Officials may postpone charter school openings

MCAS history test also targeted amid fiscal woes

Worried about massive budget cutting in many local districts, state education leaders are considering delaying two potentially costly endeavors: making the 10th-grade MCAS history exam a graduation requirement and opening new charter schools.

Both those key elements of the state's 1993 Education Reform Act carry big price tags for local districts. The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System's new history exam could cause districts to spend tens of thousands of dollars to re-train teachers and revamp curriculums to align with the yet-to-be-developed test, which is now scheduled to become a graduation requirement in 2012.

Opening new charter schools - independently run public schools that operate under looser state regulations to encourage innovation - would divert thousands of dollars in state education aid from local districts for each student who chooses to attend the new schools. It could be another blow to districts bracing for potentially deep cuts next year in teaching staffs and programs because of an anticipated decrease in state aid.

Mitchell Chester, commissioner of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, initially floated the ideas at the agency's board meeting last month. Since then, the ideas have been garnering broad support among local superintendents, school committees, and teachers unions, but strong resistance from charter school supporters and some ardent MCAS advocates.

In an interview, Chester emphasized that he supports charter schools and the 10th-grade history exam, but is trying to respond to the fiscal realities confronting the state and local districts. Chester said the board is likely to discuss the ideas at its meeting later this month, but he has not decided whether he will make a formal recommendation.

"I'm very concerned about the unfolding and continued deterioration of the fiscal climate," Chester said. "It's not clear to me how long it will deteriorate, where the bottom is, and when it will stabilize. And I'm very concerned for our school districts."

Maura Banta, chairwoman of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, said she believes board members would be receptive to formal recommendations, although she could not say which way the board might ultimately vote.

"The fiscal situation needs to be considered," Banta said. "Many cities and towns are in dire need of resources."

In a statement, Secretary of Education Paul Reville said he would not comment on delaying the history exam until the governor presents his budget later this month. However, he frowns at freezing charter school openings.

"Commissioner Chester's casual mention of this idea does not reflect the views of the Executive Office of Education or the Patrick administration," Reville said. "We have long recognized the important role charter schools play in preparing our students to compete in a 21st-century global economy."

State education and legislative leaders have been grappling for more than year with how to assist financially strapped school districts, many of which never recovered from an economic slowdown earlier this decade. In November, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents submitted a report to a special legislative committee detailing unfunded mandates as well as potential remedies, such as holding off on expanding MCAS and opening charter schools.

In the waning days of 2008, Governor Deval Patrick announced that he would need to cut an additional $1 billion from the state budget, raising the specter of cuts in aid to cities and towns.

"If we are going to be reducing programs, cutting teachers, and potentially dismantling a lot of education programs, it raises serious questions about what our priorities are," Thomas Scott, the association's executive director, said in an interview. He added that many districts are preparing for budget cuts as large as 10 percent. "A lot of districts could be decimated."

Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union, said he strongly supports the two ideas.

"In Boston, we are looking at a deficit of $100 million that would absolutely destroy the quality of education," Stutman said. "It would result in cuts and layoffs that would be felt in years to come in lost programs and increased class sizes. It would be unfair to the children of Boston, and it would cause irreparable harm."

Arriving in the middle of the debate this week was a new Boston Foundation report that found charter school students greatly outperformed students of similar backgrounds who were denied lottery admission to those schools and remained in Boston public schools.

"We need to be talking about expanding successful charters, not freezing charters," said Marc Kenen, executive director of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association.

Kenen doubts that new charter schools would put an immediate burden on school districts because the schools would not open for at least another year or two, and districts receive substantial state reimbursement for lost aid in the early years of a new school's operation.

Chester's idea would allow for new charter school approvals, but delay openings until revenue levels improve in that school district. Should the idea become a proposal, Chester is unsure whether it would affect the three new charter school applications that the board will vote on next month.

There's also a possibility that a charter school could open through the conversion of existing low-performing schools, Chester said.

"I'm not an opponent of charter schools," Chester said. "I think charters are an important part of the state's landscape. We have not capitalized on what we should be learning from charter schools."