CURMUDGUCATION: MA: Charters Hate Compromise

CURMUDGUCATION: MA: Charters Hate Compromise:

MA: Charters Hate Compromise

This morning's Boston Post reports that a "Bitter Fight Brewing over Mass. Charter School Expansion" (though it could also have been "Mass Charter Expansion"). And while the battle has not been "brewing" so much as "going on for a while now," the article centers on one question-- can the legislature come up with a compromise on increasing the number of MA charters, or will the whole mess end up as a ballot initiative in the fall?

Massachusetts jumped on the charter bus with real enthusiasm back in 2010 when they saw it as a way to grab some Race To The Trough money, but of course that money is no longer available, and local districts and taxpayers are noticing what charter school "hosts" everywhere notice-- that funding a new entoitlement for students to attend private school at public expense is costly.

The battle is playing out mostly in the Senate-- the charter-reformster industry has already purchased themselves a governor and a House of Representatives in Massachusetts.

Reporter David Scharfenberg suggests that in the past, charter legislation has been an area of compromise, but this time offers a different summation:

“It’s the pure charter play this time,” said Martha “Marty” Walz, a management and public affairs consultant who helped usher the 2010 bill into law as cochairwoman of the Legislature’s education committee.

The governor has tried to sweeten the pot by budgeting more money for the big pile used to re-imburse districts (temporarily) for the money sucked out by charters, but Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg is moving above that, suggesting that legislators look at issues "from financing, to CURMUDGUCATION: MA: Charters Hate Compromise: