AMHERST — Depending on whom you ask, charter schools are either the cause of — or the solution to — a two-tiered public education system in Massachusetts.
According to Massachusetts Teachers Association President Barbara Madeloni, charter schools in Fitchburg have enabled “white flight,” where Caucasian families have left the district to avoid rubbing elbows with recent immigrants.
Just 33.4 percent of Fitchburg Public Schools students are white. At the city’s only charter, Sizer School, 76.6 percent of students are white, according to state data.
But for Julia Mejia of Boston, enrolling her children at Brooke Charter School was a way to avoid entering the city’s district where the best schools are in the wealthiest and whitest neighborhoods. “We have to create a pathway out of poverty that puts children first,” Mejia said.
The two women were among the panelists at a contentious forum Wednesday that asked “Should Massachusetts raise the cap on charter schools?” The forum was held at the Integrated Learning Center at the University of Massachusetts, and was sponsored by the League of Women Voters, the UMass journalism department, and several media organizations.
Voters on Nov. 8 will consider Question 2, which if approved, would allow up to 12 additional charter schools each year, or expanded enrollments in existing charters each year.
There are 78 charter schools in the state, with a limit of 120 under current law.
Charter schools operate under a charter issued by the state and are funded with public money. They differ from traditional public schools in that they are not governed by elected school committees.
Madeloni, a former high school English teacher and University of Massachusetts professor, and Mejia, a first-generation high school and college graduate, were joined by William Diehl, executive director of the Collaborative for Educational Services in Northampton, and Marc Kenen, executive director of the Massachusetts Charter Public Schools Association.
The MTA is the union that represents more than 100,000 public school educators across the state and has been among the most visible forces opposed to Question 2. Madeloni says that expanding charter schools would undermine educational equity for the most underrepresented students by taking needed money away from their home school districts.
Nearly all of the state’s charter schools are members of the MCPSA, according to Kenen, who says charter schools are the answer to a public education system that continues to fail in closing achievement gaps between the richest and poorest students, particularly in urban areas such as Boston and the gateway cities.
Question 2, he said, is not about the Pioneer Valley or other less populated areas.
“This is not about the suburbs, this is not about rural western Mass.,” Kenen said. “This is about urban areas.”
But Madeloni said that an “attack” in the form of ballooning charter school openings would affect the viability of traditional public schools in all corners of the state. “This is not just an urban problem,” she said.
Districts send about $14,000 to charter schools for each student who would otherwise be educated in the district. Easthampton, for example, spent about $1.1 million in fiscal 2016 in charter tuition.
Diehl said he aimed to remain neutral on Question 2, though he added that charter schools have disproportionately negative effects on rural school districts compared to urban ones.
And while 12 schools each year may first be concentrated in urban areas, there will be a saturation point, at which time the schools will open up in rural areas, he said.
Mejia vehemently rejected the notion that the cost of educating children in a public charter school amounted to stealing from public school districts. “My kids are not thieves,” she said. “They are not stealing from public education.”
In fact, Mejia said, too much money in traditional public schools goes toward salaries and pensions, aided by a completely unionized teachers’ workforce. In addition, she said, unionization means traditional public school teachers are forced to be more rigid in their teaching and scheduling.
But Madeloni said the MTA and the tenure system protect teachers from retaliation by administrators when teachers act in their students’ best interest.
She said the charter movement is “part of a large corporate assault on our schools.” Financial backers of the pro-charter cap expansion campaign have included members of the Walton Family of Wal-Mart fame, Madeloni said.