Charter school backers target cap

Charter school advocates, emboldened by a major Beacon Hill victory last summer, want the Legislature to clear the way for more students to attend the quasi-independent public schools in Boston and dozens of other Massachusetts cities where waiting lists are large and growing.

Leaders of Boston's charter schools have met twice in the past month to weigh strategies for raising a state cap that limits the number of students who can attend charters in each school district. Boston reached the limit over a year ago, so existing charter schools cannot expand and no new ones can be created in the city, even though there are more than 6,000 students waiting to get into Boston's 18 charter schools.

A total of 152 communities around the state are at the ceiling. Currently, there are more than 15,000 students enrolled in 56 charter schools in Massachusetts.

"Parents and students are definitely banging on our doors to get in," said Michael Duffy, executive director of Boston's City On A Hill Charter School. The school, which has roughly 250 slots, has 325 students on its waiting list. "Right now, the window is closed as far as Boston is concerned, which forces charter schools to other areas around the state. But the issue is most compelling in a place like Boston, where a lot of families feel that regular district schools are not giving them what they need."

Duffy described raising the cap as "the biggest legislative priority for charters and the charter school movement."

Charter schools are a perennial issue at the State House, and the push to raise the cap makes it likely that lawmakers will spar over the issue again in the upcoming session, which begins in January. The fight pits charter school supporters such as Governor Mitt Romney against opponents such as the Boston Public Schools and the teachers' unions, who are generous campaign contributors, especially to the Democrats who dominate the Legislature.

Charter school advocates believe the wind has shifted in their direction: They were heartened by the defeat of a proposal last summer that would have temporarily halted the creation of new charter schools anywhere in the state. They lost a powerful advocate when House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran resigned in September, but Finneran's successor, Salvatore F. DiMasi, also has a voting record favoring charter schools. And in Romney, who proposed eliminating the cap last year, they have a staunch ally.

Backers also believe that a revised charter school financing system, designed to shield traditional public schools from financial harm, will make the idea of creating additional charters more politically palatable on Beacon Hill. Earlier this year, lawmakers agreed to give school districts more money for the students they lose to nearby charter schools, and to adjust the amount of money that charter schools get to more accurately reflect the actual students they enroll.

Senator Robert A. Antonioni, who chairs the Senate's education panel, said last week that it is "very possible" that lawmakers will support raising the cap.

But opponents, who believe charter schools harm traditional public schools, are vowing to fight any expansion.

"I don't think they deserve any more latitude than they already have," said Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union. Stutman said traditional public schools in Boston also have long waiting lists for certain popular programs, and would be able to serve more families if charter schools didn't drain money from them. "If we had the cash to extend those programs . . . we would attract a lot of these parents back to the city. But it's not a level playing field for us."

Jonathan Palumbo, a spokesman for the Boston Public Schools, said the district also would vehemently oppose raising the cap. Palumbo said that although the Legislature gave Boston and other districts more money for the students they lost to charter schools this year, there is no guarantee that lawmakers will continue to do so.

Charter schools, which have been operating in Massachusetts since 1995, are supported by taxpayer dollars, but they enjoy autonomy that other public schools do not. Most of them can implement their own curriculum, hire their own teachers and principals, and control their own budgets.

In return for that freedom, a charter school must attract and retain students and produce positive results within five years or risk losing its charter, which is granted by the state Board of Education. The idea is to remove bureaucratic shackles that may hold back teachers and students, and encourage educational innovation that might be transplanted into regular public schools.

Many of the state's charter schools post higher MCAS scores than traditional public schools, but others do not. Opponents argue that side-by-side comparisons are unfair, since regular public schools educate more students with disabilities or whose first language is not English. They also note that charter schools benefit from more involved parents, who have to apply to get their children into the schools.

As of September, there were 56 charter schools in Massachusetts, with three additional schools slated to open next fall. When students decamp for charter schools, state and local money follows them: During the last school year, school districts paid $138.5 million to charter schools for 15,884 students.

Under state law, there can be no more than 120 charter schools operating at one time, and no more than 4 percent of students statewide can be enrolled in them. For now, charter school supporters aren't interested in raising those limits. The cap they are concerned about limits the amount of school spending that can go to charter schools in each district to no more than 9 percent of the district's net school spending, effectively capping enrollment.

"The urban areas are the ones that would seem to need the most help, and people don't realize that if the 9 percent cap is left as it is, needed charter schools can't open there," said Michael Goldstein, founder of the Media and Technology Charter High School in Boston.

Many Boston parents would welcome an increase in charter school slots. Elizabeth Martinez, whose 12-year-old son, Ariel, is one of 482 students on the waiting list for the Academy of the Pacific Rim, is paying $3,000 to send him to a Catholic school this year rather than send him back to Boston's Irving Middle School, where she said his education was "not up to par."

"If these children have a choice to be able to go to a better school, especially a public school, there shouldn't be any kind of boundaries," Martinez said.

But Representative Daniel E. Bosley, a North Adams Democrat who supported the freeze on new charter schools that fell short last summer, said that he and many other legislators remain concerned that charter schools are siphoning money from traditional public schools. "The question is always money on these things. The charters will wave the flag and say, 'It's not about money, it's about kids.' But it's about the kids in the public schools, not just the kids in charter schools," he said.