Stricter state role suggested for charter schools
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Clive McFarlane, Telegram & Gazette Staff
December 10, 2004
Massachusetts officials should take a more active role in determining how charter schools are developed and deployed, according to a Boston-based education research and policy center.
In an analysis of the state's charter schools, the Rennie Center for Education & Policy at MassINC found that the schools are unevenly distributed across the state and that their demographics do not mirror that of the districts in which they are located.
Charter schools, for example, are located in only 25 of the state's 380 school districts, according to the report. Of the 50 charter schools operating in the state last year, 17, more than one-third of the total number, were
in Boston. Charter school enrollment was more than three times higher in Boston, Lawrence, Springfield and Malden than in any other district in the state.
The MassINC report also found that charter schools serve more African-American students and fewer Hispanics, English-language learners, special education and low-income students than their feeder districts.
S. Paul Reville, director of the Rennie Center, said the group's findings should prompt policy-makers to begin serious discussions on the role and ambitions of the state's charter schools.
Whether charter schools should serve all populations or just certain groups, and whether they should be selective, like the public exam high schools in Boston, are among the questions that should be debated, Mr. Reville said.
In addition, the report recommends policy-makers consider giving higher priority to charters that will enroll underserved populations and operate in underserved geographic regions and add a recruitment and retention plan for minorities, special education students and English-language learners to the annual reports they submit to the state.
The report also calls on local school districts to recognize charter schools as a legitimate part of the public school system, to refrain from putting up roadblocks to charter school enrollment, and to explore opportunities for information-sharing between themselves and charter schools.
"We are moving from the position of charter schools from being an experiment to them becoming a permanent part of our education delivery system, and we should be more systematic in how we offer them to people," Mr. Reville said.
"What we have in place now is a policy that lets them spring up where anyone chooses to open one. But if we are going to have charter schools, the debate should not be exclusively whether there should be more or less, but about whom should they serve and what should be our policy in approving new charters."