Proposed new charter school

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

There is a proposal for a new charter school in Somerville. The state (DESE) will be reviewing the application for the next few weeks and will possibly grant the charter on February 28th. If granted this charter school will undermine the existing Somerville Public Schools by reducing school funding by nearly $5 million a year, which is almost 10% of the current school budget. This cut in funding will lead to devastating cuts in public school programs, loss of 60 -75 teachers, and potentially closure of an entire school. This would represent a huge set back for public education in Somerville, setting back much of the progress that has been made in our schools in the last 25 years.

There will be a public hearing by the DESE on this on December 14 2011 at Somerville High School. More info can be found at:

https://sites.google.com/site/progresstogetherforsomerville

http://www.thesomervillenews.com/archives/21168

http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=6532

Comments

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the (maybe) news, but this post is long on alarm and short on detail. What is the name of the charter? Who is proposing it? What stage of approval is it at? If we're concerned about it, who should we speak to?

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

The name of the charter school is the Somerville Progressive Charter School.
They have submitted an application, and it is in the state's decision queue and would open in 2012 if approved. There is a public hearing on it at the Somerville High School, from 4-6pm on December 14th (that is in just under 1 week from now.) The state DESE will accept written feedback (email feedback) until January 3. The state will decide at the end of February.

The funding model for this sort of charter school, as I understand it, is that they draw their entire budget allocation (number of students * per student "tuition"/spending in Somerville) from the state, and based on the number of students they enroll, that money goes to their budget and some of that money is subtracted from the city of Somerville's share of state school funding. (In the first year, the charter school is fully funded and the city funding remains the same, in years 2-5 some transitional money continues to go to the city as well as the charter school, and from year 6 on the city receives as much less state aid as is being given to the charter school. There has been a lot of spinning on both sides and mincing of numbers for what exactly it means (at one point, for example, I read on the SPCS's website that "no money would be lost from the Somerville Public Schools budget _in 2012_ - yay, let's just ignore what happens in the following year!)

A lot more information on how to submit feedback and what else you can do to learn about the situation are posted at Progress Together for Somerville's website (link goes to how you can help/submit feedback, rest of site can be navigated from there): https://sites.google.com/site/progresstogetherforsomerville/i-want-to-help (https://sites.google.com/site/progresstogetherforsomerville/i-want-to-help) (disclaimer: I am a member of Progress Together for Somerville and I oppose this charter application.)

I don't know a lot of facts about the proposers of the school. I understand that most of them have had children in the Somerville Public Schools and were not satisfied with their education, or with the decisions made by the school system (in particular regarding the Healey school and the progressive programs there which now serve all students.) I don't know how many of them have made their names public, where they live now (not all are still in Somerville), where their kids attend school currently, etc. Their website is here:
http://www.thespcs.org/home (http://www.thespcs.org/home)

[veek.livejournal.com]

Can you provide any more details than that? Is it publicly filed somewhere? Who is behind it? Where can we get more information?

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

The application is filed publicly. You can download it here:
http://www.thespcs.org/home/official-documents/SPCS_Final_Application_2011-12.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1 (http://www.thespcs.org/home/official-documents/SPCS_Final_Application_2011-12.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1) It's apparently over 250 pages of fun stuff to read.

You can get more information from the proposers at their website (a href="http://www.thespcs.org/home">http://www.thespcs.org/home, and from the opponents (I'm one of them) at ours: https://sites.google.com/site/progresstogetherforsomerville/ (https://sites.google.com/site/progresstogetherforsomerville/)

[gingicat]

What everyone else said. How is it different from the charter school outside of Union Square?

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

Very. The PHA is a multidistrict charter school, so it does not take as much from any one school district.

This is a proposal for a "Commonwealth Charter" in Somerville, so the costs will be born Somerville Schools.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Are you going for the award for most useless+alarmist post, here, or what?

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

yes, do you think I have a shot at it?

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

thanks, I did not want to load the first post with too much info, so I thought I would add more in a comment. Unfortunately I do not type as fast as everyone responded!

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Those pages are useless to anyone who isn't logged in to Facebook :(

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

There is a proposal for a new charter school in Somerville. The state (DESE) will be reviewing the application for the next few weeks and will possibly grant the charter on February 28th. If granted this charter school will undermine the existing Somerville Public Schools by reducing school funding by nearly $5 million a year, which is almost 10% of the current school budget. This cut in funding will lead to devastating cuts in public school programs, loss of 60 -75 teachers, and potentially closure of an entire school. This would represent a huge set back for public education in Somerville, setting back much of the progress that has been made in our schools in the last 25 years.

Thee will be a public hearing by the DESE on this on December 14 2011 at Somerville High School. More info can be found at:

https://sites.google.com/site/progresstogetherforsomerville

I would encourage folks to attend and support our public school system!

friendly moderator note

[ron_newman]

If you edit your post to say what you just said in this comment, it will be a lot more useful.

Please include the meeting time, which (according to the Progress Together website) is 4 to 6 pm. Not very convenient for most working folks!

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

Yes, as a parent with a child at the Brown School I am very alarmed!

Editorial from the Mayor:

http://www.thesomervillenews.com/archives/21168

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

From the DESE site:

http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=6532

[ron_newman]

This is not a useful post without additional information or links. It doesn't even suggest a course of action for people who may agree with you. May I suggest editing the post to add appropriate links?

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

See my comments. Plenty of info and links there.

Proposed course of action:

check out the links. There is plenty of info there.

If you agree that this is a really bad thing, then attend the hearing and speak your mind, or write to the DESE, Alderman, Mayor, State Senator and Rep, expressing how you feel.

This whole issue just became public a few short weeks ago, and in a few more weeks the state will make a decision. Considering the huge amount of money involved, it is a disturbingly short period of time for the community to process its implications and voice their opinions.

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Disasterous? You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

disasterous

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

dis·as·trous/diˈzastrəs/
Adjective:
Causing great damage.
Highly unsuccessful.

Yup, right word.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

I can't do the whole history of this issue justice, but I can say that for every kid that leaves the Somerville Public Schools for the new charter school, the school system loses far more state aid than should be proportional. The best numbers I have seen to date suggest that the public schools will lose between $2.9 and $5 million a year once a transition period is over.

That leaves behind several thousand students in the public schools with less money to try to achieve better results. Why does the state take resources away from school systems that are challenged? Why not give them more resources instead?

In addition, I have read the charter school proposal (its on their web site, posted below) and I find it very big on acronyms and feel-good statements but short on details. On the other hand, as a consumer of what the state considers a "failing" public school, I see my child thriving.

Some web links

The Somerville Progessive Charter School:

http://www.somervilleprogressivecharterschool.org


Progess Together for Somerville (a group of parents involved in trying to use this crisis to get improvements to the public schools - one part of which is to keep the state from granting this charter this year):

https://sites.google.com/site/progresstogetherforsomerville

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

A Charter School is a public school. It is not private. It is not tuition based.

SMH

[masswich.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, it is a public school in that it is publicly financed. But it is not a public school in the sense of a public school district (which is the term I meant to use above rather than "public school.") For one thing, a true public school district has to take all comers - a charter school has an explicit cap on enrollment and therefore more certainty as to variable costs. In addition, students that require some special education services (not all, but some) are not allowed to enroll in the charter school and instead will be serviced by the public school district, at its expense.

Doesn't seem like a level playing field to me.

[anyee.livejournal.com]

Is this...trolling? If so, it is very interesting. I find your techniques intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[wardv.livejournal.com]

Some of the people behind this proposal do not even live in Somerville. At least one person lives in Lexington.

The charter school proposal is very easy to push for that person: if the charter school is a success, send your own kids there. If not, not to worry: while you've just wrecked Somerville's school system by diverting a large part of its funding to the charter school, you can still send your own kids to Lexington's schools.

There should be a residence requirement for people trying to pull stunts like this.

[ron_newman]

Pages 31-34 of the Somerville Progressive Charter School application list their supporters. Three of them say they live in other communities (Chelsea, Medford, and Cambridge) but most live in Somerville.

Which one lives in Lexington? They checked the 'No' box for the question asking whether they are applying to be a regional charter school, so I think enrollment in this one will be restricted to families living in Somerville.

[turil.livejournal.com]

If the Somerville school system is failing that many families, and the superintendent doesn't even seem to have any interest in changing to meet these families' needs, then the only right thing to do is to grant the charter.

As long as it's not one of those for profit evil things, of course. :-)

Yes, it would be great to fix the schools that already exist, but with local politics that's rarely possible. Independent schools are far easier to change and mold to the needs of the students who go there.

And yes, the mainstream schools will lose funding, but they will also have fewer kids to serve, thus evening things out fairly well. And empty school spaces can be turned into more open ended community spaces that serve the city even more. Creating maker spaces, continuing ed classrooms (there's a huge shortage of public spaces for teaching in Somerville!), and even funky things like Sprout, Parts and Crafts, and perhaps non-profit incubators.

[veek.livejournal.com]

I'll almost have a lot more to say about this in a few years, when my impending kiddo is school-age, but from what I've seen so far, you've basically articulated the entire "how many resources do we need to put toward public schooling" debate. I don't think anyone has come up with a good answer for that one yet.

I *personally* believe that U.S. public schools in general are criminally underfunded, but that's my soapbox about a larger social problem.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I'm interested, but I can't help but feel this is a classic one-sided story as presented. How much of what you say will be lost will actually just be shuffled over to the charter school? Is it that Somerville will lose 60-75 teachers or that somerville will lose 60-75 unionized teachers? Will school funding drop by $5m per year or will funding to unionized schools drop by $5m, while the same amount goes to the charter school? Is the money gone or just reshuffled? Will the charter school serve the same population that the current schools serve or will we be using money from the Somerville school budget on students from other communities? Will the school serve only the best student or will enrollment be open?

I'm not anti-union by any stretch, but this post stinks of exaggeration. If it were as dire as you say, how would it possibly pass? What's the real decision being made here?

Here's a litte more info for balanced reporting. :-)

[turil.livejournal.com]

http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/news/education/x1638750236/Local-parents-proposed-charter-school-for-Somerville#axzz1f1VMqDim

Long story short, the superintendent seems to be totally uninterested in working with the families who want better schools for their kids, and so they decided to get together with a variety of different folks to create a program that serves their more progressive educational needs. The program will ONLY serve Somerville residents, apparently.

[zubatac.livejournal.com]

FYI, Bill Shelton's column in the News seems to cover both sides of the argument fairly well:
http://www.thesomervillenews.com/archives/21276