Does Massachusetts need more charter schools? Are charter schools truly public or a taxpayer-funded enclave for the elite? Do kids in failing districts have time to wait for their schools to improve?
And, significantly, can already struggling traditional schools afford to lose students — and the public dollars that follow them out the door?
Question 2 — the Massachusetts Authorization of Additional Charter Schools and Charter School Expansion Initiative — asks voters to grapple with these questions.
The ballot referendum would clear the way for 12 new charter school opportunities in the state each year. The proposed law would allow up to a dozen new schools, enrollment expansions at existing schools — or a combination of the two.
If the number of applicants exceeds 12, priority would go to applicants in districts where the need for alternative schools is strongest.
For charter school advocates, the question is a no-brainer. Children in failing school districts should have another choice, argues Marc Kenen, executive director of the Massachusetts Public Charter School Association. He and other supporters argue that childhood is short and kids and parents don’t have time to wait for districts to improve.
“Economic inequality comes from education inequality,” Kenen said at a recent charter school forum at which charter school opponents said Massachusetts has a top-ranked system of traditional public schools. “It’s not acceptable to have the best system in the world and leave so many children behind.”
But supporters of traditional public schools fear the referendum will drain already underfunded school budgets. Massachusetts Teachers Association President Barbara Madeloni said lifting the cap on charter schools would have dire consequences.
“The question is absolutely contrary to the goals of public education, which is to create an opportunity for a full, diverse community to learn together and be able to enter the world and continue to grow our democracy,” Madeloni said.
The ballot referendum would allow the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to approve 12 new or expanded schools anywhere in the state each year. At the same time, the proposed law says charter school enrollment statewide cannot increase by more than 1 percent of the overall public school population each year.
In Massachusetts, charter schools are funded by tax dollars just as traditional public schools are. But there are key differences: Charters are governed by a self-selected board of directors rather than an elected school committee, and they have the freedom to hire non-certified teachers. Charter schools may forgo teacher unions and offer specialized curricula like languages and arts.
However, the schools are still accountable to Massachusetts educational departments, and students still take standardized tests like the MCAS.
As it stands, 120 charter schools are allowed in Massachusetts, according to the Massachusetts Department of Education. With 78 active charter schools in the state, some see no reason to lift the cap.
But that’s not the only limit, notes Kenen. The current cap allows no given district to spend more than 18 percent of its budget to send students to charter schools, a limit that has been reached in places like Boston, Fall River and Holyoke. Additionally, Lowell, Springfield and Chelsea are coming close to the cap.
There are four charter schools across Hampshire and Franklin Counties. Hilltown Cooperative Charter Public School in Easthampton; Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley; Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School in South Hadley; and Four Rivers Charter Public School in Greenfield. All together, 1,270 children enrolled in those charter schools in the 2015-16 school year.
The limit on the number of students attending charter schools has not been reached in Hampshire and Franklin county school districts. For that reason, Chinese immersion school Executive Director Richard Alcorn said the ballot question would not impact an expansion request his school has made to the state. The school has requested to expand its student population from the existing 472 to 1,144.
“The ballot question doesn’t impact our plans because the communities we would draw from for our expansion are not at the cap,” Alcorn said via email. “The issue central to the ballot question is whether to allow charter school growth in low-performing districts, which tend to fall in the state’s urban centers and also tend to have waitlists for their existing charter schools.”
Unlike urban charter schools that accept students from a two-to-three-mile radius, Alcorn said his school draws students from 39 cities and towns in the region.
“Students principally come because we offer a unique curriculum, not because of any failings in the local schools,” Alcorn said.
Statewide, the demand is strong for more charter school slots. More than 32,600 children are on charter school waitlists across the state. Demand in the Pioneer Valley is relatively low compared to other regions. There are as few as 86 children on the waitlist for Four Rivers, and as many as 343 students waiting for a spot at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts school. There are 274 children on the waitlist for Hilltown Cooperative and 116 on the waitlist for the Chinese immersion school.
In urban areas like Boston and Springfield, the waitlists tell a different story. There are 2,775 kids on the waitlist for Sabis International Charter School in Springfield. Another 2,414 children are on the waitlist for the Brooke Charter School, which operates in Boston, Roslindale and Mattapan.
Because the waitlists are so long in urban areas, Kenen asked voters in suburban and rural areas to vote to help urban residents whose kids are stuck in underperforming schools.
“The needs of these families in our urban school districts are paramount,” Kenen said at the forum. “I hope all of you would care enough about what’s happening outside of Amherst, outside of western Mass., to take a stand and vote.”
And, according to Kenen, even the proposed referendum could not satisfy that demand.
If the question passes, priority would be given to schools in districts where student performance on statewide tests is in the bottom 25 percent of all districts in the past two years. If the board received more than 12 applications for new schools or existing school expansions, it would also give preference to where parent demand is the highest.
Current state charter school laws allow for a higher charter school cap in school districts ranked in the bottom 10 percent of the state, based on student performance scores.
According to a Department of Elementary and Secondary Education report, Springfield ranks second on the list of lowest 10 percent district rankings, after Chelsea. Holyoke is fourth on the list, and Greenfield is 22nd on the list. No Hampshire County towns are in the bottom 10 percent.
According to state education department spokeswoman Jackie Reis, a list of the bottom 25 percent of school districts in the state will not be calculated unless the referendum passes.
The charter school debate centers on financial questions as well as educational ones. When children leave a traditional public school to attend a charter school, the money follows them in the form of charter school tuition.
The tuition figure — usually between $10,000 and $20,000 — is calculated using per-pupil expenditures and varies by school district. The Amherst school district sent $18,788 per student to the Chinese immersion school last year, while Holyoke sent $9,870 per pupil, according to Alcorn.
“We have used $13,500 as an estimate for our average per-student tuition. We don’t yet have final numbers for this year. We try to be conservative,” Alcorn said.
A review of the state’s foundation budget shows that public schools are already underfunded by the state. The Foundation Budget Review Commission determined the gap between the foundation budget and actual district spending on special education and healthcare costs to be as high as $2.1 billion combined.
According to Madeloni, more charter schools would impose another burden on traditional districts. Leaders of small, rural schools say it would hit them particularly hard.
“One, charter schools are already taking $450 million away from public schools every year,” Madeloni said. “And those schools are already underfunded by a billion dollars.”
In Northampton, 200 kids left the public school district for charter schools this year, taking more than $2 million in public funding with them. That’s higher than the budget for the city’s three elementary schools, which serve some 300 students.
Under state law, Northampton and other districts are eligible for charter reimbursement based on the number of students who leave the district. However, says Mayor David J. Narkewicz, that reimbursement formula has not been fully-funded by the state government.
“The result is that Northampton and other cities and towns have not received the full amount of reimbursement that the formula dictates,” Narkewicz said in an email.
In 2016, the city received $102,456 less than expected. The city expected $374,553 and received $272,097.
In 2015, the reimbursement program was underfunded by $108,166 and in 2014 it was underfunded by $133,423. The data for the current fiscal year are not updated, Narkewicz said.
According to Reis, the reimbursement rate for public schools is 9 percent statewide. However, schools in lowest-performing districts can receive up to 18 percent in reimbursement funding, based on a reimbursement formula.
At the same time, though, Northampton and some other communities close the financial gap by filling classrooms with students from other districts who “choice in.” (See related story.)
Though the debate around charter schools focuses on public funds, both sides of the argument have built up war chests of private cash to support their causes. Combined, campaign donations for and against lifting the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts total more than $32 million.
The main group lobbying against lifting the cap, Save Our Public Schools, has raised more than $11.6 million. Top donors include more than $4 million from the Massachusetts Teachers Association and $3 million from the National Education Association Ballot Measure/Legislative Crisis Fund.
Funding in support of Question 2 is nearly double that number. Donations stood at $20.5 million as of Oct. 31, which is the most recent campaign finance filing period.
According to the Associated Press, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg contributed $240,000; Jim Walton, the son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, contributed $1.1 million; and Alice Walton, the daughter of Sam Walton, contributed $704,000 in support of Question 2.
For Lorraine Barrack, 83, of Florence, the donations seem fishy. Barrack is a grandmother, and all the children in her family have gone to public schools.
“I think they want to privatize education and make it another business,” Barrack said in an interview. “Do you really think the people who spent millions on sabotaging public schools really care about the kids in western Mass.?”
In Massachusetts, charter schools are public institutions; they are not allowed to be run by private entities. According to a charter school question-and-answer report released by the Massachusetts Department of Education in May 2015, “any group or entity may apply for a public school charter, with the exception of for-profit companies and private/parochial schools.”
Although a for-profit company may not hold a charter, it may manage a charter school, according to the report. The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education must approve all contracts between charter school boards of trustees and for-profit education management organizations.
Kenen argued at the forum last week that outside donations are a way to “level the playing field.” To compete on a ballot question, the campaign had to build bridges with groups it does not always agree with, Kenen said. He added he would have preferred the cap be raised through the Legislature.
“There was no choice left. If we wanted to be able to help these families, we had to go to a referendum,” Kenen said. “There’s no money to be made from charter schools. The heir of Wal-Mart is not looking to make any more money from charter schools.”
Regardless, Barrack said she will vote no on Question 2 because she supports traditional public school teachers. Until she sees empirical evidence that charter schools consistently outperform public schools in her neck of the woods, she’s unconvinced the state needs more of them.
According to data from the Massachusetts Department of Education, area charter schools trend a bit higher than traditional public school districts on student performance. Schools are ranked on a “report card” system based on Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) testing. Levels range from one to five, with one being the best.
Hilltown Cooperative, Four Rivers and Pioneer Valley Performing Arts were ranked as level two schools in 2015, meaning the schools meet educational requirements but are not meeting gap-narrowing goals set by the state based on student performance on MCAS standardized tests. The Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter school was ranked as a level one school last year.
Northampton Public Schools received a level three ranking in 2015, meaning the district needs intervention to bring student performance up to par with level one and two schools. Easthampton was ranked a level three district in 2015, and Greenfield was ranked a level two district that year.
Megan Rubiner Zinn, who wrote a letter to the Gazette last month addressing Question 2, agreed the state does not need more charter schools.
“While I wish the charter funding formula would change to be less punitive to local public schools, and I wish fewer parents would automatically dismiss their local public schools, I recognize that the existing charter schools are here to stay,” Zinn wrote. “However, lifting the cap on charters would be a disaster, spreading the limited resources exponentially further. We have more than enough schools in Massachusetts. Rather than add more, let’s ensure the health of those that already exist.”
But Julia Mejia, a panelist at a charter school forum held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst last week, said she’s tired of waiting. As the mother of three children at the Brooke Charter School in Boston, she believes adequate education is necessary now.
“Who is protecting our kids?” Mejia said. “I have to push back on this fight. While I believe in teachers and I believe in unions, public traditional schools public are not serving public as they should.”
Gazette correspondent Stephanie Murray can be reached at stephaniemurr@umass.edu.