Keep-the-cap campaign kicks off

uan Cofield, chair of the Save our Public Schools ballot committee, spoke at the campaign launch at the steps of the state house.

Opponents of a 2016 ballot measure that would lift the charter cap kicked-off a more formal effort last week, with the launch of the Campaign to Save Our Public Schools. They appeared on the state house steps with a series of speeches given by Juan Cofield, president of the New England Area Conference of the NAACP and chair of the ballot committee; Lisa Guisbond, executive director of Citizens for Public Schools; and Marléna Rose, coordinator for the Boston Education Justice Alliance.

The campaign to keep the cap is in the early stages of organization, while the one to expand charter schools has attained visibility over past months with promotion effort such as rallies and a recent TV spot.

Message proliferation

Proponents of charter school expansion present charters as engines of opportunity and parent choice, as well as an escape route for children faced with district schools that are low-performing. Those who wish to keep the cap note that charter schools can be established over objections of the surrounding community, and charge that charters drain money from public schools while wielding discipline to push out low-performing or hard-to-educate children. The result, they say, is that only district schools serve all students, but are forced to do so with fewer and fewer resources.

Thus far, charter expansion proponents to have better success spreading their message. Governor Charlie Baker is among the supporters, bringing visibility to the cause. Great Schools Massachusetts, a coalition advocating for state charter expansion, has generated attention for months with their professionally produced lift-the-cap rallies, charter facts website and media outreach through several public relation firms, including Keyser Public Strategies, Archipelago Strategies Group, O’Neill and Associates and Slowey/McManus Communications.

The Campaign to Save Our Public Schools a latecomer to the field and not yet at the point of major media ads. Several SOPS members said next steps will focus on door-to-door outreach and conversations with voters to get their message out and fight perceptions already instilled by charter advocates.

BEJA coordinator Marléna Rose said an important aspect of outreach is that it brings to light how, in some cases, people’s poor experiences with charter schools reflect a systemic issue. For instance, Rose said that when her daughter attended a charter, she was subjected to frequent and seeming-unwarranted discipline and Rose received multiple calls home a day, to the point that it felt like harassment. Rose assumed it was just her family’s isolated experience, until she spoke with other parents who had similar experiences. Learning this made Rose see such practices as endemic to the charter system; it is one reason she opposes charter expansion and believes other parents will as well.

SOPS members said that over the next two months, the campaign is mobilizing hundreds of volunteers, both newcomers to the campaign and those from member organizations, to do community outreach across the state. Volunteers include parents, teachers, civil rights organizations and grassroots organizations focused on issues of equality and fairness, Cofield said.

“Our coalition of community partners is looking forward to engaging in a conversation with voters in every neighborhood in Massachusetts on the importance of public schools that serve all students equally,” said SOPS spokesperson Steve Crawford. “We are confident that our grass roots campaign will defeat the charter expansion ballot question.”

Crawford is the founder of Crawford Strategies public relations firm and has done extensive work for public employee unions.

Funding

SOPS supporter Russ Davis said the campaign cannot match the funding of their competition, which includes Families for Excellent Schools, a New-York based nonprofit founded mainly by Wall Street investors. FES is a driving force behind the pro-charter Great Schools Massachusetts coalition and seems able to draw on significant financial resources: In April 2015, FES received donations of $1 million each from two current and former hedge fund managers, according to the New York Daily News.

The charter expansion campaign is prepared to spend up to $18 million on the ballot question alone, said Eileen O’Connor, spokesperson for Great Schools Massachusetts.

SOPS did not give a figure for their funds. Expectations are that they would turn to the teacher’s union for support. In February, leadership in the Massachusetts Teachers Association considered committing $9.6 million to the campaign to fight the lift, but ultimately decided to postpone such funding decisions, according to the Boston Herald.

SOPS members present their campaign as a community-grown, broad-based movement that stands in contrast to big money charter proponents.

“We won’t win this with money. We’ll win this with grassroots organizing and volunteers,” Russ Davis said. “No matter how much money the teachers unions or whomever puts into this, the people we’re up against are billionaire hedge fund owners where money is no limit.”

Target audiences

Communities of color and suburban communities are likely messaging targets.

Proponents of charter expansion often assert that children of color are key beneficiaries of charter schools. Recently, Great Schools Massachusetts announced that 80 members of Latino communities across the state — including business and nonprofit leaders, legislators, city councilors, and school committee members — joined their coalition in calling for a cap lift.

“Communities of color have been led to believe that this is good for the community,” SOPS Chair Juan Cofield told the Banner. “That is absolutely not true because 90 percent of the kids [those not enrolled in charters] are being treated as second-quality kids.” Charter schools serve few students while drawing money from the public schools that serve the rest, he said.

SOPS members said it also is important to connect with voters who have few or no charter schools in their communities. Such individuals may have little knowledge of charter schools outside of what the pro-expansion side tells them, they said.

“A lot of progressives in suburban communities have been led to believe they are doing kids of color a favor by supporting charters,” Cofield said.

“Some communities are not affected by charter schools,” said Tom Gosnell president of American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts. “They don’t know the issues,” but they still vote on them, he added.

One city behind SOPS: Worcester. City Councilor Khyristian King said at the kick-off that the council wishes to make clear to the state legislature that they oppose charter expansion.

Personal touch

Jay Cincotti is co-founder of Cence Cincotti Strategies, a firm that provides strategic consulting on government relations and public affairs. The dispute over the charter cap could easily feel like an abstract debate between the teachers’ union (keep the cap) and education reformists (expand charters), he said. The pro-charter expansion side has managed to overcome this and bring their cause to personal, community level, through showcasing individual parents talking about why they want the charter cap lifted. The St. Patrick’s Day ad featured an African American woman saying that her children had unequal educational opportunities because one had received a seat in a charter school and two were on waiting lists.

The keep-the-cap side faces one barrier: Some of the arguments the teachers’ union and others who oppose charter expansions have put forth — such as the reimbursement system that fails to fully compensate district schools when funds follow students to charters — can feel distant because they take a significant level of education on the issue to unpack and understand, he said.

One way the pro-cap side could bring the personal touch is by featuring the voices of individual teachers explaining what a charter expansion would mean for students in their classrooms, Cincotti said. SOPS’ kick-off Marléna Rose giving voice to her experience as a parent. Also at the event: Franklin kindergarten teacher Donna Grady, who described the effect that funding lost to charters is having on her school.

“[The anti-charter side] could utilize that state-wide network of teachers to talk in a personal sense to say, ‘Their schools aren’t good for your education because this is what’s going to affect your kids in the classroom and this is what’s affecting me in the classroom,’” Cincotti said. “That way it’s not the mom who’s looking out for her kids versus the teachers’ union, it’s the mom looking out for her kids versus the teacher looking out for your kids.”

Cincotti also cautioned that talking to individual residents is unlikely to generate a good return on investment. Although TV ads are expensive, they are a very effective way for getting a message in front of voters, he said. The pro-charter side has already taken that step, running a TV ad during many of the breaks during the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, he noted.

Ballot box or State House?

While SOPS is gearing up for the ballot fight, Great Schools Massachusetts spokesperson Eileen O’Connor said the pro-charter expansion campaign is currently focusing on state legislative action. Such a move would mean compromising but, noted Cincotti, it would also spare the coalition the expense of running a campaign.

“Our focus right now is on legislatiive action in support of thousands of families seeking equal access to quality public schools in their communities,” O’Connor said.