This coming November, Massachusetts residents voting in the general election will face many significant choices — even ones that extend beyond one of the most contentious presidential elections in our nation’s history. State voters will also decide the fate of four ballot measures, potential laws which bypass normal legislative procedure and are instead approved or rejected by ordinary citizens. One of the reasons why this election is significant is that one of those measures will play a large role in determining the future complexion of our state’s public school system. If approved, Question 2 on this year’s ballot will increase the cap on charter schools, allowing the state to authorize up to 12 new charters or expansions for existing charters every year with priority being given to underperforming districts. 

Charter schools are publicly funded but run independently of the state government. Although seemingly innocuous, this new ballot measure has pitted wealthy philanthropists against teachers’ unions, equality of education advocates against racial equality groups and low-income charter families against low-income district school families. The result has been one of the most contentious, cash-filled ballot questions in the state’s history, one which crudely mirrors the other important political battle which will be settled on Nov. 8. While charter advocates have made some salient arguments on issues that exist within traditional public schools, a more long-term analysis of the issue suggests that separating the public school system into two arenas competing for the same funds is a bad policy. 

Charters were originally brought to Massachusetts by state officials who wanted to test out new ideas for how to best educate students free from the constraints of standard district and union practice, according to a piece in this month’s issue of Boston Magazine. They have since evolved into alternatives to traditional public schools which naturally attract families frustrated with their district schools. Thus, the role of charters has evolved from innovation to providing a “right to choose” for as many families as possible.

Numerous studies, including a Feb. 28, 2013 report by Stanford University, have backed up this new raison d’etre; Massachusetts charters, on average, have better standardized test scores than district schools. It would be easy to begin and end discussions about the issue there — and many charter school advocates have tried to do just that. After all, is there any more pertinent issue relating to education than the performance of students? 

The answer is probably not, but the success of charter schools often comes at a price for other students in the state. 

Funding for charter schools comes from the same coffers used to fund traditional public schools. When a student moves from a traditional public school to a charter school, the state automatically diverts funds for each student’s tuition from their old school to their new school, according to a Jan. 28 Boston.com article. Many charter school advocates have tried to stop the story there and claim that there is no budgeting issue. However, since 2011, the state has not been able to fully reimburse district schools for the lost funds. This year, Boston Public Schools were refunded for less than half of students who departed for charter schools. According to a document detailing Boston Public Schools’ 2017 finances, the state’s inability to adequately offset their losses is largely to blame for a $50 billion budget gap for this upcoming year. 

Although tuition is a per-student cost, the sum of tuition payments also goes toward certain fixed costs that the school has. Take the example of a class which starts out with 15 students and one teacher. That teacher’s salary has already been determined and is not supposed to fluctuate over time as students enter or leave the class. So if five students leave for charters and the district is not fully reimbursed, the district school may not be able to satisfy the agreed-upon wage of the teacher, among other things.  

The scope of the issue and the reasons behind the contention become even clearer when considering that only 4 percent of elementary and secondary school students in Massachusetts currently attend charter schools, according to a Sept. 13 WBUR article. The law would only increase this proportion by less than 1 percent each year. So while charter schools continue to get the full amount of each student’s tuition, the system which serves the vast majority of students suffers. 

Beyond state budgeting issues, there certainly are problems inherent to Massachusetts charter schools which render Question 2 a bad policy. One of the perks of being free of union rules is that charter schools can get away with paying their teachers far less than district schools. According to a Feb. 25 Boston Globe opinion piece, average district school teacher salaries were $91,800 in 2014, compared to only $67,000 for teachers in charter schools. Charter school advocates will often counter with this fact when confronted with the issue of unsatisfied budgets for district schools. They claim that the main culprit for draining traditional public school funds are not charters, but teachers’ unions who demand exorbitant salaries. While there are legitimate concerns about teachers’ unions demanding too much money, charter schools could very well face the same issue in the future. According to the same piece in Boston Magazine, charters tend to hire teachers in their 20s, who, in general, demand less money. As charter schools expand, however, they may exhaust the field of teachers willing to work for less.  At a certain point, charter schools  may have to choose between paying their teachers more or limiting their expansion. As a result, one of charter schools’ unique advantages over traditional schools will disappear.  

Other more current issues must also be considered when Massachusetts voters decide how to vote on this ballot measure. Despite 603 CMR 1.05, a 2010 regulation which required state charters to recruit and retain more Special Education and English Language Learner (ELL) students, there is still a discrepancy in the number of these students who attend charter schools and those who attend district schools. According to the WBUR moderator for last week’s 2016 Massachusetts Ballot Debate, just 8 percent of Boston Charter School students are ELL, as opposed to 30 percent for Boston District Schools.

Even the claims of better education in charter schools may not be bulletproof. According to Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson, only 44 percent of charter school graduates from the city completed college in a six-year period, compared to 50 percent of district school students. It should be questioned whether charters overemphasize standardized test-taking in order to flaunt statistics which suggest success instead of educating students in a more effective way.

While charter school advocates correctly diagnose certain issues with traditional public schools in Massachusetts, expanding their resources through an unfunded mandate will only make it harder for district schools to improve their track records. 

Given the myriad issues that can arise when government separates public education into competing spheres, it would be helpful to step back and consider how we got to this point in the first place.  Charters were founded to collaborate with district schools in finding better ways to educate. The fact that the issue has become so contentious is not only a testament to the inherent problems that charter schools pose to equality of opportunity but also a sign that charters have moved away from their original purpose. Competition among students is a desirable trait of a healthy education system, but that same type of competition should not exist between the schools that serve them.