Pelham, Massachusetts, is a small town in the western part of the state. It contains about 1,300 residents. It has only one school, an elementary school that enrolls about 130 children. The Pelham school is part of the Amherst district; when children leave elementary school, they move on to the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools for junior and senior high. Three school committees, three budgets, one K-12 school system.
The Pelham elementary school is one of the highest-performing schools in the state. It is beloved by its community. But the school may be forced to close in the next few years because of four students enrolled in a nearby charter school.
After the budgets were complete, the state education department informed the school committee in Pelham that it owed the local charter school $67,000. The state was supposed to let the district know long before the budget was completed but failed to do so. Now, this excellent public school is scrambling to figure out how to find $67,000. That represents 4% of its budget. It has only one teacher per grade. Which teacher will lose his or her job? Which grade will go unstaffed?
When charters open in Massachusetts, the state pays for the first year. After that, the cost of each student is paid by the “sending” district, whose budget must be reduced by that amount. In the case of a small district like Pelham, the consequences may be devastating. The Amherst-Pelham Regional district currently pays the charter $2.24 million each year.
The local charter school is the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley. It draws nearly 500 students from local schools. This past year, it sought to double its enrollment. The outcry from local communities was so intense that the charter-friendly state board of education, to everyone’s surprise, rejected the charter expansion. The charter school is not serving “poor kids from failing schools,” as the saying goes. It under-enrolls children with disabilities and children from low-income families. The charter school reports that 3.2% of its students have disabilities, compared to 19.2% in the Amherst-Pelham Regional district. Families with children who have IEPs have pulled their children out of the charter school, because of its failure to meet their needs; according to parents, the school leader’s response is “let them go.”
The Pelham school cannot survive the painful cut the state is demanding. The school was recently renovated, in part with state funds. If the school closes, the community would have to repay the state for its share of the renovation cost.
The Amherst-Pelham Superintendent Michael Morris and the Pelham school committee are writing a response to the state.
If you ever wondered about the harm that charter schools inflict on local communities, think of the Pelham school. It is an excellent school. It may be forced to close to prop up a charter school that draws away a small number of students while avoiding the region’s neediest students.
How can anyone justify this deliberate undermining of successful public schools?
This is a textbook demonstration of the harm done by charter schools to public schools and communities.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
this is an interesting story ; thanks for posting, and I certainly agree that the state should have provided this budget information far in advance!
Is there any information as to why the 500 families decided that they would like to pursue a different school?
Two bits says that they were “misinformed” by the marketing of the charter school.
Only four left The Pelham School. The usual reasons are marketing and the chance to go to a private school at public expense.
I can understand some parents being attracted to a school that would provide an opportunity for children to become fluent in another language. (I wonder about the initial effect on subject matter areas, though.) Our public schools don’t do a very good job teaching foreign languages.
They struggle teaching English effectively to many students still. It’s hard to learn a 2nd language if you are still struggling in learning your native language! 😦
Learning a second language, especially starting in the early primary grades enhances students overall ability to learn. So no need to worry about any “initial negative effect on other subject areas”.
And to your last statement: Horse manure in one sense and true in another. The teaching is definitely adequate. The problems lie in when we start. Were we to start in the elementary schools then we could indeed do a fine job. But in starting, as we do with students beginning to learn in upper middle school and high school, there isn’t enough time for a student to begin to learn that much.
Think about it, the amount of time spent in a foreign language classroom each year is the equivalent of 10 days at most in a foreign country. (160 days at one hour/day = about 10 days of 16 hrs). So that even four to five years of foreign language instruction amounts to at most a month and a week of “immersion” (a term I despise when it comes to what we can do in the short time allotted). How much can one learn by living in a foreign country in 4-5 weeks? Almost nothing guaranteed.
Although those that take 4-5 years at least have a solid base from which to continue to learn the language, which ultimately will entail living in a country where one is forced to use the language on a daily basis 24/7.
I’ve done what it takes to become bilingual and for me that was 4 years of high school Spanish, including 5 weeks of study at the ITESM (the MIT of Latin America) the summer after my junior year, and then taking another 2-3 months of living in Peru after high school to get to the point of the Spanish flowing in and out without constant translation to English. Learning a second language is far more complex than taking a few years of study in a school setting.
Your trashing of public school foreign language teachers is far the most part unjustifiable.
That’s a valid point regarding many public schools. But to me this is a perfect example of why it is important to invest in public education.
The 500 students are drawn from many towns all over Western Massachusetts – not just Amherst and Pelham.
Indeed. And on the flip side, as I mentioned in a comment that is being held in moderation for unknown reasons, “In 2016-2017, only 71/124 Pelham students lived in its attendance zone. 53 came to Pelham via school choice. 43% of enrollment!
“If it weren’t for choice, this school would have been shuttered years ago.”
Tim,
If we all agreed that having a dual school system was awesome, you would be satisfied.
School Choice was the battle cry of Governor George Wallace and other Southern politicians in the wake of the Brown decision. That was the path to protecting segregation.
Why don’t you read Mercedes Schneider’s book “School Choice?”
. . . and “neighborhood / community schools” was the battle cry of Louise Day Hicks, Irene McCabe, Richard Daley, and other Northeastern/Midwestern politicians and community leaders who fought (and continue to fight) school integration with shocking ferocity.
Why is it intolerable for an open-enrollment charter school to draw four students from Pelham Elementary’s catchment area but completely fine for Pelham to take 53 K-5 students from other traditional public schools?
Charters are the new segregation.
A choice district allows kids from public schools to choose to attend a public school other than their district school. Parents might choose this option for reasons related to childcare, such as a family member who can pick up kids after school, a parent’s workplace being closer to the receiving school district, or issues of transportation. Many of these small towns in western MA lack public transportation, and families without a car or with one vehicle face real challenges in daily life. Some parents may live on the outer edges of the zoned district schools and be physically closer to the receiving district. Those 53 kids could be from a small number of families facing these choices. But none of them take money away from the public schools.
Thank you, Christine. Obviously Tim wants to “prove” that public school choice is the same as charters run by entrepreneurs.
“But none of them take money away from the public schools.”
They are literally taking away money from the schools the students are zoned for in exactly the same way PVCIC is taking money from Pelham. The only difference is that the funding is traveling with the child to a TPS, which somehow makes the “destabilization” and “defunding” okay.
There’s likely a somewhat equal number of kids traveling across district lines to the other public school district, for the same set of reasons. Sending districts are required to be receiving districts also. It’s a small adjustment to boundaires for parents who need it.
Your hypothesis isn’t supported by the school’s budgets, which show that in most years the school has paid choice “tuition” for one student.
Tim,
You are so on love with charters. Why do you send your own children to a traditional public school in NYC? Why not enroll them in Eva’s awesome schools?
It is important to remember that when students choice from a town public school with a tax base to another town’s public school with a tax base, less $$ follows that child. The tax base takes care of maintenance, electricity, water, sewer, etc.
Charter schools have no tax base, so much more $$–debilitating $$–follows those students to the charter.
Joy,
I think the amount of funding that travels with a student depends a great deal on charter laws that are specific to a state and the ratio of state finance and local finance in that state.
Teaching Economist,
I agree–but this article is about MA. As a teacher in western Mass, I’m aware of how this particular funding structure works. About 1/3 of the money that goes to a charter follows a student from town public school to town public school…
The 500 students come from all over the Pioneer Valley. Only four children are leaving Pelham. But those four represent one full teacher/one full grade funding at the much smaller school.
Judith,
If Tim’s numbers are correct, Pelham is taking in a net of about 52 students a year. Amy reports that districts pay about 1/3 of the cost to neighboring town districts that they pay to charters, so the 52 students that Pehlam takes in are equivalent to the neighboring districts losing 52/3 = 17 1/3 students to charter schools.
The net 52 students that Pelham takes in from other districts represent over 4 teachers lost from those neighboring districts.
“districts pay about 1/3 of the cost to neighboring town districts that they pay to charters”
So much for charters’ claim they can do it for less money. Now it’s all about “we deserve as much even if we do throw back all the expensive kids because we don’t want to spend any of the money to teach them.”
What a nasty bunch of people you pro-charter folks are. First your billionaires fund a public relations campaign and politicians who will promote charters to save money (“they can do it for less money”). They are happy to subsidize these loss leader charters while fighting to reduce money for public schools which have to educate all the charters’ suspended and counseled out students. Then they claim that they are so much better they deserve equal funding per student to teach only the cheapest students. What a scam. But it’s just “business’, right teachingeconomist? Children are either profitable to teach or unprofitable and charters are willing to do that tough job of educating the ones who bring them profits. And we are supposed to bow down in thanks to them for doing so.
NYC public school parent,
Any thoughts about the 4 teachers in neighboring school districts who lost their jobs because students chose to attend Pelham?
TE,
Not good at math, are you?
The loss of 4 students in a charter school of nearly 500 students does not equal the jobs of four teachers.
Why don’t you use your passion for charters to expand charters in Kansas, where you live? Only 10 in the whole state!
TE,
I refuse to engage with you. This blog serves thousands of readers. Most care about public education. You want to privatize the schools for profit. Please go away. I have neither the time nor the interest in playing word games with you while Trump and DeVos destroy a basic democratic institution.
teachingeconomist,
Why do you make this about employment? It’s about the proper use of public funds to pay for a social good. And charters have morphed into charging the same per pupil cost to pick off the cheapest to teach children as PUBLIC schools receive to teach every child — including the ones dumped by the charter because they cost too much money.
The cost of K-12 education is very similar to the cost of healthcare or the cost of bringing electricity to the entire country. Anyone who calls himself an economist should be embarrassed not to understand that the costs of those kinds of public goods do not fall neatly into a per person cost. That is why they are PUBLIC. It’s like dividing the total cost of Medicare and allocating each senior on it a “premium” and allowing a private company to insure the healthy seniors at that rate and drop them as soon as they get sick. It would be a very profitable work for those insurance companies and terrible public policy with public funds wasted for advertising and profits instead of for medical care.
I can’t believe you call yourself an economist and don’t understand the basics of how economics and social goods work. The cost of education is not equal for every student. The cost of health care is not equal for every senior citizen. Trying to monetize the cheapest part of providing public goods just means the government is paying more for the more expensive part in order for a private organization to make a profit.
This is a perfect example of how charters harm many at the expense of a few. The greater the charter and/or voucher drain, the more unstable the host district becomes. Rural and low enrollment public schools may topple first, but all districts will suffer from ever increasing charter and/or voucher drain in which the rights of students attending a privatized school are shown partiality over those attending a public school.
“How can anyone justify this deliberate undermining of successful public schools?”
The vaunted free market must decide. That is the justification!
This bilingual school is aiming to skim the highest achievers from the sending districts, and this has nothing to do with providing more choice for poor students. I looked at their website and they offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) in 11th and 12th grade.
I know this to be true retired teacher! I know someone who is American but lived in China for 11 years. She married there then divorced and moved back to where she grew up not far from Hadley (with her child). Her son has gone to this charter school many years and will soon graduate. The students are definitely cherry picked. Her son went to keep up his Chinese. Many of his peers are well to do and chose the school to learn a second language and typically come from well to do families of academics in the region. It is like going to a private school. It doesn’t serve disadvantaged. In the DeVos system, there will be schools for middle class, schools for well to do and then schools for “them”… the disadvantaged… ugh!!!
retired teacher and artseagal: good catch!
Easy for the charters to claim that they are superior—as long as they don’t mention how they manipulate the numbers & stats, e.g., by making sure that the “right” type of students and parents are consuming their eduproduct so test scores, college/university acceptances, special course offerings and so on “prove” what a superior learning and teaching environment they provide.
And perhaps one of the worst aspects is that so many of them seem to believe their own vacuous hype.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Knowing Chinese looks good on a college application.
My niece is applying to schools next year and should probably start working on getting to know some Chinese folks.
Maybe there is a local center where she can make some friends.
This exactly. When there’s no transportation provided and students with complex needs can be counseled out (or don’t even start because, let’s face it, if you have significant issues with comprehension in one language, your parents aren’t going to saddle you with a 2nd!), only a small fraction of the population actually has access to these “public” schools.
The free market requires a variety of choices. Most seem to have chosen the Pelham public school instead of the charter. Yet the failed free market system might take that choice away to please 4 students.
This is a broken system!
Unlike most states, Massachusetts has some additional options for school choice.
If the school is a better fit for students, they can attempt to draw in outside students as well. http://pe.arps.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_927875/File/School%20Choice%20Form%20for%202017-2018.doc.pdf
In addition, here is a brochure that Pelham Elementary put together to recruit out-of-district students.
Click to access Pelham%20School%20Brochure.pdf
$67,000 doesn’t seem like a big budget hole out of $32,000,000, but it seems all the district needs to do is attract 2-3 new kids to make up the shortfall.
That brochure is a celebration of the Pelham public school district, Tim. Why do you say they are recruiting students from out of district?
The link to the brochure is located above a notice saying “Pelham School has school choice openings for the 2017-2018 school year. You can access the school choice form here.”
It’s clear that the district welcomes choice students in grades where there are openings (the child has to provide her own transportation and can’t have a poor disciplinary record).
http://www.arps.org/academics/school_choice_information
Tim,
Which charter chain do you work for? Or is it a rightwing no-think tank?
I don’t work for a charter chain or a think tank. My children attend New York City Department of Education traditional public schools. Happy I could clear this up for the dozenth (or is it fiftieth? hundredth?) time.
On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog.
Tim says:
“(the child has to provide her own transportation and can’t have a poor disciplinary record).”
That’s the kind of choice that Tim can get behind!
Of course, public schools still have a mandate to serve ALL the students in their catchement area regardless of their school record. But when it comes to recruiting out of zone students, Tim says “look they act just like charter schools isn’t that grand!”
Let’s not forget that Massachusetts is typically #1 in academic results in comparison to other states and that their students score well on standardized tests in general.
Is it something in the MA water? Glad I went to college there. Massachusetts has a long history of being in the forefront of education. Unlike my home state, where some people flaunt their stupidity and think it’s funny.
Well, maybe it could be that Wilson Reading System and private Orton GIliingham schools are located here, plus those alternative approaches are valued there, unlike many other states that value F&P & LLI….
I really do not understand why you all cannot understand that not all parents and tax payers are thrilled with their local school options.
Obviously many in MA are not happy either and that Pelham district would be closed already if they didn’t also pull students from other public schools in MA.
Parents want programs and methods and staff that work together with them, not against them.
Possibly these smaller districts are learning they need to step up their game to entice more students into their school.
Especially when they have the staff and small class sizes.
This district looks similar to ours, but they chose not to step up their game and refuse to work with parents. But they are the only school and parents cannot choose other schools. If they couldm believe me they would do so.
The teacher to student ratio is enviable in that district, and their enrollment numbers continue to decline.
They did get rid of the MS principle a couple years ago and merged it together with the HS principal’s duties.
Maybe that’s an option for Pelham SD to consider, and then save a teacher, since obvioulsy they didn’t need the MS principal for the low number of students in our prior district.
Um, Pelham doesn’t HAVE a middle school. The Pelham School District consists of one school, the elementary school. The town actually owns the school, it is not owned by the Amherst Regional School district (which the Pelham students transition to after elementary). The size of the town is tiny, 1300 residents. Of course the school population is dwindling, there is very low turnover in real estate, so very few new families to bring new children to the school from within the town lines. With all of this, “finding” $67,000 after all of the money has been committed elsewhere in their budget is a gargantuan task. They can’t go to the larger Regional district to get the money, as it is essentially an independent school.
As another person has pointed out, the Pelham elementary school would be in even worse shape if it were not for the number of students attending through the CHOICE alternative which allows students in MA to attend schools outside their LEAs.
I’m not clear on if they have already merged with another district or not, but at someone it becomes financially burdensome for tax payers to keep a small school open. If the local population cannot support the existing school in its current form, due to not enough school aged students in their district, then maybe it is time to plan on merging with another district or just cover tuition to other districts for students to attend, as another district does in our region.
My point was that this school could maybe do something similar (such as merge non-instructional positions and cover the difference to narrow the loss in the budget.)
Free market?
1) Why not fund the public schools so all / or at least in regions can offer dual language (many do) and other “magnet-like” programs?
2) Free market? Balance. Somewhere between pure socialism (Trump’s effort to add “S. R.” to “U.S.” and pure free market is public services in a democracy!
Or should we go with free market fire departments, police departs, dept of public works, libraries, parks?
I don’t like our public pool and golf course. Can I get my per-family member cost to take to the country club?
I don’t like the local fire department response times and that it’s a volunteer firefighter approach. Can I use my safety voucher to hire private security company?
Democracy and social justice does NOT mean “redistribution of wealth” as the right and privatizers would like you to think. It means we live in a country where every individual is entitled to (or endowed by their Creator) with inalienable rights – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Declaration does not say “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for those who can afford it and at the expense of those who can’t.”
But – we all know how the T base reacted to reading the Declaration on July 4. 1/2 were offended at the leftists trying to start a revolution. 1/2 were ticked off at the obvious comparison of the King and T. Sadly, former probably had underfunded public education and didn’t even recognize the document.
Want to go to private school? Pay for it and go.
Want to go to a charter school, increase taxes for the common good but do not take money from public schools to fund them, especially when it breaks the bank and the public school – a very successful one – to close
“About two dozen parents attended Wednesday night’s School Committee meeting at the Pelham Library to ask committee members to address what the parents say are instances of racism and bullying of children of color at Pelham Elementary School.”
Looks like Pelham may not be serving all children successfully.
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/pelham_parents_talk_about_bull.html
Unlike the Chinese Immersion Charter School, which cherrypicks its students and pushes out kids with disabilities? No racism there. No kids of color. Problem solved.
Well, there you have it, Diane.
I am sick and tired of the trolls who worship charter schools (and also those in favor of giving vouchers to private schools).
They never seem to have an answer regarding what should be done about the disabled kids, the English Language Learners, the kids who have behavioral or social problems.
What is their answer? There are not nearly enough charter schools (or private schools that don’t cost a fortune) who will take these kids.
So I guess, after the public schools are either closed or defunded to the extent that there are no longer decent programs for the kids who have special needs of various kinds, we can just throw these children away.
Sigh.
The Chinese immersion school is 53% white, 7% Latino, and 5% black.
Pelham Elementary is 80% white, 5% Latino, and 3% black.
Looks like neither school is serving a large number of “kids of color.” But only one has a bunch of newspaper articles about racist bullying and abuse (starting in kindergarten!).
Tim,
Your data are wrong.
I posted the demographics. Western Massachusetts is mostly white so both schools are mostly white.
The charter is not 53% white. Your total adds to 65%, where are the other 35%?
Amherst-Regional enrolls 19.2% Hispanic, compared to 7.9% in the charter.
Amherst Regional enrolls 19.4% with disabilities, compared to 3.2% in the charter.
Amherst Regional enrolls 8.2% African American, compared to 1.5% in the charter school.
Amherst Regional enrolls 26.3% economically disadvantaged, compared to 13.4% in the charter.
Tim’s answer is those kids don’t matter and if they are disappeared it’s fine. That is also the SUNY Charter Institute’s answer as well. It is the answer of all the agencies doing their so-called “oversight” of charters which means cheering on any practice that gets rid of kids who won’t get high test scores.
There is a reason why racists like Tim cheer on Eva Moskowitz when she goes on national television to explain that if 20% of the 5 year olds are suspended it is only because they are all doing those violent things that so many non-white 5 year olds do in her schools. Wink wink we all know those non-white kids are often violent, right, Tim?
“Better education for all” = permitting and encouraging defamatory statements against people with whom you have a difference of opinion. Stay classy, everyone.
Tim,
You and I both watched Eva Moskowitz tell John Merrow that the only reason some of her low-income schools with virtually no white students had sky high suspension rates of kindergarten and first grader students is because so many of those non-white kindergarten and first grade students were doing violent things so she had no choice.
Only one of us noticed how racist and absurd such a statement claiming that so many 5 and 6 year olds were acting out violently in their kindergarten class was.
When you actually call out the racism in that kind of statement instead of insisting that we believe the white woman’s characterization of so many non-white 5 year olds in her schools, you can whine about other people not being “classy”.
Since your definition of “classy” is a white woman telling the American public that lots and lots of non-white 5 year old children are so violent that she has to suspend them from their kindergarten class, I think we can agree that your definition of classy is very different than mine.
Stay “classy” and keep defending the people who know how violent non-white kindergarten are and are not afraid to tell the world about it. I’m sure the “classy” Trump and the “classy” Betsy DeVos who are such fans of those people will absolutely agree with you.
Stay classy, Tim.
Tim
you obviously have no idea about Massachusetts choice (districts that have it put out the information – is that such a big deal?) – – and find a school that doesn’t address instances of race, bullying and other issues. At least they put it out there and discuss it. (and can’t resist that the modeling from the white house of bullying and all kinds of phobias and isms doesn’t help schools hold good discussions and confront kids when “if it’s ok with the president…)
Tim is all-in for charters. He is still miffed that voters in Mass. turned them down.
Tim,
If those parents were at one of your “choice” schools, they couldn’t have a meeting because their kid would be targeted and put on a got to go list. All perfectly legal, of course! As long as the charter authorizers don’t care and they most certainly do not. If you get caught, just call it an anomaly and continue the practice unfettered until the next time, when it is another anomaly.
Do charter schools have parent meetings? My understanding is that if parents have a grievance, they are told to choose another school.
Charters in New York State and Massachusetts are required to hold monthly board/trustee meetings that are open to the public.
Really? Eva’s charters have open board meetings? News to me.
The oversight of charters in NYS differs very little from the lackluster job NYS does in regards to overseeing the quality of their public schools as well.
Tim says “Charters in New York State and Massachusetts are required to hold monthly board/trustee meetings that are open to the public.”
But they are NOT required to address any complaints parents have and instead ARE allowed to tell them to find a different school and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Although if you are a group of affluent college-educated parents whose kids do well on exams and you demand a shorter school day so you can send your child to the expensive after school lessons they deserve as their right, the charter will happily shorten the day to accommodate you.
In 2009, the charter industry threatened to get a question on the ballot which would remove all caps on charters in Massachusetts. In response, then president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, Paul Toner, capitulated and agreed to endorse legislation called “An Act Relative to the Achievement Gap”, which became law in 2010. (Turncoat Toner is now a Pahara-Aspen Fellow, – Gates money – and Executive Director of TeachPlus – more Gates money.)
Among the changes in the 2010 legislation were a lift of the charter cap to 120 charters, raising state spending on charters from 9% to 18% in so-called failing districts, and accelerating the process for state takeover for “failing” districts. In the interest of establishing new requirements on charter schools to develop recruitment and retention plans, it required public schools to share their student data so that charters could recruit them.
In a small community like Palmer, only a few kids need to succumb to the siren song of “innovation” to have a huge impact on everyone else.
Massachusetts certainly doesn’t have a corner on the dumb market. How New York will kill successful schools (and I’d bet replace them with online credit recovery courses (I’d even bet out of the back of a Chan-Zuckerberg windowless internet van)):
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/nyregion/new-york-city-transfer-schools-off-track-students.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Feducation&referer=http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-essential-education-updates-southern-betsy-devos-needs-to-fire-her-top-civil-1500320820-htmlstory.html
LCT- MA is at the top in education & I will go out on a limb to venture, even Diane can agree with me on that. [Especially since she made a similar comment previously (dianeravitch July 16, 2017 at 4:55 pm)]
And unlike MA school districts, I’m confident that NYSUT will fight to keep choice options at bay, even for public schools.
Of course. Massachusetts has the top-performing school system in the nation.
M!
Hi. It’s nice to hear from you. I like your assertion that NY should keep open its alternative schools regardless of federal testing mandates. We’re allies in so many ways! Peace to you.
You can have choice without privatization.
With privatization, the incentives are all wrong. It works that way in health insurance, too. That’s what is wrong with the Republicans’ ideas. You can’t have a free market when services don’t cost the same. All children don’t cost the same to teach. All children don’t cost the same to insure. And allowing some private entity to teach the cheapest children or insure the healthiest children and drop them when they learn they are too expensive is just utter corruption.
While we’re on the subject of Massachusetts charter schools:
17 July 2017, NPR: When Black Hair Violates The Dress Code
Other information that’s good to know for this case;
First off all, two of the students are split between Pelham and another town -Hence the confusion on that count (the other two, I am not sure why they went under the radar, maybe someone thought they would just forget about it).
Another note is that school choice has a cap at $5,000. So if a child from Amherst, Belchertown, any surrounding school goes to Pelham, the largest sum the town would pay pelham to off set the price of that student is $5,000. The Chinese Charter is around $20,000 a student, a much bigger hit.
Pelham is a great school and great community. I definitely understand wanting to send your child to a special school, the Chinese Charter sounds like an amazing opportunity, but I don’t see how choosing to send your child to a school that gets to pick and choose, that does not opporate like a public school, should be funded by the town. No one expects the town to pay the $15,000 base per student at Amherst Montessori, that is the parents choice and responsibility.
Pelham will eventually run into more issues with funding in the coming years. The town had a lull in younger families, hence having the opportunity to profit from school choice, there has been a resurgent of young families in the town that will soon fill up those spots with no extra income
Note that Question 2, which would have raised the charter school cap significantly, was voted down by 62% to 37% last fall. That would seem to provide some obvious guidance on how to handle this.
I have never understood why Massachusetts persists with such small school districts. They are highly vulnerable to this kind of budget problem. I come from Maryland, where municipal services are mostly provided at the county level. County police, county fire, county schools–it makes so much more sense! With a larger school district, you could shift school boundaries as needed to make the best use of resources within the district. The larger district could provide special programs like language immersion within the public school system, so no need for a charter school. Larger districts are also more likely to include a broader range of communities. For example, Longmeadow would be in the same school district as Springfield. So long as property taxes provide the primary funding for education, we should not have town-based school districts.
Let’s see if I understand this. Knowing that they’d have to provide money for the charter school to educate their children, the town officials simply ignored the fact, and budgeted as if money grew on trees. And rather than chase the state to find out how much they’d have to pay, they sat back and did nothing. And now, it’s time to pay the piper. And I’m supposed to be sympathetic?
And by the way – if the town legacy system is so great, why are parents sending their children to to the charter school?