Dangle $5 billion in the air and people pay attention.
Gov. Deval Patrick shook up the state’s education landscape today with the announcement that he’s filing legislation to double the number of charter school seats in Massachusetts, a dramatic turnaround from his longstanding opposition to allowing more charter schools in the state.
The move comes as Massachusetts prepares to compete for nearly $5 billion in federal education aid that will be made available to states that make way for more charter schools and embrace other innovations designed to address the achievement gap that has many minority and poorer students trailing far behind their white and more affluent counterparts. After today’s announcement, which Patrick made at the Museum of Science in Boston with US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at his side, the governor was asked whether the federal dollars prompted the change in his charter stance. “I love the president and I love this administration, but I make up my own mind,” Patrick said, convincing few in the room.
Duncan’s office has not yet issued formal guidelines for eligibility for the federal “Race to the Top” fund, but the education secretary has made it clear that openness to more charter schools will be part of what’s expected from states. “This is a significant step in the right direction,” Duncan said of the Patrick administration proposal after the event.
The big question now is whether the Legislature will agree that charter-school expansion is a step in a right direction.The Massachusetts Teachers Association, the state’s biggest teachers union, wasted no time in declaring its opposition to the plan. Will lawmakers feel enough pressure to approve the plan if failure to do so risks millions in federal aid?
Marty Walz, House chairwoman of the Education Committee, told the Boston Globe that she wants to explore how charter schools are funded in other states to see whether there might be a way to add more charters here with less of a hit to the budget of local school districts. If she can pull that off, she’ll ace a math and politics test at the same time.
