The debate over charter school expansion in Massachusetts

BOSTON — There are four questions on the ballot in Massachusetts this November, and one of them, Question 2, would lift the cap on charter schools.

FOX25 Political Reporter Sharman Sacchetti is taking a look at both sides, for and against.

Currently, there are 78 charter schools in Massachusetts, but if voters approve the expanded cap it would allow up to 12 more to open per year.

Big labor and unions have lined up against it, while business leaders and some big businesses are making donations in favor of it.

Pro-charter school expansion

FOX25 spoke with former State Representative and Education Committee Chairman Marty Walz.

Walz said she believes charter schools are offering a chance at an education for children and that some public schools aren't doing that.

“There are thousands of children stuck in underperforming urban schools in Massachusetts that are desperate to get a better education,” she said. “Charter schools have an extraordinary record of educating low income and minority kids in our cities. Parents are desperate to get those kids a better education.”

Walz said that record of a better education is a key component for her support.

“The real answer to charter school growth is doing a better job educating kids inside our school districts. The reason there's demand for charter schools in our cities is because our urban districts are not doing a great job educating all children, this has been going on for generations,” she said.

Opponents blame the rise of charter schools for the tightening of education budgets, but Walz said that simply isn’t true.

“Budgets are under strain because of special education costs, salaries, and the cost of health insurance and declining enrollment, not because of charter school tuition.

It's easy for a school committee to try to blame charter schools when it's hard to balance your budget, but the facts show that charter school tuition is not the reason suburban budgets are being challenged,” she said.

Anti-charter school expansion

FOX25 also spoke with Juan Cofield, the head of Save Our Public Schools, a group of education, parent and community members opposed to lifting the cap, and the NAACP.

Cofield said he believes charter schools create a dual system he says is unequal. He also said they drain money from public schools, while the answer is to put that money and effort toward improving public schools.

“What the lifting of the cap would do would further a dual school system. Dual school system, as we learned from the brown decision in 1954 is inherently unequal,” he said.

Sacchetti: Why shouldn't people, why shouldn't parents have the option to move their child to a charter?
Cofield: That question suggests that charter schools are not failing and that's just not true.

He also spoke about the impact unions have.

“It’s not a union problem. It is a failing of those who have a responsibility for educating the kids at the local level, some of them are not doing their job, parents need to step and make a better contribution,” he said. “This is a failure on leadership in those communities that allow their school to fail and they're really hurting the students at those public schools.”

Walz told FOX25 she believes the biggest misconception about charter schools is that they're not public. They are open to all children but there is a lottery.

Cofield said taking more money away from public schools will cause them to get worse, and he says most children would not benefit from that kind of a system.

Cox Media Group