Rep. Paul Crowley decries the governor's education aid plan because he says it pits public school officials against their charter school counterparts.

01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, March 17, 2004

BY LINDA BORG
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Rep. Paul Crowley called Governor Carcieri's budget deplorable because he said it pits two groups of people, both of whom are committed to public education, against one another.

Crowley, a Newport Democrat and longtime ally of public education, said what some people expected Education Commissioner Peter McWalters to say: that by cutting $7.9 million in local aid and giving $7.8 million to charter schools and an alternative high school, the governor's budget is the basis for a political struggle that will be played out at the State House this spring.

"What the governor did is deplorable," Crowley said at yesterday's House Finance Committee hearing on Carcieri's proposed education budget. "He created two Rhode Islands. By increasing funding for one small segment of Rhode Island's public schools and then cutting the majority of them, we've set these two parties against each other."

McWalters defended Carcieri's decision, saying it would be tragic to allow the local aid discussion to become an either-or proposition.

"The governor is saying that it's time to rethink the cost effectiveness of the local education system," McWalters said. Because local districts negotiate teacher contracts, neither the Department of Education nor the legislature controls the true cost of education, he said.

Rep. Peter Lewiss, D-Westerly, questioned why the governor's budget included $1.5 million for a charter school in Central Falls when it hasn't received final approval from the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education. The Department of Education said the governor included money in the budget for this charter, adding that the school is expected to open next fall.

But Providence Rep. Steven Costantino, whose district faces a $3-million cut in local aid, wondered why charter schools are getting extra aid to add more students when the public schools aren't getting the same treatment.

"The message," he said, "is when a district like Providence has 500 more students coming into the system, they're not entitled to any more money."

The battle lines between charter schools and the traditional public schools have already been drawn. Finance Committee members have been getting a slew of e-mails from charter-school advocates and a national charter school organization has been urging parents to contact their legislators. (Charter schools are public schools that are typically small, innovative and operate with much more freedom than traditional public schools.)

The teachers' unions have decried the governor's budget, with one labor leader saying that Carcieri, by awarding so much aid to charters, has put a target on their backs.

Yesterday, the charters fought back. Robert Pilkington, executive director of the Rhode Island League of Charter Schools, said that charter schools should be seen as a positive choice within the public school system, not a movement that seeks to undermine local districts.

Charter schools are not boutique institutions that draw the cream of the crop. They serve the neediest students, most of whom live in cities. The nearly 700 new charter school students expected next year represent 35 new classrooms that cities like Providence, Cranston and Woonsocket will not have to open.

Pilkington also said charter schools outperform their district peers in the areas of school safety, attendance rates and the level of parent involvement -- a point also made by the state-run Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, a Providence high school whose teaching style has been replicated across the country.

Rep. Elizabeth Dennigan, D-East Providence, asked whether the Met planned to track how its graduates fared in college. Dennis Littky, the Met School's executive director, said the school was in the process of gathering that data, adding that the first group of Met students will graduate from college this spring.