08:33 AM EST on Thursday, February 26, 2004

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

Journal photo / Mary Murphy LESSON IN SUPPORT: Makala Fields, a 10th grade advisor at the Met School, a charter school in Providence, talks with some of her students near the end of the school day yesterday. Governor Carcieri proposes to reduce state aid to local education by $7.9 million, but increase financing of Rhode Island's charter schools by $5.7 million.

The governor has proposed cutting school aid to cities and towns -- a decision that is bound to infuriate taxpayers, superintendents and school committees from Woonsocket to Westerly.

Not only does Governor Carcieri want to cut $7.9 million in aid to local districts, he wants to give an additional $5.7 million to charter schools.

The state-run Metropolitan Regional Career & Technical School, a nationally recognized alternative high school in Providence, would receive an additional $2.1 million to expand its enrollment of about 360 students by another 180 students.

Tim Duffy, executive director of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, said, "I've been here 13 years and this is the first time I can remember that there has been a diminishment in aid to cities and towns."

The deep cuts in local aid come at a time when districts are struggling to meet the many demands of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which requires that all schools make steady academic progress or else face sanctions ranging from school choice to state takeovers.

"How does the governor expect that public schools in Rhode Island are going to meet all of the federal mandates [if he] cuts money to education?" said Larry Purtill, president of the National Education Association Rhode Island.

Carcieri, however, says his budget adds $11.1 million to education. But that figure includes increases in teacher retirement costs and money for school construction.

Last year, the General Assembly gave districts $15 million more in local aid because the state received a one-time windfall of $102 million from the federal government, according to Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal.

When Carcieri began discussing the education budget this year, he looked at how much was spent in 2003 because he knew that the federal government would not be able to repeat last year's largess. Using 2003 as the base year, Neal said that the governor actually increased local aid by $7.1 million this year.

"While I'm disappointed that there isn't more local aid, I can't fault the governor this year," Education Commissioner Peter McWalters said. "We're one of the few departments who got a small but incremental increase this year."

During the mid-1990s, the legislature made a conscious effort to redress inequities in educational spending between the urban and the suburban districts. McWalters says those efforts did narrow the gaps in per pupil spending between the rich and poor districts.

But McWalters is afraid that the urban districts will begin to fall behind their wealthier peers unless someone comes up with a local aid formula that addresses the fact that the urban districts don't have the capacity to raise taxes to pay for public education.

An actual local aid formula may be on the table. On Wednesday, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, along with city and town officials, will announce a proposal to reform the way public education is financed.

Carcieri's budget is also bound to exacerbate the tension that exists between public schools and charter proponents.

Purtill and Duffy say charter schools siphon money away from the districts. They also say that charters, for all their innovations, haven't outperformed their public school peers.

"Charters have not accomplished what they set out to do," Duffy said. They dump discipline problems back into the public schools. To say this is where we are going to invest our money is pure folly."

But charter schools are public schools, McWalters said. They accept public school students, who take the same state tests as regular children. And nearly 50 percent of the teachers working in charter schools belong to unions.

Carcieri supports charter schools because he thinks they encourage innovation, give public school parents more choice and serve some of Rhode Island's most disadvantaged children.

Because the demand for charter schools has grown, the governor has asked the legislature to lift the district cap on charters. By law, only two charter schools are allowed in each community, except Providence, which is allowed to have four.

Robert Pilkington, who heads the Rhode Island Association of Charter Schools, can't understand why the public schools are so threatened by charters.

"There is nothing in the world stopping the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers from opening their own charters," he said. "Why blame the people who are taking the risk?"