The Senate on April 7 tackled the always-contentious topic of charter schools, approving a wide-ranging bill that would raise the cap on charter school enrollment in a limited and targeted way and make a variety of changes in how schools are approved and operated.
 
In an attempt to broaden support for the bill, the Senate would also link any increase in the cap to the implementation of proposals to update and expand the state’s main school funding program for local public schools.
 
The bill was approved by a 22-13 margin and sent to the House.
 
The Senate plan represents an attempt to find a middle ground between the warring sides of the debate over raising the cap and to avoid the increasingly divisive charter school ballot question going before voters in November. With just a few months left before the end of formal sessions, however, it appears that a House-Senate agreement is unlikely, and the charter school issue will be decided by voters in the fall.
 
At a recent State House meeting with members of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, both the House and Senate chairs of the Education Committee said they thought it was unlikely that the House and Senate could agree on a bill that would bring the sides together.
 
The MMA Fiscal Policy Committee voted unanimously in March to oppose the ballot question because it would increase the number of charter schools that could operate without making any changes to the rules governing how charter schools are funded, which would adversely affect local public schools.
 
The ballot question would allow the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to approve up to 12 new Commonwealth charter schools annually, with an enrollment cap of 1 percent of statewide students (about 9,500) added each year. The question would give priority to charter schools seeking to locate in school districts in the lowest 25 percent in performance measurements.
 
The Senate bill, however, would gradually raise the cap on charter schools operating in the state’s lowest-performing school districts. The current dollar cap, set at 18 percent of a local school district’s “net school spending” under school finance law, functions as a limit on charter school enrollment. The Senate plan would increase the dollar cap by one-half of 1 percent per year, up to a new cap of 23 percent of net school spending. The bill would eliminate the cap on charter schools that provide alternative education services.
 
The Senate bill would also change the current six-year schedule for reimbursing local public schools for a portion of the assessment used to pay tuition to charter schools. (Assessments for fiscal 2017 are expected to total more than $500 million.) The Senate’s three-year schedule would provide transition payments equal to 100 percent in the first year, 50 percent in the second and 25 percent in the third.
 

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