A charter school advocacy group has taken to the airwaves a day after the General Assembly’s Appropriations Committee scuttled funding for new charter schools in Bridgeport and Stamford.
“Budgets are about priorities,” said Kara Neidhardt, a spokesperson for the Coalition For Every Child. “It’s now time for our state legislators to make great schools for every child a priority.”
The Coalition For Every Child asserts that under the budget proposed by the committee, students in cities that face some of the steepest education challenges in the state would lose their seats in public charter schools because of a lack of funding. The two schools that would not open next year are Capital Preparatory Harbor School in Bridgeport and the Stamford Charter School For Excellence. Funding for both schools had been included in Governor Dan Malloy’s proposed budget in February.
A statewide television ad titled “Nixed” highlights lost seats impacting children.
More than 3,600 students are on wait lists for charter schools in Connecticut, according to the Coalition For Every Child, with 40,000 students statewide who currently attend schools where the majority of students don’t read, write or do math on grade level.
Charter schools controlled by the state operate independent of traditional public school districts. They are financed with public funds that opponents claim strip funding from neighborhood schools controlled by local school boards.
Absolute and pure propaganda. These Charter Schools were specifically told last year their opening this fall would be contingent upon the legislature choosing to fund them. Knowing they had not been funded, Steve Perry chose to advertise the school’s opening and conduct a lottery anyway. Now the charter school propaganda is these schools are being taken away??? How can you take something away that has never existed?
You’re right about one thing. Hopefully the 250 children who were expected to enroll in Dr. Perry’s Charter School will get to go to a “different kind of school.”
A school with experienced and certified teachers, a school governed by an elected school board, a school with reasonable disciplinary policies, a school where millionaires and billionaires aren’t profiting at their expense, a school that values the whole child, not just their annual test scores.
We know this fight is not over yet, and we will continue this fight until the end of the legislative session.