Zurier critical of proposed expansion

PROVIDENCE — In a 46-page report, City Council member Sam Zurier says the proposed expansion of the Achievement First charter school would have a crippling impact on the city’s 20,000 public school students.

Citing the report of the city’s Internal Auditor Matthew Clarkin, Zurier said the charter school’s expansion to more than 3,000 students would produce a net loss to the district of between $173 million and $179 million, depending on how many teaching positions are eliminated.

“While everyone has the best of intentions,” Zurier wrote, “the sad truth is that i f s o m e - one wanted to break the Providence public schools, it would be hard to devise a more effective plan than the application now before the council .... In the short run, these losses will drastically reduce the quality of education in the Providence public schools.”

Elliot Krieger, a spokesman for the R.I. Department of Education, said, “We are following the process and sequence that state law establishes for the review of proposals for new charters. [Education] Commissioner [Ken] Wagner has also said that he is reviewing public comment as we receive it at RIDE, but he will not complete his recommendations to the Council until the period for public comment closes.”

Under state law, the per-pupil spending follows the student. This spring, however, legislation was passed that allows districts to withhold a portion of the tuition dollars that, in the past, have gone to charters.

T h e r e p o r t c i t e s Moody’s Investors Service, which reviewed the recently rejected charter school expansion referendum in Massachusetts. Moody’s wrote that charter schools tend to proliferate in urban districts that are already financially stressed.

“This growing competition can sometimes create a ‘downward spiral,’” Moody’s wrote. “A city that begins to lose students to a charter school can be forced to weaken educational programs because funding is tighter, which then begins to encourage more students to leave, which results in additional losses ....”

Achievement First, a mayoral academy that operates two elementary schools in Providence, wants to expand from 720 students to 3,000 over the next 10 years. Its application is before the R.I. Council of Elementary and Secondary Education, which will hear Education Commissioner Wagner’s recommendations on the charter expansion on Dec. 6.

Achievement First said the internal auditor’s analysis doesn’t take into account a number of critical factors, including the educational benefits of its proposed expansion on the entire community.

RIDE’s analysis “includes weighing all of the many financial factors, including the long-term cost of failing to provide thousands of students with the high-quality education they need to succeed,” the charter school wrote in a statement.

Dacia Toll, the charter network’s co-CEO, said Achievement First wants a “ w i n - w i n s o l u t i o n ” where Providence’s students have access to more high-quality options and the district’s schools continue their positive momentum.

“We would like to work with the mayor and the state to try to bring additional, much-needed resources to all of the schools in the city,” she said.

The report, Zurier said, pointed to at least two factors that could compound the loss of tuition dollars to Achievement First: a further reduction in Title 1 spending under the Trump administration (Providence lost $2.6 million in federal money from that source this year), and the continued level-funding of education by the city. Providence has not increased its local contribution to the public schools in five years, Zurier said.

Zurier concluded by asking that the council postpone any decisions regarding Achievement First’s expansion until Providence officials review and comment on RIDE’s fiscal analysis.