Cumberland Mayor Daniel J. McKee and those who support his plans for a new-fangled Charter School they say will revolutionize education may have hurdled a major obstacle last month, but the school is still far from a being a done deal.
McKee’s controversial idea for a so-called “mayoral academy” garnered the blessing of the General Assembly when it was made part of the 2009 state budget. But while the plan approved by legislators would free the academy from having to pay prevailing wages or offer standard benefits to teachers and support personnel, the lawmakers did not commit any tax dollars to the proposal.
Now McKee and supporters such as social service agency Progeso Latino must raise the startup money, assemble a board of directors, hire a nonprofit educational organization to operate the school and find a location. Then there’s the process of hiring staff and developing curriculum and obtaining R.I. Department of Education approval.
On top of that, the proposal has drawn opposition from teachers’ unions.
Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals (RIFTHP), criticized the plan to allow the school operators to pay teachers far less than their unionized counterparts.
“Bottom line, this is privatizing public education, and it’s distasteful,” Reback said.
McKee wants to open the regional elementary school in the Valley Falls section of Cumberland by September 2009, but, acknowledging that there’s much difficult work ahead, he said it may have to wait until fall 2010.
And that’s just the first school.
McKee envisions mayoral academies opening throughout the state. He said eight mayors already have signed on to the idea, including Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline and Johnston Mayor Joseph M. Polisena. But it’s apparent everyone is waiting to see how the initial school fares.
Pawtucket Mayor James E. Doyle, Central Falls Mayor Charles D. Moreau and Lincoln Town Administrator T. Joseph Almond all have endorsed the academy model, agreeing to send students to the Cumberland school when it opens.
“We need to get the model off the ground,” McKee said last week. “This is a watershed moment.”
As planned, the mayoral academies would be a variation of a charter school, which is an autonomous, publicly funded school that isn’t required to follow some of the rules and regulations that apply to conventional public schools, although they are required to pay prevailing wages to teachers and staff. Typically, charter schools are financed with a mix of state and local dollars.
In addition to those exceptions to public schools, the mayoral academies would differ in that the schools would not be required to pay teachers and administrators prevailing wages and would be free of the tenure system, allowing for flexibility in teaching methods and time. Teachers also would not participate in the state pension system.
Another difference: Mayors would take a leadership role in operating the academy, serving as chairperson to the school’s governing board. The thinking is that mayors are more accountable to the public, McKee said, and they have better access to municipal resources to assist the school.
“This has opened up options that weren’t on the table before,” McKee said.
Longer school days, longer school years, possibly Saturday educational activities – McKee said it’s all under consideration since the academy will be unrestricted by labor contracts.
“We’ll extend the learning opportunities,” he said, noting that the school could develop solutions to the “learning loss” students experience during summer vacation.
But he added that he has nothing specific in mind yet. “I’m not filling in the clean slate we’re starting with,” he said.
McKee has been working on the academies project with Bryan Hassel, director of Public Impact, a Chapel Hill, N.C.-based education research and consulting firm that drafted an initial policy report on mayoral academies for McKee in January. Also helping has been Martin West, a Brown University professor.
One of the first orders of business will be to assemble an interim board of directors in the coming weeks, McKee said.
In the meantime, McKee is focusing on raising the several thousand dollars he figures it will take to open each academy to cover the initial costs of books, desks and supplies, and to pay for leases.
McKee was scheduled to meet with representatives of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation in Quincy, Mass., last week. He already has met with the Los Angeles-based Broad Foundation and planned to fly to California for more extensive discussions.
Although he has also contacted The Rhode Island Foundation and The Champlin Foundations, McKee said he would prefer to attract money from a national source. “Our main focus will be outside dollars, rather than the same dollars that will get spread thinner,” he said.
In a preliminary search for the right organization to run the school, McKee has talked with nonprofit agencies that operate innovative schools in other communities, including one that runs the Brooklyn Democracy Academy in New York City.
But hiring an outside organization is a part of McKee’s plan that upsets Marcia Reback, who complained that tax dollars would likely be going to an out-of-state group. “The amount of money the public is going to be paying will be the same, it’s just going to be leaving the state,” she said.
Reback said the RIFTHP has supported the creation of charter schools in the past but most pay their teachers prevailing wages. The fact that the mayoral academy won’t have to pay those rates may lead to high turnover rates among the teachers.
“These folks are going to be waiting for openings in public schools [where salaries are higher], then they will just leave,” Reback said. “But if [government leaders] can get cheaper labor, why not do it?”
McKee has heard the complaints and brushes them off. He is running for re-election this year and has heard that the teachers union may assist his challenger.
“[The complaints] are from those who are representing special interests: the teachers,” he said. “They say, ‘You’re anti-union,’ but it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with lifting up the education system, lifting up our community.” •
