Christopher Martell, a professor of social studies education at Boston University, wrote a thoughtful explanation of why he would note NO on Question 2 in November. Question 2 would allow the state to open 12 new charter schools every year forever.
Christopher Martell gives five reasons for his decision.
Here the first three reasons:
“This is not a post about the merits of charter schools. Just like their public school peers, some charter schools provide an excellent education, while others are failing their students. The reality is that charter school students perform equal or worse on standardized tests than their peers in the public schools. In Boston, while charter school students perform better on state standardized tests, their public school peers are more likely to graduate college. Overall, Massachusetts has the nation’s best public education system, which is something we should be very proud of, but also something we must carefully protect.
“Instead, this post is focused specifically on the upcoming Ballot Question 2 in Massachusetts. If this question passes, it would remove the current statewide cap on charter schools and allow up to 12 new Massachusetts charter schools every year. If it does not pass, the state legislature will continue to decide how many new charter schools can open in the future. Considering all of the negative consequences of the ballot question at hand, I am using this post to discuss the five reasons why I will be voting NO on Question 2 during this November’s election.
“1. This ballot question will decrease funding for traditional public schools. Despite the “Yes on 1” campaign’s claims in television commercials that voting yes will result in “more funding for public education,” there is no evidence that this is true, especially since communities continue to receive less state educational aid. Even the ballot question’s most vocal supporter, Governor Charlie Baker has stated that Questions 2 will not change the current school funding formula. Currently, more than $450 million is being drawn from public school districts and with an increase of 12 charter schools per year (which according to this ballot question can happen indefinitely), it could cost local school districts close to $1 billion by the end of the decade.
“While charter schools are approved by the state, their funding comes largely from charter school tuition reimbursements from public school districts (see here, for more on charter school funding). Boston had a $158 million charter school tuition assessment, which was 5% of the entire city budget. If this question passes, it could lead to almost all of Boston’s state education aid being diverted to charter schools. Moreover, there are other costs that local districts incur related to charter schools, including transportation. Last year, Boston spent $12 million on charter school busing, while the district has been dramatically cutting its own students’ transportation (middle school students now use public transportation instead of buses and the school assignment policy was changed so more students would attend schools closer to their homes. Boston charter schools also get first pick of school start times).
“2. This ballot question will contribute to growing educational inequity in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts (and nationwide), there is strong evidence that charter schools do not serve all students. They typically have higher student attrition rates (which some attribute to charter schools “pushing” or consulting out students) than public school districts. They serve smaller numbers of English language learners and special needs students. They are more likely to use “no excuses” discipline procedures that can be harmful to children (to understand what this looks like, consider this in-district charter school in Boston or these two charter schools in New York). They are also contributing to an alarming trend of racial resegregation in schools nationwide. It makes sense to correct these inequities before any major expansion of charter schools occurs in Massachusetts.
“3. This is about privatizing public education. This ballot question is being pushed by well-funded special interest groups (who do not have to reveal their donors and many are from outside Massachusetts with no previous advocacy work for public education), who would like to see more private entities running public schools. Many of these special interest groups are supported by wealthy families (who do not typically have children in the public schools) and investors (who profit from investments in charter school companies and other attempts to privatize public education). If you believe that public education is essential for democracy, then this should raise serious concerns.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dr. Martel presents cogent arguments. His speculation in the 4th argument, that charter schools are quasi-public, warrants re-examination. Based on definition and precedent, set by state supreme court rulings, charter schools are private. (1) “Quasi-public, sometimes meaning they operate like private organizations and are run by a board or some arrangement, where members are appointed by government entities.”
(2) “…at no time shall the assets inure to the benefit of any person or other corporate entity.”
Receiving tax revenue, makes an entity a government contractor, when they have the privileges and rights of a private business. Contract specifications describe required conformance by government contractors.
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My background and position as a high school administrator have led people to ask me about Question 2, the ballot proposal that would allow expansion of Massachusetts charter schools. I have been around public education my entire life. My father was a Superintendent of Schools in Pittsfield, Brockton, and Weston. My husband taught English at Brockton High School for almost 40 years. I was a practicing attorney for 25 years, changed careers, and am now the very proud principal of Falmouth High School, which my own three children have attended. With that as a backdrop, I remain baffled as to how charter schools are considered public schools, and how they can take taxpayer money to run smoke and mirrors operations.
I do not pretend to know all charter schools in the Commonwealth, but I do know the one in Hyannis, Sturgis Charter School, which has garnered not only local, but national recognition as a tip top so-called “public” high school. This is where I get confused. I would like someone to explain how charter schools are “public” schools when the one in my neck of the woods allows for the following:
• None of its teachers are required to be licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) which oversees all of the state’s public schools, and mandates licensure of public school teachers.
• Its teachers are not subjected to the same public school educator evaluation regulations (603 CMR 35.00) that every other public school teacher is bound by (http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=8004).
• Although it claims to admit students by public lottery, it gives applicants priority status if they have a sibling attending the school, it reviews discipline records of applicants before deciding to admit them, and it outright refuses to admit students in grades 11 and 12.
The Sturgis website proudly proclaims that given its lottery admissions process, “All students who wish to attend . . . have an equal chance of getting in.” How is this possible when the enrollment policy clearly states that the number one priority for admission is whether an applicant has a sibling who attends the school? And Sturgis gets to exclude students who want to apply in grades 11 and 12? What other public high school gets to do that? Moreover, despite the statement on its website that Sturgis “is a tuition-free, public high school [see footnote below] that accepts students through public lottery regardless of past academic records,” Sturgis nevertheless exercises discretion to condition admission upon the review of an applicant’s discipline record. That is some lottery. Indeed, I thought “lottery” meant everyone who plays has an equal chance of winning. The Sturgis brand of lottery sure sounds more like a stacked deck than a lottery.
Sturgis is a top “public” high school that is not required to follow any of the hiring, licensing, educator evaluation, and admissions practices required of every other public high school in Massachusetts. And Sturgis is run by a principal, excuse me, an “Executive Director,” who touts the school’s high MCAS scores – why wouldn’t he when the scores are statistically skewed due to cherry-picked students? Indeed, according to the most recently available DESE data, Sturgis has ZERO English Language Learner students, has almost half the number of High Needs and Economically Disadvantaged students as Falmouth High School, and doled out discipline to just 12 students in the 2014-2015 school year.
I am proud of what we do at Falmouth High School, where we have been able to maintain our Level 1 status for several years now without having to resort to elitist and exclusionary admission practices. Falmouth High School students are regularly awarded top prizes in state science, history, math, foreign language, writing, music, and art competitions. We have AP Scholars and National Merit Scholars, and our athletic teams can boast regional, state, and even national titles. Falmouth High School students have been admitted to Harvard, Yale, Brown, Middlebury, Amherst, Wellesley, Smith, MIT, Williams, Columbia, University of Chicago, the Air Force Academy, Northwestern, and a slew of other top tier colleges and universities. According to its own 2015-2016 school profile, from 2002 to 2015, it appears not a single Sturgis graduate had been accepted to Harvard or Yale — http://www.sturgischarterschool.com/documents/ProfileWest.pdf — nor to Williams, Amherst, Wellesley, or Middlebury, the top four liberal arts colleges in the country. In its 2016-2017 school profile, Harvard was finally added to the list — http://www.sturgischarterschool.com/documents/2016ProfileEast.pdf. Nevertheless, hidden deep within the Sturgis website is a veiled warning that colleges do not always look so kindly on the school’s International Baccalaureate Programme (http://www.sturgischarterschool.org/guidance/IBCollege.html). So it runs a “Programme” with two “m’s” and an “e” at the end, that despite its fancy, pretentious sounding name, may hinder a student’s ability to enter a top college? I’d like to see that disclaimer on the website of any real public high school.
But what is most important, most impressive, is that Falmouth High School is a public school where nobody is turned away. Nobody. We don’t have the right to exclude anyone, and we don’t want that right — because we are a public school. We take every child, whatever his status or ability, and still we retain our Level 1 standing and our sense of dignity. This is what real public schools do, all of them. As a taxpayer, I am outraged. As a school administrator, I am angered that not only must we fight for every dollar, but we must fight to keep families from being bamboozled by so-called “public” charter schools. It is nose-on-the-face plain that charter schools are not public schools. Real public schools do not participate in elitist and exclusionary admissions practices that are axiomatically antithetical to the meaning of public education. Go ahead and let charters do what they want, but let’s stop pretending they are public schools, and let’s stop funding them as such. Please vote no on Question 2.
Mary Whalen Gans, J.D., M.Ed.
footnote: Why the need to proclaim that it is a “tuition-free public high school”? What public high school charges tuition? Is it that Sturgis is trying to connote that it’s giving something of great quality that you’d otherwise have to pay for in the private sector? Ridiculous….
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Thanks you for this. I admit, I understood your description much better than the original article’s. I have no idea what a sentence like
Boston had a $158 million charter school tuition assessment, which was 5% of the entire city budget.
mean. Is this $158 million too much, normal, what? Is this the amount that is actually given out to charter schools? What does the 5% mean in relation to public school tuition?
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$158 million is a reduction of funds, intended to support Boston Public School students, based on average per-pupil cost; all while charters admit/retain few
higher cost ELL and SPED students. Nationally, there are far too many charter
schools schemes, and Massachusetts can’t ‘Katy-bar-the-door’. Vote no on #2. No innovation, no replication, no reason to continue failed public policy.
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Mary: “Although it [Sturgis] claims to admit students by public lottery, it gives applicants priority status if they have a sibling attending the school, it reviews discipline records of applicants before deciding to admit them, and it outright refuses to admit students in grades 11 and 12.”
While quite a few Boston Public Schools have requirements such as successful exam scores and good grades, or outstanding auditions (Boston Arts Academy), or captivating interviews (“The most important components of the admission process are the student interview, student essay, and teacher recommendations”: http://bclaboston.net/admissions/), to give ’em credit there are also lots that, like charter schools, offer admission by lottery. And to my knowledge all of those BPS schools supplement the lottery by offering sibling preference. “Sometimes a school doesn’t have room for every student who lists it as a choice. When this happens, the computer assigns students based on choice and priorities. Sibling priority is our highest priority,” (http://www.bostonpublicschools.org/assignment).
Where, exactly, is your evidence that Sturgis makes satisfactory discipline records a prerequisite for admission?
I know that charter schools are subject to these requirements:
“Schools may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, creed, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, age, ancestry, athletic performance, special need, proficiency in the English language or a foreign language, or prior academic achievement. G.L. c. 71, § 89(l); 603 CMR 1.06(1). Charter schools may not administer tests to potential applicants or predicate enrollment on results from any test of ability or achievement. 603 CMR 1.06(2).”
http://www.doe.mass.edu/charter/governance/adminguide.doc
And I would be surprised if any are outright rejecting any lottery winners due to disciplinary records. Though it is more plausible that one or more has been discouraged from attending…
Mary: “And Sturgis gets to exclude students who want to apply in grades 11 and 12? What other public high school gets to do that?”
Well, as one of quite a few examples: “Boston Latin School accepts into grades 7 & 9 only.”
http://www.bls.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=206067&type=d&termREC_ID=&pREC_ID=406781
Mary: “Sturgis has ZERO English Language Learner students, has almost half the number of High Needs and Economically Disadvantaged students as Falmouth High School, and doled out discipline to just 12 students in the 2014-2015 school year.”
And Falmouth High in most of the last 10 years has had fewer than 1% ELL, and never more than 1.8%? I realize that’s overall rather than at time of admission… incidentally, the most recently available statewide data in Massachusetts shows new student enrollment at 15.9% ELLs for charter schools, with noncharter public schools at 8.4%.
The fact that Falmouth High has a much higher discipline rate in general, and out of school suspension rate in particular, than Sturgis (zero out-of-school suspensions), well that certainly is a novel, and welcome, critique of a MA charter school.
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Stephen,
How do you defend defunding public schools across the state to divert funds to privately controlled charter schools? Why are you obsessed with charters when Massachusetts has the best state system in the nation and charters will weaken that system? Did you skip civics in high school? Where did you go to high school? It must have been a terrible experience if you went to a public school, or perhaps you went to a private school?
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I have already shared with you some of my deeply satisfying high school experiences, e.g.:
You think I missed anything important?
“How do you defend defunding public schools across the state to divert funds to privately controlled charter schools?”
I hope you’ll agree that I commonly defend my positions with data obtained from the schools and from the state board of education, and the most rigorously accurate academic research I can locate.
In Massachusetts, I find that publicly controlled charter schools, managed by nonprofits, have been coexisting successfully with other public schools. And there is cause for optimism that that will continue.
I find that the arguments against expansion of charter schools in this state are typically riddled with major errors, as exemplified by the classic contribution by Christopher Martell that you’ve highlighted above. Perhaps the truncated critique I submitted a few days ago was still too long? If it doesn’t appear now that you are presumably settled safely back on the East Coast, I’ll try again, somewhat more succinctly.
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Stephen,
Everyone but you and the out-of-state billionaires know that diverting funds to charter schools defunds the schools for the majority. Speak to Senator Elizabeth Warren or the State Attorney General, who just announced her opposition to Question 2.
Why do you want to disrupt the public schools of the most successful state in the nation? Why do you want to divert money from real community public schools to fund the billionaires’ hobby?
Why do you have so much time on your hands to fight for charters? Most people who do it are paid to do it. It’s their job. My job is to fight for universal public education. No one pays me to do it. I have 50 years of scholarship and a doctorate in history of education from Columbia University. What are your credentials?
Charter schools are for a few, and many are worse than public schools. Public schools are for all. Even when there are exam schools, and selective admissions, public schools are responsible for all who enroll. Charters are not. They accept those they want and have no responsibility for those they reject or kick out.
Have you ever heard the term “the common good”? Can you define it? Public schools serve the common good. Charters serve whom they choose and exert a style of military discipline that would be illegal in most public schools.
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Like all too many critiques of Massachusetts charter schools, Martell’s piece is undercut by its reliance on faulty evidence. Some examples…
In the first paragraph, he says, in respect to Massachusetts charter schools that “their public school peers are more likely to graduate college”. That’s a misunderstanding of outdated evidence. It wasn’t true. And is now even farther from true. As I discussed with Andrea Gabor in the comments here:
https://andreagabor.com/2016/07/25/will-massachusetts-learn-from-michigans-charter-calamity/
According to the more recent (2016) version of the Boston Opportunity Agenda Report Card than the one Martell cites second-hand, our state department of education’s data indicates that, of the 2003-2004 9th grade cohort in the Boston traditional public schools, 65% graduated from high school within five years, 34% enrolled in college, and 17% completed college within six years. By contrast, for the Commonwealth Charter school 9th graders, 83% graduated from high school within 5 years, 69% enrolled in college and 35% earned a post secondary degree within 6 years. Those DESE data should be taken with a grain of salt when trying to make such comparisons, but should not be tortured into pretzeled, backwards handstands.
Additionally, in respect to charter schools, Martell writes: “They typically have higher student attrition rates”. Those rates are similiar when schools are compared statewide. But are lower at charter schools than at other public schools in the cities where they are most often located. It has often been stated that Boston charter schools have relatively high attrition rates, but that’s based on wildly defective methodology (e.g., ignoring grade level retention and incoming transfers).
According to DESE data as depicted here: http://media.wix.com/ugd/11748f_4ee2514e7068431fa71986198ea36edd.pdf
In Boston, while charter schools have higher suspension rates (12.6% to 4.8%), they have “a higher stability rate—the rate at which students stay in the same school for an entire school year—than BPS (92.2% to 86.5%), as well as higher attendance rates (95.4% to 92.2%), fewer unexcused absences (19% to 32.3%) and far lower dropout rates (4.7% to 0.9%)” as well as lower summer attrition (12.6% to 4.8%).
Martell writes that our Massachusetts charter schools “serve smaller numbers of English language learners and special needs students.”
That’s actually not true statewide. See the chart on page 27 here: http://www.doe.mass.edu/research/reports/2016/02CharterReport.pdf
above the label “The percent of ELLs enrolled in Massachusetts charter schools has steadily increased and now surpasses statewide average enrollment.”
In locations where charter school density is relatively high, like the City of Boston, ongoing enrollment is indeed still lower than local district schools, but that is in significant part because charter school ELL students are relatively rapidly becoming proficient in English and no longer classified as English Language Learners once they develop expertise: https://seii.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/SEII-Discussion-Paper-2015.05-Setren1.pdf
Martell seems dismissive of the claim that passage of Question 2 would result in higher spending for public education, appearing unattentive to either the reimbursements made to district schools when students have departed or the relatively excellent capacity of charter schools to do fund-raising to supplement public funds. (Not to mention the possible implications for broadened support for the ‘millionaire’s tax’)
In respect to academic achievement, our charter schools in this area have demonstrated more success than Martell appears to recognize beyond their startlingly excellent state standardized test scores… for the latter see, for example, the Bay State Banner’s vigorous endorsement of Yes on Two, to lift the charter cap: http://baystatebanner.com/news/2016/sep/28/vote-yes-better-educational-opportunities/
It is a shame that Martell did not devote more explicit attention to the major gaps in opportunity, e.g., Meira Levinson’s finding that the Boston Public Schools (BPS) “school assignment plan violates equal opportunity by giving middle-class families privileged access to existing high-quality schools.” https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/12991704/Levinson%20Ethics%20of%20Pandering%20TRE%20FINAL%202%20.pdf?sequence=1 and the persistent, though narrowing, gaps in achievement within our state that our charter schools have proved enormously successful at addressing.
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I wish that anyone would expound on what EXACTLY these “special interest groups” might be and WHY exactly they would benefit from more schooling options for our children?! I know that schools are certainly failing their students in areas like Lowell, Worcester, Brockton, New Bedford and Fall River. They make it seem like charter schools are some type of Racket without ever explaining why. Thoughts anyone? I’ve got an open mind.
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Jonas,
Charters have been around for 25 years. They have no secret method other than being non-union and picking students who will get high scores and getting rid of those who don’t.
Read the post yesterday by Jersey Jazzman about attrition rates in Boston charters.
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