CUMBERLAND — The state Department of Education and the Rhode Island League of Charter Schools say that legislation authorizing “mayoral academies,” or schools run by municipal administrators, would create an unequal, “two-tiered” system of charter schools.

Teachers’ union representatives decry it as an attempt to subvert the collective bargaining process.

Cumberland Mayor Daniel J. McKee, the bill’s most ardent supporter, dismisses the criticism as coming from those who are content with keeping “the status quo.”

The league is “doing a disservice to charter schools. They are supposed to be the innovators. Instead, they are using old rhetoric to try and protect the old way of doing public education,” McKee said yesterday. “The charter schools I have spoken with are encouraging what we are doing, so I don’t know under whose authority [the League] is speaking.”

The parties made their arguments at a House Finance Committee hearing last Friday for House Bill 7874. An amendment to the state law establishing charter public schools, it gives mayors and town managers the power to create schools exempt from providing the same wages, rights, benefits and pensions enjoyed by teachers and administrators in the state public school system.

It would, in effect, pave the way for McKee’s vision for the state’s first “mayoral academy,” a charter school serving Blackstone Valley communities that would be run by a nonprofit organization and supervised by a board of municipal administrators and experts in law, finance, and education.

Rep. Steven Costantino, D-Providence, chair of the committee, attended part of the proceeding on Friday and said through a spokesman this week that McKee’s mayoral academies represented “an intriguing proposition that is worthy of more study.”

Finance Committee member Robert Jacquard, D-Cranston, who attended the entire hearing, said that McKee’s proposal is tied to another difficult issue the Assembly is faced with this year: a decision to end or extend the moratorium on new charter schools that expires next month.

If the moratorium ends, McKee would be able to open his school under the existing law, though he would not have the concessions on teachers’ pay that he seeks, Jacquard said.

And given the financial situation of the state, it is not certain that the moratorium would be eliminated. So even if the Assembly grants McKee his plan, as proposed, there may not be money there to finance it, Jacquard said.

No date has been set for a vote or additional hearing on the matter.

Last Friday was the culmination of more than a year’s work for McKee, who has been gathering resources and support to make his case to the General Assembly.

In 2007, he helped form a coalition of suburban administrators and turned their attentions toward public education. He assigned Michael Magee, the town’s director of Children, Youth, and Learning (an office which McKee created), to study the issue.

McKee raised private donations to hire education consultant Bryan Hassel, of Public Impact. In January, Public Impact published a 19-page report, “Boosting Performance and Containing Costs through Mayoral Academies.”

Hassel worked with state Rep Kenneth Vaudreuil, D-Cumberland, Central Falls, to draft the bill introduced to the House in late February. The same bill was submitted into the Senate by Sen. Daniel J. Issa, D-Central Falls, Cumberland, and Pawtucket, in March and has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee.

“Mayoral academies would be a low-risk, high-reward pilot for our state,” McKee said at the hearing. “If successful, they could demonstrate to all of us how to control education costs while improving the performance of our children.”

Vaudreuil said McKee’s plan is “a step in the right direction.” It is a “great innovative idea” that has a “potential for being a model in the state,” he said.

But opponents say the bill gives concessions to charter schools run by town administrators at the exclusion of others.

It seeks to free the schools from the contractual agreements with teacher unions that are a standard in every public school in the state, including charter schools. It also seeks to exempt the proposed mayoral academies from the state moratorium on new charter schools.

Steve Nardelli, executive director of the Rhode Island League of Charter Schools, says he agrees with McKee that there is a “major need” to revise the charter school legislation, but he does not think his is the right approach.

“It’s a fairness issue,” he said. “The issue and points have merit, but they need to be addressed in a more statewide, comprehensive manner and not restricted to a group of schools.… [This bill] creates two tiers of charter schools, those following the guidelines of the state Board of Regents and those following mayors.”

McKee disagreed: “We’re not asking to blow up the current system. This does not limit other charter schools’ possibilities.”

The state Department of Education does not want to see differing guidelines for charter schools, either. State Education Commissioner Peter McWalters thinks McKee’s plan is a “great model” but would rather see it work within the current charter school statute, according to spokesman Elliot Krieger.

Both the DOE and the League of Charter Schools support mayors seeking to form charter schools, so long as they adhere to the same guidelines as other charter schools. Under the current law, that would require that they join with a nonprofit organization qualified to run a school.

McKee said he was “disappointed” with the League and the DOE’s stance. “We can’t do the innovation without the flexibility” in pay, McKee said. Only with that will non-governmental organizations “show interest in our state. Otherwise, it’s nothing different. It’s just another charter.”

Lobbyists from the state teachers unions also spoke out against the legislation. They cited the likelihood of high turnover in teachers at the schools as a source of instability.

“It is something we fear will diminish the quality of education rather than improve it,” said Henry Boeniger, of the National Education Association Rhode Island.

Calling the comments “obstructive, rather than constructive,” McKee said: “They believe the current franchise is the only way to approach education. I don’t.”

The union would rather see McKee open his charter school without public money, if he is to insist on taking away collective bargaining rights, Boeniger said.

Or he can work within the existing legislation.

Said Boeniger: “There is nothing that prevents him from asking a group of public school teachers or his local school committee to open a charter public school” on his behalf.

pmarcelo@projo.com