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It’s the time of year when potential ballot questions — in anticipation of the 2016 ballot — are proliferating almost as fast as ragweed.
But our candidate for the most significant among them is one that would expand access to state-chartered schools — especially in those communities most in need, where regular public schools are underperforming and yet the cities have hit their mandated cap on seats.
The novel approach taken in this particular ballot initiative now awaiting approval by the attorney general would keep the cap on the books but allow the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to authorize up to 12 new public charter schools or expand existing schools each year.
“In Massachusetts today, we have 37,000 students that are waiting to attend a public charter school but can’t. These families deserve better,” said Beth Anderson, chair of the board of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association and one the initiators of the petition.
According to her group, more than 13,000 children in Boston are on charter wait lists and Lawrence, Holyoke, and Fall River are at the cap. That is nothing short of tragic.
The measure is also supported by the Massachusetts High Technology Council, whose president, Chris Anderson, called expanding access to charters “an urgent moral and economic imperative.”
Of course, that’s not the way Massachusetts Teachers Association President Barbara Madeloni sees it.
“It’s just going to continue the efforts of some people to create a two-tiered education system in Massachusetts. We need to freeze charters and go back to putting the resources we need into public education,” Madeloni told the State House News Service.
Now charters are actually public schools — free to students who are admitted by lottery. But we would hate to confuse Madeloni with the facts when she’s in the middle of a good rant.
With a little luck, however, the Legislature can — and should — act long before November 2016 on either this proposal or one Gov. Charlie Baker says he is readying for consideration this fall. But there’s nothing like the pressure of a pending ballot question to focus the minds of lawmakers on doing the right thing sooner rather than later.
