The credit rating agency Moody’s informed cities in Massachusetts that the recent vote not to add more charter schools was good for their credit ratings and will help key their borrowing costs lower. Voters defeated Question 2 by 62-38%. It won approval only in a few urban districts. The vote against the proposal was highest in districts with charters, where funding for public schools had decreased.
“The decision of Massachusetts voters to reject a ballot question expanding charter schools is “credit positive” for urban cities like Springfield and Boston, the rating agency Moody’s said Tuesday.
“The result is credit positive for urban local governments because it will allow those cities and towns to maintain current financial operations without having to adjust to increased financial pressure from charter school funding,” Moody’s wrote in a report.
“The ballot question would have allowed state officials to approve up to 12 new charter schools a year outside of an existing cap. The current cap ensures that school districts spend no more than 9 percent of their budgets, or 18 percent in low-performing districts, paying for student tuition to charter schools. That limits the number of charter schools that can grow or expand in urban areas like Boston and Springfield, resulting in waiting lists.
“A central part of the debate over charter school expansion was funding. When a child attends a charter school, the state money to educate that child goes to the charter school, although the district gets reimbursed for the first years to smooth over the transition costs. Opponents of charter school expansion say the funding formula took money from the traditional public schools, hurting struggling districts, even though the loss of students did not affect the schools’ fixed costs.
“Moody’s wrote in its report that since 2010, cities like Boston, Fall River, Lawrence and Springfield have seen charter school spending grow by 83 percent even as overall spending on public education in the state grew by only 15 percent.”
Voters in Massachusetts were wise to limit the number of charters. An unlimited number of charters could lead to economic destabilization as it has done in Pennsylvania. The greater the amount of dilution of resources would result diminishing academic results for a larger number of students. Voters made the better choice.
“Ivanka Trump just left @SuccessCharters Harlem 1 after meeting with Eva Moskowitz. Dan Loeb was meeting too.”
We’re all getting a Success Charters franchise! Well, all the lower and middle. The Trump kids will get a Montessori or something.
20 billion dollars is a lot of money. There are going to be a lot of new charter schools springing up wherever they can plunk one down.
Can I pick my charter franchise or has that been decided?
Isn’t it kind of “elitist” for Eva Moskowitz and Ivanka Trump to be deciding on which public schools to convert to Success franchises?
Will this play well in the ‘rustbelt’, I wonder?
The problem is nobody voted for Ivanka, but she’s the brains of the Trumpsters. Trump has no intention of stepping away from his business interests. He intends to blur the lines of business and government with nepotism. Ivanka joined Trump in a meeting with the Japanese ambassador. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/ivanka-trump-meeting-donald-trump-japanese-prime-minister-shinzo-abe-a7424191.html
Meeting with the Japanese PM before he is officially president while we have a sitting president (Obama). Isn’t that a violation of procedure or form? I don’t know, I could be wrong.
Who is “Dan Loeb”? Is he familiar with public schools in ‘the rustbelt”?
I was told Donald Trump was very concerned about “rustbelt states”
Who knew this populist President was going to run the country hiring exclusively elite NY’ers who all know one another?
I read ed reformers (you should too- they run your schools) and there is STILL no mention whatsoever of the effect of Donald Trump’s election on PUBLIC schools.
It’s astonishing. They simply don’t care what happens to 90% of the schools in the country.
They’re busily wheeling and dealing to get a piece of the 20 billion for charters and vouchers and not WORD ONE on public schools.
No wonder Democrats didn’t vote. No one in DC even mentions their schools.
Reject charters = credit positive.
Since the purveyors and enforcers of corporate education reform are self-proclaimed ‘Data-Driven Decision Makers’ that doggedly pursue the bottom line called $tudent $ucce$$—
Let them put this metric in their pipes and smoke it!
😎