Good morning BMGers.
I posted something on my Facebook page yesterday about the proposed charter cap lift on the ballot, and it generated some predictable vitriol (I’ll be sad on the day that questions involving the future of children don’t produce passionate arguments on all sides.), but it also generated a great number of questions from people who are genuinely confused about the issue. This makes sense, because it’s not really a question that argues opposite sides of an issue, but rather a complex issue with a lot of nuance. I think we can all agree to start with the premise that parents want what’s best for their kids, and everyone believes that all children should have access to a quality public education.
I haven’t seen an abundance of talk here about the issue, so I wanted to share a few items that might be of interest.
The CFO and Budget Director of Boston analyzed the fiscal impact of the proposed cap lift, and you can read it here if you are interested. It’s dense, but understandable, and I think people are finding it helpful as they hone in on their decision.
I am also linking here to Mayor Walsh’s op-ed on the issue. As has been well documented, he is in favor of a responsible cap lift, but this isn’t that.
And last, here is a well reasoned opinion piece in Commonwealth by Boston School Committee member Michael Loconto, who is also a BPS parent. As he eloquently puts it, it’s not anti-charter to oppose lifting the cap in the way this ballot question proposes.
Thank you for all of your advocacy and activism.
Joyce
As with many things, follow the money. WHY are so many members of the .1%, the super rich, the rentier class behind charter schools? Their kids don’t even go to public schools.
Why are the Billionaire Sacklers from Connecticut, pressing for charter schools?
Why are ANY of these people behind this?
I a word: MONEY
Rent Seeking is the new King of Capitalism in the USA.
Screw research to cure any illness, buy the rights to the Epipen and your fortune is in the bag.
Or, in this case, own the schools, buildings, laborers and on and on that one rents to the public, in the form of charter schools, and the flow of wealth is steady, recession proof, and helps build ones family dynasty.
about the issue is the fact that it degenerates to a pro-charter school, anti-charter school discussion. The real question is unlimited charter schools or not. As it is, we can add 40 more charter schools in the state without worrying about raising the cap.
JTM is completely right about the people pushing this question. They are all hedge fund managers and assorted billionaires. In part, I think they want to recreate the world in their own image, but there’s no denying the desire to commercialize, profitize, and corporatize public education. The tide, I think, is turning in the public’s direction, but the war will not abate with this battle.
Early voted NO on Q2 this morning.
…about the size of the cap raise.
As Mark says, we could add 40 schools tomorrow and they would fit under the existing cap. So why a potential 12 more per year?
Is this related to the administration’s new charter funding under ESSA? Is that why there is is a push to potentially authorize so many more when we haven’t reached the existing cap, to qualify for the Federal funds?
And BTW – the fact that we haven’t reached our existing cap after all these years tells me that the state doesn’t certify schools willy-nilly, and the scare rhetoric about evil foreign potentates suddenly swarming into the state is exactly that – rhetoric.
There are a number of restrictions about where charter schools may open, based on district standardized test scores and community size. There is room for 40 more charter schools, but in places that are not profitable for the charter industry. This is independent of ESSA.
Wall Street wants to blow up that management so they can open charters in potentially lucrative areas, rather than places that won’t return a high enough profit. That include UAE-based SABIS, Gullen-managed Phoenix, and other corporations. I remember when Republicans didn’t like adding to the trade deficit…
The state will refuse perhaps one charter per year, though DESE honchos not that long were caught emailing about the need to keep opening charter to appease the Globe and other “moderate allies”.
approving charter schools than other states, some of which have multiple approval organizations. Don’t know if that means counties or what. Charters are now a certified disaster in Ohio, California, and Texas.
They try to lift the cap every March. I usually post on it. EduShyster does a more professional job and posts on it, which usually gives me the impetus to post here.
As I see it, there are charter schools and the charter school movement. The performing arts school in South Hadley or the Chinese Immersion school in Hadley were/are labors of love, not profit. (I don’t know where they stand on Question 2). The movement is a highly capitalized, astroturf-based movement to profitize education. They have put on a patently dishonest campaign to life the cap.
I was afraid the MTA overstepped by rejecting the senate bill, but I think they were right. One hundred and ninety-eight school committees have so far signed on against the question. It will probably exceed 200 by the time we vote. If the NO forces win, it will be because of MTA leadership and public schools saying they’ve had enough.
Mark, let me give you some (VERY rough) figures about the regional school system I live in. Minimum budget for the region is $36,706,257. My town’s share is $16,670,663. Ch. 70 for the entire region is $6,872,539 – about 18% of the school budget. The other day on another thread, I asked you if you thought it was fair that some towns get over 90% and a few at times over 100% of their school budget from the state. You replied that it was, because it was for the children. Well, to those of us not in a favored community, a charter doesn’t look too bad – it is local, our own tax money remains in the community, and frankly, the education establishment in Boston wrote us off 20 years ago when they created the Ed formula.
Which is why we ought to fix the formula. The charter fight is an unneeded distraction from the fact that the funding formula is grossly inequitable and out of date and has to be updated. Communities with less school funding would be less attracted or susceptible to charter expansion if they received more funding under a revised formula. Communities with existing charters would feel that pressure relieved if the charters were governed from a separate pool of regional funds like vocational school districts are.
This issue will persist whether we vote Yes or No on 2, in fact, voting Yes on 2 will likely exacerbate it even further. I would argue charter proponents should advocate fixing the funding first before asking for more.
…who represented Cape Cod couldn’t get the mandatory formula review done when she was Senate President, I am not optimistic. And why should charter proponents especially advocate for this? Isn’t that the job of charter OPPONENTS who are insisting on the status quo? Charters at least offer us an option for our underfunded schools by letting the money we are spending anyway be used in a more local way.
You can tell when someone is asking questions as a sneaky way of arguing rather than to learn, when they keep shifting the subject of their questions until they get the answers they want.
I’m sure you will find a rationale for your pro-Baker privatize-it-all agenda no matter what the facts.