In his June 2 letter to the editor, Wesley Blixt writes that “Charter schools are yet another engine of inequality … a new and efficient way of segmenting student communities, and of hiding the wages of a chronic educational underfunding from ourselves.”
Somewhat echoing Blixt’s concern in his letter to the editor the next day, Karl Meyer differs strongly with me “on the benefits of the new system of publicly funded (charter) schools set apart from the general student population. To me,” Meyer writes, “this seems like the creation of a new and insidious form of separate but equal.”
I am aware of the Blixt family’s “lifelong and passionate commitment for public education,” including Wesley’s run in 2013 for a seat on the Greenfield School Committee. We both agree that the online so-called K-12 education program is a “free tuition” scam. Talk about an insidious segmenting of the student community! And I am a fan of Meyer who, along with the Connecticut River Watershed Council, is the foremost environmental advocate for our waterways and fish life.
That said, it is difficult for me to understand how a free public charter school is “another engine of inequality” or is set apart from the “general student population.” Expensive private schools (average tuition is $40,605 in Franklin County) are unavailable to most families and students and are emblematic of the differences in a family’s financial means. If, as Mr. Blixt believes, a student attending a free public charter school segments the “student community,” does not a student attending a private school such as the Academy at Charlemont Academy, Deerfield Academy or Northfield Mount Herman also segment the student community?
Charter schools, faulted for increasing “chronic educational underfunding,” is not the problem. Most school systems are funded based on the number of students served, so when enrollment drops, so does total district revenue. When students move to charter schools, the districts still receive the same money for each student. This is not the case when a student moves to a private school. Question: If a school system educates fewer students, shouldn’t it operate on a smaller budget? Some say that economies of scale make it impossible to operate with proportionately fewer dollars when it loses students. But that argument doesn’t hold water.
When enrollment falls — regardless of whether it falls when students leave to attend charter schools, private schools or home schooling, students move away or because birth rates dip — districts have a hard time reducing their spending to match their revenues.
Charter schools, private schools, etc. aren’t to blame; typical district budgeting practices are. Districts often make bulky, inflexible and sometimes irreversible spending commitments that outlive their administrations or don’t match up with revenues. They allocate staff in increments tied to schools or departments. And they inherit promises for unpaid obligations like retiree health care that are only affordable if enrollments and state revenues never decline. These legacy costs linger as a fiscal burden to future district budgets.
Public school budgets in these times should be designed to automatically expand and contract with enrollment. Instead of apportioning a fixed number of staff to each school, allocations should be made on per-pupil terms. Marguerite Roza, research professor and director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, writes that “districts must also reconsider long-term spending commitments, such as retiree health care benefits, that are unsustainable when the financial landscape changes. Full financial transparency of legacy costs per pupil can help create a public appetite for tweaking these arrangements when they are no longer financially viable. State policymakers can also help by making new funds contingent on phasing out these kinds of commitments. After all, it is often the states that get tapped for a bailout when the district financials fall apart.”
“Clearly, downsizing can be challenging and painful, regardless of the cause,” says Roza, the author of the highly regarded education finance book, “Educational Economics: Where Do School Funds Go?”
“If districts proactively adapt, these shifts don’t have to mess with the system’s fiscal or instructional priorities, compel panic or force massive (and massively unpopular) budget overhauls,” she says.
Some research on www.publicschoolreview.com reveals a “profile” of the “student community” in Franklin County. The fact is that the student community is a diverse demographic when broken into the multiple educational options.
Overall, there are 39 public schools in Franklin County serving 9,570 students including elementary and high school students. There are 15 private schools serving 2,321 students. There are five private high schools in the county serving 1,508 students and 13 private elementary schools serving 1,041 students. Districts are not allowed to disclose information publicly about the number of home schoolers due to privacy concerns.
Franklin County’s only charter school — Four Rivers Charter School — serves just under a 4 percent “segment” of Franklin County’s high school student community. It is but one of many education options for area students. It differs from other school choices because it is the only free school choice option to our traditional public schools.
Shelburne resident John Bos has served as facilitator of annual strategic planning retreats for the Mary Lyon Foundation, the Gill-Montague Regional School District, the Foundation for Educational Excellence in Northfield and the Holliston Education Foundation. In 2000, he served as facilitator for the NEASC accreditation process for Mohawk Regional High School. He has served on the board of the Four Rivers Educational Foundation since the charter school’s inception in 2003. He invites dialogue at john01370@gmail.com.