"IT’S IRONIC that, just a week or two before state lawmakers vote on an education reform bill that would lift the cap on charter schools, two applications for charters in Lynn and one in Berkshire County are facing intense community opposition, while two existing charter schools in Springfield and Lowell face shutdowns."
When a sixth-grader at the C.T. Plunkett Elementary School in Adams asked Governor Deval Patrick during a recent visit why public money goes to charter schools, he explained that they are public schools, adding: “There are good ones and not so good ones, just as there are district schools that are good while others are not. We have a funding formula that is not good enough and needs to be fixed so that we’re not taking money away from district schools but supporting education in all different types of schools.’’
Patrick views the reform bill as aimed at “chronically underperforming’’ school districts. He acknowledges that the state lacks the money to support several proposed solutions for the charter school funding quandary.