23 percent over 10 years (.5 percent per year). Furthermore, the bill permits school districts to count Horace Mann charter schools and Innovation Schools toward net school spending, but does not limit their growth.
We also revised the charter school admissions process. Every year, we hear stories of families and children disappointed when they are not picked in the charter school lottery. This bill eliminates the traditional lottery system and replaces it with an opt-out lottery, or unified enrollment, meaning every child in the district is automatically enrolled in the charter school lottery process, no application required. Families who choose, for whatever reason, not to take a seat offered to them, would just decline it. The bill also eliminates parent contracts and mandatory fees at charter schools, just as they are prohibited from district schools, and requires that charter schools backfill openings when students depart mid-year.
The issue of discipline in charter schools has raised grave concerns. In Massachusetts, 9 out of the 10 schools with the highest out-of-school suspension rates are charters. The legislation requires out-of-school suspension rates of a charter school to be commensurate with the sending district school suspension rate before renewal of a charter application.
The Senate has made a commitment to increased transparency, as we showed by passing a public records reform bill. We seized this opportunity to increase transparency in public education, too. Under this bill, there will be public disclosure of charter school finance, contracts, policies, and board meetings consistent with disclosure requirements for traditional public schools. This bill also improves charter school boards by requiring them to have teacher and parent representatives, elected by other parents, to ensure that parents have a voice in the governance of the school.
There is more to this bill than can be quickly discussed in an article, but we hope that this overview of the key provisions, along with the reasons these issues were included, increases understanding. There is too much at stake to continue to have an overly simplistic discussion focused on whether or not to lift the cap on charter schools. Education can be the great equalizer. If we make sure all our public school students have the best education we can provide, it will be.
With comprehensive legislation enhancing innovation, opportunity, transparency, and accountability, while holding our teachers to the highest standards, Massachusetts could be poised to improve our best-in-the-nation schools across the board, for all students and for generations to come. Everyone in Massachusetts, especially our children, deserves to see this bill become the law. It’s time we rise above the divisiveness of the charter wars and focus on innovative strategies to close the achievement gap and support all of our children. It’s time to rise to the occasion and pass the RISE Act.
Stanley Rosenberg of Amherst is the president of the Massachusetts Senate. Sonia Chang-Diaz, Karen Spilka, and Daniel Wolf are the senators from Boston, Ashland, and Harwich, respectively.
CommonWealth Voices is sponsored by The Boston Foundation.
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Let the public vote on whether or not to lift the charter school cap. An informed public debate on public education is what’s needed and when that happens… charter schools will go the way of the dodo bird.
CommonWealth’s editors must really like that pro-charter school photo accompanying this commentary. It’s appeared at least once before on Paul Reville’s pro-charter school commentary.
There’s an “implementation schedule” in this compromise bill to fully fund the state’s share of K-12 by FY2025. That’s right, 2025. What exactly is solved with this bill? Massachusetts will get more charter schools along with an unacceptable delay in fully funding public schools.
What does it mean when the foundation budget won’t be fixed until 2025? That means my grand niece who’s in the second grade this year will be in the 11th grade in her town’s public high school before the foundation budget is fully funded and that will be based on shortcomings identified in 2015 but were well-known years and years before that date. How is that an acceptable fix?
What do you think will be going on in Massachusetts between now and 2025 when the foundation budget will finally be…supposedly…fully funded? Business as usual. The money will be found to give tax breaks and incentives for companies employing politically connected lobbyists. Jobs will be created for the politically connected. Raises will be given to the politically connected. The money will be found to do whatever crazy thing the governor and state legislature want to fund. In the meantime…there’s no money to fully fund public education. It’s the business as usual that should be de-funded not public education.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has a four page fact sheet on charter schools worth taking a look at: Of the 108 charters granted since 1994 there are now 81 currently operating, 3 are not yet open and 24 closed. Of the 81 charter schools currently operating, 13…that’s right 13 charter schools are currently operating under conditions or are on probation.
The first charter school listed as operating under conditions is the Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School in Marlborough. According to the DESE website, “The renewal of the charter of Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School (AMSA) is explicitly conditioned as follows. Failure to meet these conditions may result in the Board placing AMSA
on probation, revoking its charter, or imposing additional conditions on its charter.”
Let’s take a look at what happens after a charter school gets DESE approval to operate. The Libertas Academy Charter School in Springfield was approved last month and will open in the fall of 2017. It will serve 630 students in grades 6-12, it will start with 90 sixth-grade students during its first year who will then go on to become the seventh-grade class the following year then the eighth-grade class. It will take 7 years before there’s a 12th grade class. As far as backfilling is concerned, “when a student stops attending the school for any reason,” Liberty Academy shall, “fill vacant seats up to February 15, excluding seats through grade 10. A vacancy not filled after February 15 moves into the subsequent grade, to be filled the following September except for grades 11 or 12.” I wonder what would happen if a public school adopted that approach to backfilling, or rather not backfilling, empty seats? And how important is this charter school to Springfield if it starts at GRADE 6? The Springfield Public School District knows how to educate students from K-5 but not so much with grades 6-12? And how important is this charter school to Springfield if it will take SEVEN YEARS FOR ALL THE GRADES TO BE OPERATIONAL? Wouldn’t it be easier to fix the foundation budget and give Springfield the money it needs to educate its children?
How are existing charter schools working out in Springfield? This is a story in itself. Some are so new there is “insufficient data” on their performance. That includes: Baystate Academy Charter Public School 6-12; Phoenix Academy Public Charter High School, Springfield 9-12; UP Academy Charter School of Springfield 6-8; and Veritas Preparatory Charter School 5-8. Notice those schools start at Grades 5 or 6 or 9. What’s going on with the other charter schools in that city specifically the ones serving lower grades? If you do an internet search, “mass dese charter school fact sheet” then you’ll uncover an interesting untold story. Springfield already has three charter schools starting with kindergarten: Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School of Excellence K-05; Sabis International Charter School K-12; and Springfield Preparatory Charter School K-08. Two of those charter schools are on probation and the third, Springfield Preparatory Charter, even though approved for K-08 opened in 2015 with 54 students in kindergarten and another 54 students in 1st grade so it will take quite a few years before grade 8 is filled with any students. That means as far as Springfield and its charter schools are concerned, they’re expanding like crazy even though all of the charter schools in operation are either too new to evaluate or on probation. How can more charter schools be approved for Springfield under those circumstances? Shouldn’t there be a positive track record for charter schools in a community before adding more charter schools? Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to address whatever shortcomings there are in the public school system rather than approving charter schools and waiting years and years and years for the grades to fill up?
The only reason more charter schools keep getting approved in Massachusetts is because their approval is tied to much-needed funding to the local public school systems. If charter schools were considered on their own merits…then all their shortcomings and failures would come into focus. That’s something at all costs charter school proponents want to avoid. Whatever it takes…always tie the charter school debate to more funding for local public school districts. Paul Reville’s commentary proved that point very clearly.
What’s going on at so-called “high-performing” charter schools? The Brooke Roslindale, Brooke Mattapan, and Brooke East Boston Charter Schools requested and received approval to consolidate existing charters, expand the grades served to include high school, and expand maximum enrollment. How do these charter schools handle empty seats? This is directly from the expansion application: “Currently, all three Brooke campuses “backfill” students through 4th grade. If this amendment were to be approved, Brooke would be required under the existing statute to backfill through 6th grade. We are proposing under this request to backfill students through 8th grade in order to expand access to Boston and Chelsea families in higher grades. Doing so requires that we ask for nearly the maximum number of seats currently available for distribution in Boston. Were the seats available, we would propose backfilling through 10th grade.” What if public schools didn’t take new students after the 4th grade or the 6th grade or the 8th grade or the 10th grade? Why was this fact totally ignored by reporters while Brooke Charter Schools expansion plans were being considered and then approved?