The Davis Square Community

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.

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Not everyone is on Facebook, though. :)

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Thanks.

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

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kelkyag

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

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. :-)

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