More than 100 local school committees have voted to oppose Question 2 on the Massachusetts ballot, which would lift the state’s cap on the number of charter schools allowed. Local, elected school committees have good reason to oppose lifting the cap—not only are charters a drain on the budgets of public schools, but backers of Question 2 explicitly say that one of their goals is moving away from local control of schools.
Mercedes Schneider reports that, at a debate on the issue, the voice of charter expansion:
[Former state Rep. Marty] Walz maintains that “local control …got us into this situation,” and by “this situation,” Walz means, “thousands of students are being left behind by their school districts.”
Got us into what, exactly? Schneider cites Massachusetts results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress:
Massachusetts outperformed all of the other states in grade 4 and tied for grade 8. [...]
Overall Performance for Mathematics Massachusetts tied for first with three other states on both the grade 4 and grade 8 mathematics assessments.
Heavens, yes, local control got us into this terrible, terrible situation. We need to turn education over to unelected, nontransparent entities! Meanwhile, not a single school committee—again, we’re talking locally, democratically elected school committees—has voted to support Question 2.