The last few weeks locally have seen a lot of people focused on one issue, the prospect of having a charter school open up in Marlborough this fall. To be honest, I've never paid that much attention to the issue of charter schools, what their function is, etc., but this one required taking a closer look, since everyone in town seemed up in arms about it. On the surface, the idea of an "Advanced Math and Science Academy" sounds promising enough, giving local residents the option of sending their 6th or 7th grader tuition free to a school with an intensive focus on science and math. In practice, however, the proposal as advanced by this group of predominantly eastern European transplants, most of whom don't live in Marlborough, sounds more like an opportunity to cash in, while at the same time providing their supposedly gifted offspring with a set-up that they claim can't be found in the public schools (although I'm sure if they were willing to just pony up the cash they could get pretty close at some of the private schools around).



The school district here was up in arms about it primarily because it would take money away from them. For every child from Marlborough that's accepted into the charter school, the public school loses a pro-rated fraction of their state aid. The formula used to determine how much each pupil is worth is overly simplistic to begin with, and the school system, which isn't exactly flush with cash at the moment anyway, has cause for concern, as this creates a great unknown for future budgetary preparation. The state supposedly thought of this when dreaming up the charter school idea, and is required to kick back any money lost to the public school for the first year to give them a chance to adjust. But the state doesn't have any money either, so there's not much hope being held out that they'll actually make good on their promise.



But the monetary aspect aside, the whole point of charter schools is that they are supposed to be more of a grass roots effort from members of the community to put together a new school that can provide some sort of specialized education that the public school can't or won't provide. Beth went with some of her friends to a public hearing in Worcester last week, and there were a number of representatives there from another proposed charter school, this one in Springfield, that had been organized by parents with kids in the school system with the participation of the school system, and there was no one at the hearing to represent any opposition. Meanwhile, here we have a group with virtually no ties to Marlborough who put together a proposal without even telling the city or the school committee about it, never mind soliciting their input or participation, which goes contrary to the whole point of charter schools in the first place.



At first I was bit skeptical about all the angst being vented against their proposal, figuring it was just another case of nimbyism, but some further reading about it showed that the way these people went about it was just plain sleazy, and that alone is enough to raise a red flag for me. The more you read what they propose, it's hard to believe it would even work as they describe anyway, plus all the questions about handicapped access and special needs students and student safety. Most people just seemed to be miffed that the charter school "founders" were dissing Marlborough, saying the public schools were weak and professionals didn't live here because of it, which has no basis in fact and is just the usual case of those town to the east looking down on their more diverse neighbors.



The review period has just ended and the department of education is supposed to make their final decision public at the end of next month. Rumor has it only one charter school proposal has ever been defeated, but it sounds like similar circumstances to this one, so based on public sentiment if there's any attention paid to the facts at all you have to think there's a good chance this one will fade away too. But where politics are concerned, facts are never given much consideration, so anything could happen. Whether the consequences would be as dire as the public school officials claim it's hard to say, but there's no reason to think it wouldn't have some negative impact (less money for special education and other programs that affect Chloe and/or Justin). These are difficult times already for the schools, why do something that stands a good chance of making them worse?