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

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[veek.livejournal.com]

Irrelevant. The comment (as I read it, anyway) was about the completeness and/or usefulness of the content in your post. As it originally stood, it wasn't useful at all -- so you got a bunch of grumpy reactions, which is par for the course in a forum like this. Thank you for editing your post to include actual information.

[veek.livejournal.com]

Not everyone is on Facebook, though. :)

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

"par for the course"? We can do better, let's set the bar higher!

[kelkyag]

Could you, perhaps, copy over the links referenced in those entries?

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

no it is not restricted to Somerville, but will probably draw most from Somerville.

Medford is taking it seriously: http://www.wickedlocal.com/medford/topstories/x1626870826/Medford-School-Committee-opposes-new-Somerville-charter-school#axzz1funQHBl2

Jamilla Xible (sp?) a leading founder of the charter school group used to live in Somerville, but moved to Lexington. I guess she left the old address on the document which is a bit misleading, but an understandable mistake.

[veek.livejournal.com]

Agreed! Let's have everyone learn what level of information it takes to have a post be useful to a large (nearly 2000 people!) community of people reading a forum!

(It is not the level of information you initially provided. It IS, however, the level of information you proceeded to add.)

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

OK. Let me get this straight: This is a school that is public. A public school that takes all-comers provides a lower quality education, takes more tax dollars to support. A Charter School will alleviate a portion of that burden - and I'm surprised that it's in the charter that special education students are not allowed. MVRCS in my community has a comprehensive special education programme, as do most other charters. But...OK. So this one says that all students currently in the public school with special needs will remain in the public school they're in as they're ineligible. So, the public school district isn't gaining special needs students. It's simply not losing any to the charter school. This school doesn't presently exist. And charter schools, BTW, get separate funding from the state and also are allowed to maintain their own funds for operations, funds not taken from the public school district at large. The MVRCS has a rather large real-estate portfolio and a few million dollars at its disposal as a result of wise investment. Therefore, the tax payers in the communities that support the school don't have to divert funds from the public district budget...but then again, parents don't have to worry about paying tuition for a quality education.

Your argument is ridiculous in the face of the reality of charter schools.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

Charter schools rarely draw tax money away from the district. See my response above and bear in mind that the state has a separate fund for charters.

[ron_newman]

Both sides of the debate agree that the charter will take money away from the rest of the public schools starting in Year 2. They don't agree on the extent of this financial impact.

[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.

Not sure why the name calling, but...

[masswich.livejournal.com]

Actually, the operating funds for charter schools come directly from the city's share of state school funds, and not at a one-for-one level, either. The charter school will get about $13,000 per student from the state while the City gets about $4,000. That $13,000 per student comes directly from the amount the state would have given the Somerville Public Schools, and though the SPS no longer has to educate that student, it loses the additional share of funds (somewhere in the $9,000 per student range) amount as well.

I also did not say all special education students will be turned away, but there is a portion of them that can and probably will be, mostly the ones requiring the most expensive services.

As for the term ridiculous, I am not sure why you need to be so nasty.

[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?

Re: Not sure why the name calling, but...

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

As for the term ridiculous, I am not sure why you need to be so nasty. It wasn't intended to be nasty and I'm sorry it was perceived that way.

I live in a community that's torn over its own Charter School and constantly arguing. Both sides usually don't have the facts straight and I don't believe that your fiscal assessment here is entirely accurate either, but it's gotten to a point with me where I'm so tired of hearing it. It seems like it comes down to: We don't like the idea of a quality, free education for the kids that can get in if we can't get the same. Start another Charter School then! Not all kids thrive there either. I have a few friends who pulled their kids from the MVRCS and they're doing better in traditional public schools.

And frankly, it pisses me off that the choice people against Charters would rather leave everyone with is: 18,000 USD private school tuition for Kindergarten, parochial education, or generally sub-par public education. I support charters because they do provide a better learning environment for no cost and because the fiscal impact on the communitys school district has been virtually non-existent wherever you look.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

They will also take students away from the remaining public schools.

Re: Not sure why the name calling, but...

[masswich.livejournal.com]

But I feel that my kids are getting a reasonably good education in our local public school, as do many of my friends. Why should my school lose money because someone else doesn't agree with me? I would be fine with charter schools if they only took their fair share of state funding, on a per student basis. But they don't, they take money from my kid's education. And that bothers me.

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

Actually it is more expensive to educate a child in a charter school because they have to pay for the facility with the education dollars receive from the state.

Charter schools typically pay teachers less because they are not required to hire unionized teachers.

In Somerville the PHA Charter schools testing scores are not better than the Public Schools.

Charter schools per se are not a bad thing, they have their place. But this particular proposal will not be a good thing for Somerville.

I suggest your read the NYT article...it really open my eyes. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/opinion/why-school-choice-fails.html?_r=3

Re: Not sure why the name calling, but...

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

Actually there is no evidence that charter schools provide a better learning environment, or perform better than public schools.

There IS evidence that public schools suffer when a charter school is opened, and "creams" off the higher income, engaged families. The kids that need help the most help, low income, language challenges, and unengaged parents don't even get a chance because the families are often not even aware of the charter school option.

There is something called a "Horace Mann Charter" which is a charter school that is part of the existing school district. I think this might be a really good option to consider for Somerville.

[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.

Re: Not sure why the name calling, but...

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that you feel like SPS is doing well by your kids, however, it's clearly failing many (http://www.boston.com/news/special/education/mcas/scores11/10th_top_districts.htm) (you'll have to scroll down quite a ways to find Somerville). There are quite a few charter schools near the top of that list, and not all in tony suburbs.

[turil.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying anything about changing the amount of money going to schools!

I'm just saying that the allocation of funds should be at least somewhat under the control of the families using the schools. If a superintendent doesn't even want to work with the families on meeting their needs better, then it's time to either get rid of that superintendent, or to allow the parents to create their own programs, redirecting the money, proportionately, to the new programs based on how many students choose them. If Somerville has choice in schools (which they do) then this is entirely fair for everyone.

(As for actual amounts of funds schools get, I think they need a whole lot less than they are getting, though, because most of what they do is hugely wasteful! I went to public schools, all over New England, and they all were crappy. Even the ones in very wealthy areas. But that's a whole other ball of wax! Or, give them the same amount or more but get rid of all the laws, union rules, and anti-student politics that get in the way of students being able to learn what they want and need to learn in the ways that work best for them, rather than what some random politician believes they should do it. :-)

[klauspood.livejournal.com]

The Somerville school system is not "failing that many families". If you are referring to the MCAS test scores, this has more to do with the demographics in Somerville. Over 50% of the kids in the schools are ELLs, meaning that English is not there first language. That drags down the scores. Compared to other cities with a significant percentage of non English speakers, Somerville does quite well.

Why do you think that it is rarely possible to improve the schools. The Somerville Schools have improved dramatically in the last quarter century, and this trajectory continues. We are on of the only cities that have a publicly sponsored PreK program, which is vey effective. And the Somerville High School is quite good.

Regarding your last comment, there is already plenty of empty space in Somerville for the kind of things you list. There plenty of room left at the Ames building, and I am sure the city would be interested in your ideas for the now empty Powder House school. Your willingness to let a vital entity like a public school die so that the carcass can be carved up for other uses is quite disturbing.

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.