A proposal to allow charter schools in Maine, like they do in 40 other states, failed by two votes in the Senate – the latest defeat for proponents who have been fighting for a bill for six years.
Never a quitter, Judith Jones of Hope, president of the Maine Association for Charter Schools, said she hoped the vote would go her way in the House, and, if not, there’s always next year.
“We’ve gained so much momentum,” she said referring to the close vote where two Democratic senators – Lynn Bromley of Cumberland County and Dennis Damon of Hancock County – voted with the majority of Republicans to support a charter school pilot project. Sen. Kevin Raye, R-Washington County, split with his party and voted against the plan, and one Republican senator was absent.
The pilot would have allowed up to 20 charter schools to open in the state to serve kids at risk of failing or dropping out in the regular school system. Eligible students would have to be at least one year behind their peers, have a high record of absenteeism or some special need.
Sen. Karl Turner, R-Cumberland County and a member of the Education Committee, spoke in favor of the charter school project, saying it could help the 1,600 to 1,700 students who drop out each year. He also cited statistics showing Maine is way behind the curve, given that charter schools are allowed in 40 states, with more than one million students enrolled in 3,600 schools nationwide.
Sen. Carol Weston, R-Waldo County, a long-time supporter of the charter school movement here, also spoke in favor, saying, “I’m asking us to allow our public schools to accept money to try something that is working in other states.”
The federal government would give $10 million to Maine to help set up the charter schools, 15 of which would be operated through local school districts. The schools essentially would be a public alternative schools for kids who need help.
Ongoing funding for them would move, on a per capita basis, from the existing public schools that eligible students now attend to the charter school.
And that’s what gave many Democrats pause in the Senate.
Sen. Libby Mitchell, D-Kennebec County and chairman of the Education Committee, said charter schools would mean a loss of funding for the existing school system.
“Many of your schools are losing students…and facing declining revenues,” she said, and every student that leaves and goes to a charter school hastens that decline because the funding follows the student.
Mitchell said there already are 81 alternative programs within the existing public school system and adding charter schools simply spreads the funding too thin.
Mitchell and others also questioned whether promised federal money to get the charter schools up and running would really be there down the road.
“I just wish the federal government would step up and meet their current responsibilities,” in terms of special needs funding and No Child Left Behind, said Sen. Ken Gagnon, D-Kennebec County.
The two Republican members of the Senate running for governor, Sen. Peter Mills and Sen. Chandler Woodcock, both supported the charter school bill. Mills said his daughter taught in one in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and Woodcock said he saw the need in his many years as a teacher.
“We should not focus so much on funding,” Woodcock said, but rather do what’s best for the students.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
