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

[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.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I don't like the idea of a quality, free education for *some* kids that passes over the kids who need it more - the kids whose parents didn't know about applying, the kids who werent' randomly selected in the lottery, the kids who moved to Somerville in the middle of t he year, the kids who can walk to school and don't have a way to get to the charter school locations. I like the idea of a quality, free education for *all* kids, and if this proposal happens I think it will be a much longer, much more uphill battle to get that for our kids in Somerville. I really think what this proposal has to offer is NOT dramatically idfferent from the quality, free education that is already been offered in our schools - in fact, I believe it is weaker in many of the areas it proposes to be stronger in. The one already offered in our schools is the one I chose, and the one I plan to work hard over the next 18 years for.

I'm not overall against charters, and I think PHA is serving a useful purpose in our community, even though the math hurts our school budget in a similar way. But I don't think our school budget can actually support two charter schools without really hurting the existing elementary schools, and I think there is a way to create more options for kids without this particular charter at this particular time.

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

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Can I ask what community you live in that apparently isn't Somerville and why you care about what goes on here in Davis Square and Somerville?

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

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Yes, this. The funding really works that way. The school district would get $4k from the state for a non-charter school student, and pony up $9k from other city funds. The charter school would get $13K from the state for a charter school student, and the state would give the city $13K less in aid (once the charter school has been around for 6 years. There's a bunch of transitional math that phases it in gradually, in the first 5 years.)

In the the end an elementary school's worth of students is projected to attend teh charter school rather than the public school, so the budget probably can't withstand losing an elementary-school's worth of budget (and then some) without closing an elementary school -- since they can't close a portion of each existing elementary school even if the numbers are just down proportionally throughout the system.

The charter school is a public school.

[turil.livejournal.com]

So the city is just moving money around from schools that aren't serving the kid's needs to ones that are. Thats a good thing.

[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

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

If they're losing students, that means the proportion of special needs students in their schools will rise. Average test scores will then look lower, which drives the more affluent families away from that district, taking their tax dollars with them, so then the schools don't have as much money. It's a vicious cycle. I am not sure that will happen in this case, but it has happened in other districts around the country with charters and I'm wary.

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

Looking at the actual charter, I'm not sure if this school is actually going to reject students with special needs. However, it still will most likely disproportionately pull students with higher test scores, since those will be the children whose parents are pushing them harder to succeed.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Nope, it's right there in their FAQ:

"Like all charter schools, enrollment will be determined by a lottery in early March. Preference will be given to Somerville residents, though all Massachusetts residents may apply. Within each of these larger groups, the lottery will be entirely random with no student receiving any advantage."

Now, I think this is a crock, myself, but if that's the way it's supposed to be run, how the hell is this going to do anything except privilege the lucky few and screw the rest by depriving them of resources?

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

Here's my problem:

1) This will take exactly the same amount of tax dollars.

2) It will not solve the stated problem, which is that the Somerville school system, shockingly, does not do that great on the MCAS. Gee, I wonder if that's the school system, or tied to, say, the fact that not every kid in the system speaks English as a first language, or class size, or any of a number of problems that have been found to be major factors in standardized test performance.

[littlecitynames.livejournal.com]

Wait, where is it in the charter that they won't allow students with special needs? All I see about it is that students with special needs will be expected to graduate on time, unless accommodations are stated in their IEPs.

Somerville schools aren't "true" public schools by your own definition.

[turil.livejournal.com]

They definitely turn kids away. I know two families who wanted to get into the Unidos program but didn't get in, because it was already full. Adding another school to the system would very likely solve this problem.

Re: Somerville schools aren't "true" public schools by your own definition.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

SPS as a whole does not turn away kids. It will, and must, always assign a kid who lives in the school district to a school in the school district, and if that kid needs a particular sort of language learning assistance or special education assistance, it will (and must) provide it.

Adding another option will certainly change the dynamic of how students find schools, but I don't think you can model or predict how it will affect students getting to attend the school they most wanted. Within the district schools, that is differnt each year - did more parents want/need programs at Kennedy and a school with a swimming pool? A growing Union Square neighborhood school at Argenziano? A progressive program at Healey with mixed-age groups, looping, and a strong emphasis on creativity? A small old-fashioned brick school building with traditional education at Brown? A walking-distance school serving East Somerville? West Somerville? Winter Hill? etc? Some schools are consistently oversubscribed and hold a lottery, some vary every year. But any child who needs ELL education will be provided it, even if they don't get Unidos. And I will reiterate that I don't think that the language program in the charter proposal is anything like the bilingual program at Unidos.

It's not really adding another school to the "system" - it would be dding a separate admissions/lottery process open to residents of the same town, not adding an option (as in, rank your programs out of 7 choices - now you get 8 instead.) Many kids might, to take your example, apply to both UNIDOS and to SPCS, or to both Healey and to SPCS, and get a yes/no placement in SPCS, and then a school that might or might not have been their first choice in SPS, and then both the district and the charter school would have to reshuffle once the family's choice was made.

Also, in terms of adding options - I anticipate that will probably be a zero-sum addition unless a lot of additional funds appear out of the sky - one charter option appears, and one elementary option disappears, once the budget implications level out.

[ron_newman]

It's a public school but it becomes its own little silo separate from the rest of the city's public school system.

If it draws tax money away from the rest of the schools, that can be some cause for concern, especially if the reduced revenue for the rest of the school system requires cuts in programs or curricula.

[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.

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

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

I do believe that this might be the first time you and I totally agree.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Probably for very different reasons, but still, we are definitely both of the same opinion on this issue. :-) Congratulations, or something...

[zubatac.livejournal.com]

Sure. But if you take X% of the students out of a school, the school does not become X% cheaper to operate; there are fixed costs and economies of scale.

If a charter (any charter) takes 400+ students out of the Somerville district (which is their eventual goal), the best-case scenario is that either a school closes and some students have to go further to get to school, or our property tax rates go up. It's not without costs.