Sweeping fix for education system looms

BOSTON – A sweeping education reform bill was almost home Thursday night after the state House of Representatives voted 97-47 to approve the compromise legislation that will likely bring swift and dramatic change to public schools across the state with low academic performance records.The House vote followed a 23-12 sanction by the state Senate late Thursday afternoonIf signed, as expected, by Gov. Deval Patrick the legislation would give unprecedented power to state and local authorities to increase the number of public charter schools, fire teachers and administrators, and revisit collective bargaining agreements. It would also allow the state’s education commissioner to change contracts in the state’s worst schools.”The whole premise of this bill is that the teachers are the problem and that is totally not true,” said Alice Gunning, president of the Lynn Teachers Union, Local 1037 of the American Federation of Teachers. “Collective bargaining is not the problem. We are in a pro-collective bargaining state. But that seems what they are aiming at instead of putting resources into the schools that need help.”Gunning said Massachusetts has the top public schools in the nation. “I don’t know why they’re doing this because we’re already No. 1. This bill seems punitive. We all want what’s best for the kids. Just give us the tools,” she said.Part of the proposed legislation targets teachers in grades where students take the MCAS test and score poorly. According to Gunning, such thinking is unfair. “You go after Mrs. Smith, the teacher in the fourth grade where the test scores were low,” she said. “But what happens to the teachers of grades one, two and three, who sent those kids to Mrs. Smith in the fourth grade? What about them?”Gunning also called attention to the disparity of wealth among school districts in Massachusetts, the Manchester-by-the-Seas versus the Lynns. “Schools in urban areas tend to have more poverty, crime, societal problems. The children don’t always speak the language and they come and go as parents find different housing or lose their jobs. So there’s no consistency for these kids and it affects their performance, yet the legislation doesn’t even take into consideration the society that surrounds the school,” she said.The 1,500-member Lynn Teachers Union has been equally perplexed by a provision in the law to increase the number of charter schools. “We’re going to have a real issue with that,” said Gunning. “It takes more funding from the traditional public schools and we just can’t afford it. You may end up with 30 kids less overall in the classroom because of the charter schools, but they are 30 kids from 30 different schools, so it’s not enough to close any particular school.”With the compromise bill now destined for Patrick’s desk, it may soon be signed, perhaps as early as today.The bill would increase the state spending cap on districts with charter schools, doubling the present 9 percent to 18 percent in districts that fall into the lowest 10 percent on the academic performance scale. Further, the legislation would remove the current 4-percent cap on the statewide charter school population.Patrick, a proponent of the reforms, said Massachusetts could access up to $250 million in additional federal education aid because of the policy changes.”It’s a major change in the status quo that will encourage innovation and collaboration at the local level, which I think will enhance the quality of education in a lot of our schools,” said Senate budget chief Steven Panagiotakos, the primary Senate negotiator.Assistant House Majority Leader Ronald Mariano said the bill split the difference between the House’s tighter focus on the state’s worst schools and the Senate’s more sweeping proposal.”We started out with a very narrow bill, they started out with a very broad bill, and we met somewhere in between,” Mariano said.Lawmakers acknowledged that unions would likely take issue with provisions granting administrative