Testimony regarding the proposed Worcester charter

Thanks to my Worcester School Committee colleague for capturing the opening of my testimony

In preparing for today’s public testimony, I have found that I have a single message for you:

How dare you.

How dare you come into Worcester, the district that in October of 2013 welcomed back over 150 students from the failed Spirit of Knowledge Charter School that failed for exactly the reasons we told you it would, with an eerily similar budget proposal?

How dare you come into Worcester, a district that has lived at foundation level spending for years, with a charter proposal that is so ignorant of how charter financing is calculated that they think at net school spending means no rate was published?

How dare you come into Worcester, a district which after years of research and planning has brought transportation in house, with a charter proposal that plans $50,000 for a bus (we just bought 100; they cost more than that), has no budget for fuel or insurance, and makes no clear provision for students in wheelchairs?

How dare you come into Worcester, a district where the majority of our students speak a first language other than English and fully a third are English learners with a proposal from a purported “proven provider” that serves so few English learners that the state cannot publish MCAS or ACCESS results because they have so few students in that subgroup?

The demographics of the current school are most reflective, per the Department’s own comparison, with that of Edgartown, Florida, Oak Bluffs, Provincetown, Richmond, and Tisbury, with the exception that the Cape and Island towns serve as many as ten times the percentage of English learner students.
And you dare to suggest that they should be able to open a school here.

Those proposing the school have a record in key data points that is in a number of cases worse than that of the Worcester Public Schools while serving a student body that is more privileged. 

Last year at Old Sturbridge Village Charter School, 66.5% of students were absent 10 or more days. In the Worcester Public Schools, our rate was thirteen percentage points lower.

Old Sturbridge Village Charter has had a teacher retention rate over 80% only one year in its history; last year, it was 75%. In Worcester, our rate is regularly over 84%; last year, it was 88.9%.

In MCAS growth scores, Old Sturbridge Village Charter–with student demographics that are wealthier, whiter, and almost entirely primarily English speaking–were 52% for ELA and 56% for math. For the same span, the Worcester Public Schools, serving a demographic that is much more poorly served by the MCAS, had growth rates of 51% in both ELA and math. How dare you tout this as a record of academics superior to ours?

As I once again find myself before a state panel, begging you to not hurt my school district, I wonder if we in Massachusetts public school districts will ever actually see the “more supportive role” of the Department Commissioner Riley has claimed was his vision.
Not yet, it appears.
And so I will ask you again: please allow the Worcester Public Schools to serve and to be locally accountable for the education of our students. Do not forward this proposal.