The final four weeks of any campaign are an endurance test. My schedule last Tuesday was typically marathon-esque: the day began with a meet and greet breakfast hosted by a friend who lives in the Riverview condominiums overlooking the Charles River; I spent the rest of morning answering email and writing thank you notes to donors; I went door-to-door canvassing voters all afternoon; I attended an evening house party on my behalf hosted by friends near Danehy Park; I participated in a candidate Q&A forum organized by the Ward 6 Progressive Democrats in Central Square; I returned home after 10 pm and foolishly gave in to the impulse to answer more email; I slept poorly and was up early to attend a coffee discussion for candidates the next morning. The rest of the week went by in blur at the same breakneck pace. Highlight were a 15-minute live interview on CCTV with comedian Jimmy Tingle and riding my campaign cargo bike in the annual HONK Parade. A low point was getting caught in Friday afternoon’s downpour while canvassing in the Cambridge Highlands area and riding my bike home through lashing rain.
I want to respond here in slightly more detail to a question about charter schools that came up during the Ward 6 Progressive Democrats candidate forum last week. Following 90 minutes of questions from the audience, moderator Lesley Phillips offered each candidate the opportunity to ask a question of one other candidate. Councillor Craig Kelley (the sole member of the Unity Slate who participated in the forum) used his “question” to chastise me for having worked at Community Charter School of Cambridge. I was given one minute to answer. It’s no secret that Kelley is vehemently anti-charter. It’s also no secret that I served as director of external relations at CCSC for three school years until the end of June, when I resigned in order to devote my full attention to my campaign. (This was a staff position in which I was responsible for community relations and outreach to families, and had no authority over school policies.) The way Craig phrased his question was along the lines of, “How could you work at a school that loses X% of its students between 9th and 12th grade?” I’m not including the inflated figure he cited because Craig invented his own metric for enrollment stability rather than relying on the State’s metrics to evaluate school performance, which are public information and by which standard CCSC is meeting or exceeding all goals. See CCSC’s School Report Card on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education website.
It’s apples to oranges to compare a small charter school serving fewer than 400 students in grades 6-12 to the Cambridge district, which serves about 3,000 students in the same grades and 6,678 in PreK-12. By definition, charter schools are schools of choice — and students can and sometimes do choose to return to their home districts or to enroll in other schools of choice. The majority (about 60%) of CCSC students come from Boston and 20 other towns, often traveling long distances by public transit to attend. Demographics at CCSC also differ significantly from those in the Cambridge district public schools. The percentage of white students at CCSC is less than 4% compared to 39% in the Cambridge district. CCSC also enrolls more low-income students. Further, unlike CRLS, CCSC has no extension or technical school to send students while keeping them “in district” for retention stats.
Craig’s beef against charter schools centers on the roughly $10 million (about 5% of total expenditures in FY14) that followed the 406 Cambridge students who enrolled in all charter schools that year. The money followed the students — Cambridge district schools were no longer educating those 406 kids. That $10m was being spent to educate Cambridge students in charter public schools, many of whom feel their district schools were not holding them to uniformly high expectations. Even Craig and the School Committee acknowledge that Cambridge district schools have not been able to close the significant racial achievement gap, despite having the State’s second highest per student expenditure (after Provincetown). Craig never mentions that it is State policy to reimburse the sending district for its charter students at up to 225% of the funding over the next six years, regardless of whether the student later returns and re-enrolls in the district school.
I wish I had asked Craig why he is so resentful that predominantly low income students of color are being offered the choice to attend a tuition-free school created and chartered expressly to help close the achievement gap? As I said to the Ward 6 audience, I am proud to have worked at CCSC. For three years, I watched with awe as the CCSC faculty and administration worked longer school days and a longer school year, putting in countless evening and weekend hours, to deliver a rigorous college prep program to a high-needs student body. I also saw them continually reflect on their practice and their progress toward goals, seeking to continually improve student learning growth and retention. I heard many families say how grateful they were to finally have found a school where their children would be both challenged and individually supported enough to succeed in and out of the classroom. I heard students talk about the positive impact CCSC was having on their lives and how well prepared they felt for college.
A final question for Craig: is he aware that Boston district, charters, and other schools of choice are working collaboratively through the Boston Compact “to provide equitable access to high-performing schools and excellent instruction to all students.” Maybe he should apply the Unity Slate’s professed dedication to being “collegial” to find ways for district and charter schools to share best practices and to work more closely on behalf of all Cambridge youth. After all, that was State’s intent when it authorized the first charter schools 20 years ago. After two decades isn’t it time for Craig and others to move on from the “us vs. them” political debate and to instead focus on how to provide a high-quality education for every student in Cambridge and the Commonwealth?
Lining up with the cargo bike contingent for the Honk parade
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