Backers Seek End to Charter School Cap (Boston Globe)

Ballot item wider than Patrick’s plan

By James Vaznis, Globe Staff  |  August 5, 2009

The number of charter schools in Massachusetts could increase without limit under a ballot question that proponents will file today, putting a reticent Legislature on notice that inaction on expansion proposals could place the issue in voters’ hands.

Charter school supporters intend to file the necessary paperwork by today’s deadline to officially launch the effort to repeal the state-imposed cap, which has left more than 20,000 students on waiting lists for available slots.

The ballot question, if it meets legal criteria and gains the necessary signatures, would go before voters in the next statewide election in November 2010.

The language goes much further than legislation filed last month by Governor Deval Patrick, who proposed doubling the number of charter school seats in only the school districts with the lowest MCAS scores.

Although charter supporters embrace many aspects of the governor’s proposal, they are worried that his bill will die in the Legislature due to lingering concerns that charter schools - public schools that are often touted as laboratories of innovation - draw too much money from traditional public schools.

Several legislators have indicated they will resist an expansion in the number of charter schools until the state overhauls the charter school funding formula.

The ballot initiative process, while lengthy and arduous, has frequently allowed voters to make fundamental changes in state law. Most recently, voters approved the end of dog racing at the state’s tracks and legalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Earlier this decade, they voted to end bilingual education.

Other voter-approved initiatives, such as public financing of political campaigns and a rollback of the state income tax, have been partially or completely ignored by the Legislature.

Charter school supporters characterized the new initiative as a last resort to prod the Legislature into lifting the state cap and vowed to drop the effort if the Legislature approves the governor’s bill.

“It’s time for the Legislature to act, and, if they can’t, it’s time for the people to decide,’’ said James Peyser, a former chairman of the state Board of Education who is cochairing the ballot initiative campaign.

In a statement, Representative Martha Walz, cochairwoman of the Joint Committee on Education, did not directly address the ballot initiative, but stressed the need for all parties to work together on a complex policy question.

’’The Education Committee is actively reviewing numerous proposals to expand the number of charter schools,’’ she wrote in an e-mail. “We are also evaluating the financial implications of the proposals.’’

Created under the state’s 1993 Education Reform Act, charter schools were designed to foster cutting-edge teaching techniques that could eventually be transferred to mainstream public schools. Charter schools operate under fewer regulatory restrictions, and nearly all run independently of school districts. Most do not have teacher unions.

While many of the state’s 62 charter schools boast high MCAS scores and college entrance rates, the model has been embroiled in controversy over funding. Every time students leave a local district for a charter, they take with them several thousands of dollars in state aid, which is allotted on a per-student basis. The loss is a painful pinch for local districts, particularly in tough economic times. Boston, for instance, expects to lose about $50 million next year.

Earlier this year, Patrick proposed changes to the funding formula as part of a modest expansion of charter schools that would have benefited local districts. But charter school proponents balked, and the proposal went nowhere in the Legislature. In his latest proposal, Patrick does not address funding.

Momentum has been growing for more charter schools, spurred in part by President Obama’s threat of not sending additional federal stimulus dollars for education to states that restrict charter school growth.

That helped persuade Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston, a longtime charter school opponent, to file legislation this summer that would allow local school districts to open new, district-run charter schools and control the state aid sent to those schools.

Several cities - including Boston, Cambridge, Springfield, and Lawrence - have hit or are about to reach the maximum number of charter schools.

“With 23,000 kids on a waiting list, it’s time to allow charters to expand and provide opportunities to more kids and give parents additional choices,’’ said Dominic Slowey, a petition signer who also is a spokesman for the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association.

Charter supporters are filing two versions of the ballot question. Their preference is to pursue one that, in addition to eliminating a cap, would preserve the current funding formula for charter schools. They are unsure, however, if the funding language meets legal muster, so they filed a second version without it.

To gain a spot on the 2010 ballot, a question must first be deemed constitutional by the attorney general and then gain signatures from 66,593 registered voters, or 3 percent of the number who voted in the last governor’s race, by Dec. 2.

Both proposed questions would eliminate three provisions that limit the total number of charters statewide to 120, restrict charter enrollment to no more than 4 percent of the total statewide public school enrollment, and dictate that no more than 9 percent of a school district’s net spending can be dedicated to charter schools.

Among those leading the ballot initiative effort are former lieutenant governor Evelyn Murphy; William Edgerly, former head of State Street Bank; and Kevin Andrews, president of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association and headmaster of the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester.

Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said he is worried that a proliferation of charter schools will not leave enough money to teach the children left in the districts.

Many of those students, he said, have the severest education needs and, unlike students in charter schools, often do not have a parent advocating on their behalf.