Posted by PaulK - Sun, Nov 29, 2009, 11:40 P

Holiday Charter School Laundry

And, by the way, it is no longer even a matter for discussion whether or not charter schools added to the mix of educational choices are an improvement. Time has proven charter schools a valuable addition to any community. One has only to visit the Pioneer Valley Charter High School for the Performing Arts in S. Hadley to see this in action. So many of your young people have attended and thrived in this alternative school environment. And in my opinion it is a most excellent use of our tax dollars. Traditional K-12 public schools fill an important roll, but they fail a lot of our students. One only need look at our drop-out rates to see the truth of this.

as jeff says, the only matter for debate is how to best finance our charter schools, and this should be part of a larger debate about how to best finance public education in general. clearly, local property taxes are overburdened at this point, especially since the DESE has continued to add more and more mandates about services the schools must provide. local property taxes are clearly not up to the task, not alone.

it's unfortunate that some members of the GMRSD school committee continue to view charter schools as the problem. i think it just goes to show the limits of their vision.