Today's Gloucester Times reports on an email from Education Secretary Paul Reville to Commissioner Mitchell Chester, in which Reville lobbies Chester to approve the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School based on political considerations. The application was not recommended for approval by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's charter school office.
Needless to say, local officials are outraged.
"The e-mail appears to confirm what many of us have believed all along: The Board of Education's deliberations on the Gloucester Community Arts Charter school proposal were a politically orchestrated charade," said Superintendent Christopher Farmer, who has spearheaded the local opposition.
"The whole episode shatters the credibility of the Secretary of Education and the commissioner, while at the same time approving the establishment of a charter school in Gloucester which does not meet the established criteria for approval," Farmer said. "Gloucester is to be collateral damage in the cause of a wider political agenda,"
State Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, who worked to bring a state oversight committee to Gloucester to hear testimony on the charter issue, called it disappointing.
"This is further evidence that the decision was based on moving forward a charter school agenda rather than a true evaluation of an application," Ferrante said. "It disappoints me that moving forward with the agenda was more important than the education of our district's children."
Chester's endorsement of the school came against the advice of charter school experts in his own office, which had recommended that the Gloucester application "not be approved," along with the two other charter bids this year.
In his request to Chester, acquired by the Times through the state's public records law, Reville warned that rejecting all three charters would get the Patrick administration "permanently labeled as hostile" to charter schools, something that would "cripple us with a number of key, moderate allies like the (Boston) Globe and Boston Foundation."
Boston Foundation? Is Secretary Reville saying that the Boston Foundation is a lobbying group for charter schools? Is this the group that wrote a "report" that charter lobbyists continually cite as a reason to expand Commonwealth Charters?
Anyway, it seems that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education determined that the Gloucester charter school should not be approved. Reville then tells Chester that the Gloucester proposal is a bitter pill that needs to be swallowed for political reasons. Only problem, it's the taxpayers of Gloucester who are the ones who are being force-fed this bitter pill by the state. And they want to lift the charter school cap so more communities will need to swallow bitter, poision pills for political expediency?
Here is a text of the Reville email, as published by the Gloucester Times:
From: Reville, Paul
Sent: Thursday, February 5, 2009, 11:54 p.m.
To: Chester, Mitchell D. (DOE)
Subject: charters
Mitchell,
Hope all's well and warm in AZ. I appreciated our talk today and your openness and flexibility. This situation presents one of those painful dilemmas. In addition to being a no-win situation, it forces us into a political cul de sac where we could be permanently trapped. Our reality is that we have to show some sympathy in this group of charters or we'll get permanently labeled as hostile and they will cripple us with a number of key moderate allies like the Globe and the Boston Foundation. Frankly, I'd rather fight for the kids in the Waltham situation, but it sounds like you can't find a solid basis for standing behind that one. I'm not inclined to push Worcester, so that leaves Gloucester. My inclination is to think that you, I and the Governor all need to send at least one positive signal in this batch, and I gather that you think the best candidate is Gloucester. Can you see your way clear to supporting it? Would you want to do the financial trigger even in light of likely stimulus aid?
Thanks for not seeing this as an independence issue. It really is a matter of positioning ourselves so that we can be viable to implement the rest of our agenda. It's a tough but I think necessary pill to swallow. Let's discuss some more tomorrow.
