There a several different limits on charter schools:

• + A specified maximum number of charter schools statewide — 72 Commonwealth charters and 48 Horace Mann schools. Currently, there are 55 Commonwealth Charters and 7 Horace Mann Schools. This cap was not raised by the bill, but see below.
• + A specified maximum enrollment in charters statewide — set at 4% of the total statewide school population — this limit was removed by the bill.
• + A limit on the amount of school spending by any district that goes to charters — the bill raised this limit from 9% to 18% but only in the lowest scoring districts; to the extent that new charters in those districts result from this increase, they don’t count against the statewide cap on the number of schools. The districts that are likely to be affected by this change are Boston, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, Malden, Springfield and Worcester.

Under the bill, school turnaround plans are to include measurable annual goals (see for examples line 417 and following). The Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education has responsibility for evaluating goal attainment and generally has the authority to measure educational outcomes through the MCAS and other tools. Overall, of course, the evaluation challenge is huge — how do you really link the outcomes back to specific actions when there are so many moving parts.

Moving responsibility up to the Commissioner from the superintendents would have traded possible arbitrariness at the local level for certain zealotry in the Commissioner’s office, if we are to learn anything from the Gloucester debacle, where local concerns and data seem to have been ignored in a Commissioner-level drive for charters at any cost. Better, I think, to leave the plans in locally accountable hands with state oversight.

Two questions: how are we going to know whether this bill succeeds in improving education? What are the expected outcomes and measures, and who’s in charge of tracking them?

To me, a teacher, this bill represents two giant steps forward for those at the top – charter schools, Reville, Chester, and superintendents who have overseen these under-performing schools for years; and all the consultants who stand to make a fortune. I only hope some good will come from it for the students.

I would be interested to know the reasoning behind the punishing changes most recently made to the bill. It most definitely had nothing to do with data about education. I would also like to know exactly what teachers’ unions have done to earn so much blame for under-achieving schools. We keep hearing that they block change but never hear the details of their dastardly deeds. Were they demanding the kinds of perks charter schools get?

Disappointed but not at all surprised, I am looking ahead to our discussions about more meaningful education policy reforms.

Mary