Patrick's cop-out on the charter cap
DURING THE 2006 gubernatorial campaign, Deval Patrick said he favored raising the cap on charter schools once the funding formula was reworked to ease tensions between traditional schools and charters.
Here's how candidate Patrick explained his stand in an Oct. 19, 2006, gubernatorial debate: "I think we can lift the cap . . . when we fix the funding formula, and it's broken right now . . . [T]he state has to step up and provide the kind of funding that makes both charter schools and district schools flourish."
Given that the state reimburses the traditional public schools for some share of educational costs for three years after a student leaves for a charter - and that the funding formula was retooled to address district concerns in 2004 - Patrick's assertion that the formula was broken was always more political than analytical.
Still, the public had a right to expect that, if elected, Patrick would propose a new formula and support more Commonwealth charters. But it has now become crystal clear that the governor, elected with the support of the teachers unions, has put that campaign stand into suspended animation.
This week, administration officials are touting Patrick's plan for "readiness schools." But here's an equally telling headline: The governor's signature education initiative - the so-called Readiness Project - will not include any attempt to address the charter-school stalemate.
"What the governor is recognizing is there's not an obvious, immediate resolution to that problem of how we pay for charter schools," says Paul Reville, the incoming secretary of education.
He adds, "Right now our focus is on making readiness schools available . . ."
So when, if ever, will the charter cap be addressed? There is no timetable for that, administration officials say.
Wait, there's more: "In briefing me, Paul Reville said that he is floating the idea of offering a freeze on charter activity for districts that participate in readiness schools activity," reports Marc Kenen, executive director of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. Although Reville says nothing has been decided, he confirms that's one of several incentives being considered.
So not only will there be no effort to lift the overall cap on charters, the administration may even impose a freeze that wouldn't otherwise be there in some districts.
Consider the irony: As administration officials tell it, the readiness school effort is Patrick's attempt to apply the lessons of charter schools - autonomy, innovation, choice, responsiveness, and a longer school day, among others - to the state's traditional public schools. And yet Patrick is currently punting on expanding the very model that has produced those lessons.
Now, though the devil is in the details, many of which aren't yet worked out, there's a lot to like about the concept of readiness schools. If the administration really can get districts to embrace a sweeping restructuring of scores of traditional public schools, it will have accomplished something significant.
Yet in Boston we've watched determined union opposition hobble an effort to expand innovative pilot schools. Why won't the same happen with readiness schools? Because, a senior administration official insists, Patrick will challenge the education establishment to embrace his reforms - and warn that a failure to do so will validate claims that the system can only be reformed from the outside.
"If we went five years and we had no movement [on the readiness schools], I think you'd have a governor who would speak out in that case, and with his sense of urgency, require us to move in a different direction altogether," this person says.
His sense of urgency? A governor with a true sense of urgency would at least call for lifting the charter cap in those cities where kids are stuck in repeatedly failing schools. Certainly if the state's first African-American governor were to advocate that, his would be a powerful and important statement.
Instead, Patrick has left the field before the first real shot in the battle over the charter cap has even been fired. And that cautious cop-out makes it even harder to believe that the prospect of possible gubernatorial impatience half a decade hence will be enough to spark real educational improvement.
Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. 