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NOVEMBER 4TH MORNING ROUNDS

Date Published: November 4, 2016

Author: MCPSA

Why it’s so hard to vote yes on Question 2
By Shirley Leung to The Boston Globe
“Who would’ve thought that it would be easier for us to legalize marijuana in Massachusetts than to lift the cap on charter schools. That’s what the polls are showing, and it’s fitting in this topsy-turvy election season that we have a local ballot question on education that has everyone torn when the answer should be clear. Study after study show that charter schools in Massachusetts are the real deal. They were created two decades ago so that kids, largely black and Hispanic, from poor urban school districts could have the same access to high-quality education as their white counterparts in wealthy suburbs.”

City budgets can absorb more charter schools
The Boston Globe
“WITH DAYS to go before voters decide on the hotly contested ballot question to lift the cap on charter schools in Massachusetts, a misleading November surprise arrived from an unlikely source. An e-mail sent by a credit-rating agency to a handful of cities contained a vague warning that their municipal credit ratings could suffer if the ballot measure passes, making it more expensive for those cities to borrow money for public needs. The missive, while seeming to support the scare tactics of Question 2 opponents, makes some faulty assumptions about the broader financial and political realities that will unfold should the initiative prevail. If the question passes, it would enable — but not require — the state to open more charter schools, most likely in underperforming urban districts. And if more families choose to send their children to those new charters, fewer will attend the district schools.”

Massachusetts Governor talks ballot questions, politics with RI
By Stephanie Johnston and Steve Nielsen for WPRI
“Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker was on the road Thursday campaigning for the approval of Question 2 on the state ballot. Approving Question 2 will allow for the state to create up to 12 new charter schools in nine communities. “This is about giving people on waiting lists in communities that are capped, which is nine, to go to the same kind of school that many of their neighbors go to,” said Baker. Some communities have tried to tell Baker that they would consider downgrading ratings if charter schools were approved.  Baker stated that he thought the suggestion was odd, and can’t see why communities are concerned when the state carries most of the cost of education anyway.”

Baker stumps for charter schools in New Bedford
By Aimee Chiavaroli for South Coast Today
“A dozen or so Question 2 opponents stood Thursday afternoon with signs outside the Presidential Heights Office on Fillmore Street where Gov. Charlie Baker spoke in support of the ballot referendum. Question 2 would raise the cap on charter schools, providing more opportunities for parents and their children in nine communities that are at or close to the cap, including Fall River, Baker said. Opponents, however, say the measure would take additional money away from public school districts. Many school committees (including New Bedford as of last week) as well as local public officials like Mayor Jon Mitchell, have opposed it.  Baker made his case by arguing that the new charters would benefit minority students in struggling districts like New Bedford.”

Moody’s won’t elaborate on charter school caveat
By David Scharfenberg for The Boston Globe
“The credit-rating agency Moody’s Investors Service, which sent e-mails to four Massachusetts cities this week warning that voter approval of a charter-expansion ballot measure could weaken their financial standing, is declining to provide an explanation for its position or a draft of its full analysis. “Moody’s has not published any research on Question 2 in Massachusetts, and cannot comment on any potential credit impact until after the outcome of the vote has been determined,” David Jacobson, a spokesman for Moody’s, said in a prepared statement.  The e-mails said the agency would provide city officials with a draft analysis of the possible impact of the referendum on Wednesday for their comment, with plans to publish a final version after the election.”

Yes on 2 ‘for ALL the children’
By Bob Pokress for The Andover Townsman
“When in the early 1990s Massachusetts was debating whether or not to authorize the introduction of charter schools in the state, the same forces opposed to increasing the cap on charter schools — the teachers union and the local educational bureaucracies — were claiming that the educational sky would fall and the world would come to an end if any form of charter school education were allowed in the state. I remember well those scare tactics of the educational establishment — my wife and I were young parents here in Andover back then. The opponents to raising the cap on charter public schools are just recycling their debunked predictions from more than 20 years ago. In the 23 years since the first charter schools were authorized in our state, contrary to the predictions of charter school opponents, just the opposite has occurred — public education has improved in Massachusetts since charter public schools were authorized and, most importantly, kids who would otherwise have been handcuffed to failing schools or to mediocre teachers were able to vote with their feet and move to better schools made available to them by the establishment of charter schools. Choice works. As the saying goes, a rising tide raises ALL boats.”

Saving Boston’s public school children: Vote ‘Yes’ on Question 2
By Ben Howe for Education Post
“Charter schools are public schools that give kids in underperforming districts a better public school option. That’s not something you’ve heard, at least not from the teachers union, which has spent $10 million from their war chest in a highly publicized campaign to defeat Question 2. But as co-chair of Excel Academy Charter Schools, that is exactly what we provide to 1,000 students in Boston. Consider this: only 36 percent of Boston Public School eighth-grade students were reading and doing math at their grade level according to June PARCC standardized test results. These are frightening test results by any measure—what’s more frightening is that they have barely made any improvement over the past several years.”

Guest opinion: Vote ‘Yes’ on Question 2 for charter schools
By Jacob M. Grossman for The Fall River Herald
“As we approach Election Day, I’ve been troubled by some of the discussion around Question 2 on the upcoming ballot. My hope is that you will vote Yes for charter schools and share this message with family, friends and coworkers. I have grown passionate about urban education after my wife, Liz, taught in Atlanta with Teach For America. I saw how bad a bad education can be, with teachers cheating on standardized tests for their kids and where 5th graders could not read. With all due respect to my wife, it was clear how bad the school was when the parents were fighting to have their kids in her class when she had just six weeks of teacher training.  When she returned to Boston, I learned that the Boston Public Schools are also not effectively educating our kids. The results from the district are staggeringly bad.”

NightSide – A charter school debate
By Dan Rea for CBS Boston
“Here in Massachusetts, Question 2 has consistently been the tightest race among the four ballot questions. Tonight we’ll take another look at the role of charter schools and the effects that Question 2 could have on education in the Commonwealth. Dan will be joined in studio by Tom Gosnell, President of the American Federation of Teachers and Shannah Varón, Executive Director of Boston Collegiate Charter School. Where do you stand on raising the charter school cap?”

Letter: With charters money follows the student
By Nancy Donchin for The Milford Daily News
“I am compelled to respond to the letter from Joan Rastani published in the November 1 issue (“Response to charter, state rep letters”) in which she chastised me for “not doing my homework.” In her response to my letter published in the October 29 issue (“Hypocritical opposition to charter question”), Ms. Rastani objected to my “generalizing the Question 2 supporters (doesn’t she mean objectors?) as being teachers, school committees, and others who benefit from state funding for schools.”  In fact, this information came from a statement by Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, in an October 25 article in this very paper that covered a debate on this question at Walsh Middle School (“Question 2 debated at Framingham forum”). Madeloni, who is a leader of the opposition to Question 2, was quoted as saying “Opponents of Question 2, she said, include mostly educators and nearly 200 school committees across the state.”

Charter backers: Expanding access will help close gap
By Matt Murphy for SHNS/Lowell Sun
“Against the backdrop of new financial concerns Question 2 could present for some Massachusetts cities, charter-school leaders on Wednesday used test scores to make a case for why expanding access for students in minority communities will help close the achievement gap with their predominantly white, suburban peers.  The closely contested campaign over whether Massachusetts should expand access to charter-school education has entered the home stretch with each side making near daily pitches with new studies, analyses, and television ads hoping to sway the small, but consequential bloc of undecided voters.”