Baker, Walsh call for lifting charter cap

Mayor Martin Walsh called for increasing the state cap on charter schools from 18 percent of school districts’ funding to 23 percent, testifying at a State House hearing Tuesday. Baker, testifying on behalf of his bill, H.D. 4191, “An Act to Improve and Expand Education Opportunities,” called for an state approval for 12 new charter schools a year in the bottom 25 percent of the state’s lowest-performing school districts.

Walsh said the increase should come at the rate of a half a percent a year in the state’s lowest performing districts.

“Raising the cap on public charter schools is something I believe in and have advocated for a long time,” Walsh testified. “But the goal of lifting the cap is not to fuel a rapid seat expansion. It’s to build thoughtfully on success, and achieve the right mix of high-quality school options for our students.”

Baker, who did not call for a phased increase, also called for new charters to be created in low-performing school districts.

“Most of the highest performing schools in the Commonwealth are charter schools that serve students located in some of the state’s lowest performing school districts,” Baker said. “But today, despite all this positive progress, the difference in overall student achievement in underperforming school districts and the rest of the Commonwealth, remains too high while some 37,000 children sit on waiting lists trying to get into the Commonwealth’s very successful charter school network.”

In addition to increasing the number of charters, Walsh called on the state to fully fund the reimbursements it is required by law to make to districts in which charters operate. For every student sent to charter schools, the sending district is obligated, under state law, to pay the charter school an amount equivalent to the district’s average per-pupil expenditure. The state is required to provide a partial refund to the sending district over a four year period, but has never fully paid those refunds. In his testimony, Walsh called on the state to refund sending districts for 100 percent of the first year students attend charters, 50 percent of the second and 25 percent of the third year.

Walsh said Baker’s plan, and a similar plan outlined in a 2016 ballot petition, would leave cities and towns on the hook for increased financial obligations.

“They are incomplete answers to our challenges,” he said of Baker’s bill and the ballot question. “They call on cities and towns to increase their commitments to public charter schools, while the state’s own commitment to the system is wavering. Neither measure would move us toward a sustainable system.”

Under Walsh’s proposal, cities and towns would continue to be responsible for 100 percent of the cost of pre-existing charter seats, as well as the cost of all new seats from the fourth year on.

State aid for Boston’s district schools, which stood at nearly a third of the budget in the 1990s, now accounts for less than 10 percent of the school budget.

Walsh said state funding is continuing to decline.

“In Boston, our total education costs this year, combining both Boston Public School and public charter spending, will grow by 5 percent, or more than $55 million,” he testified. “Yet our state aid for education, combining Chapter 70 and reimbursements, will increase by only 2 percent, or about $5 million.”

Baker said his proposal will give charter schools better flexibility to educate English language learners and students with disabilities, but did not offer specific policy recommendations in his statement.

“This is Massachusetts. We are the home of public education, and our charter schools for many kids have lowered the educational opportunity playing field for thousands of children,” he said. “We should celebrate their success and build on it.”