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Public Information Campaign Launches To Set Record Straight About Public Charter Schools In Massachusetts

For Immediate Release:
February 12, 2016

Contact: Eileen O’Connor
[email protected]
Tel: (617) 806-6999

Dom Slowey
[email protected]
Tel: (617) 523-0038

Public Information Campaign Launches To Set Record Straight About Public Charter Schools In Massachusetts

Leading Policy Organizations Launch ‘Fact Check: Public Charter Schools in Massachusetts’`

BOSTON, MA – Many of the state’s leading charter school policy experts – including the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, the Boston Charter Alliance, Great Schools Massachusetts, Race to the Top Coalition and Mass High Tech Council – today launched Fact Check: Public Charter Schools in Massachusetts, a resource center and public information campaign designed to deliver the wealth of data about Massachusetts’ public charter schools to policy-makers as they craft legislation related to charter schools.

Leaders of the sponsoring organizations launched their efforts with a press conference at the State House – where they were joined by Governor Baker – and unveiled a new website (www.charterfactsma.org), which will serve as a central resource for information about charter schools for policymakers, parents, charter school leaders and other stakeholders.

“This effort is about setting the record straight about public charter schools in Massachusetts,” said Beth Anderson, President of the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. “Charter schools serve high-need kids incredibly well, close the achievement gap for low-income students of color, and have lower student attrition rates than district schools. We need to ensure that policymakers and other stakeholders are working with facts about our charter schools, not just political noise.”

“Important decisions will be made in this building over the next several months that will affect the lives of thousands of children in Boston and across the state. And, just as we tell our students that rigorous research requires substantiating claims with facts and evidence, it’s becoming more and more clear that the information that is swirling about charter schools—and that will impact these important decisions—is actually rooted in fiction, not fact,” said Shannah Varon, Executive Director of Boston Collegiate Charter School in Dorchester, and Chair of the Boston Charter Alliance.

“Virtually all of the arguments against charter schools and the proposed raising of the charter cap are simply not based in fact,” said Paul S. Grogan. President and CEO of the Boston Foundation, which convenes the Race to the Top Coalition, a broad and diverse coalition made up of 29 business, grassroots, community and education organizations that is seeking legislation to lift the cap on charter schools in the Commonwealth. “Over the years, the Boston Foundation has commissioned and published independent research that has clearly demonstrated the amazing results that charter schools are providing in Massachusetts, especially for the state’s highest needs students.”

“Public charter schools have a proven track record of success and expanding opportunity. In fact, when it comes to closing the achievement gap, Massachusetts has the very best public charter schools in the nation,” said Christopher Anderson, president of the Mass High Tech Council. “We need to ensure that this kind of information, based on facts, from credible, reputable sources like Harvard, Stanford and MIT, makes its way into the public debate about charter schools.”

A cornerstone of the “Fact Check: Public Charter Schools in Massachusetts” campaign – and the first piece rolled out today – is a website which aggregates data from recent studies done by MIT, Stanford, Harvard and The Boston Foundation, along other independent analyses of data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Key findings include:

• The fact that public charter schools have dramatically increased enrollment among children with special needs and English Language Learners, and now attract and enroll those children in similar numbers as district schools.
• New data that highlights the incredible outcomes that English Language Learners (ELLs) and Students With Disabilities (SWDs) – are achieving in Massachusetts’ public charter schools – better outcomes than these children achieve in district schools.
• A fact check of the size of the charter school waitlist.
• The truth about charter school funding and district reimbursement.
• Debunking the myth that charter schools push out students.

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Via the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, the Boston Charter Alliance, Great Schools Massachusetts, Race to the Top Coalition, Mass High Tech Council and Fact Check: Public Charter Schools in Massachusetts; February 12, 2016.

For more information, see facts about charter schools and charter school achievement. More research on charter schools can be found here.