Massachusetts a step closer to upping charter school cap

By Mary C. Tillotson | Watchdog.org

Massachusetts lawmakers are considering raising the cap on the total number of charter schools that can open in the state.

While more than 20,000 children in Boston sit on charter school waiting lists, the state House of Representatives passed the bill. The Senate has until the end of the month to pass the bill and send it to the governor.

Capping the number of charter schools doesn’t make sense, said Richard Epstein, law professor at New York University.

“That’s the same argument which allows you to make sure you can give quotas for the number of new cars that could be built in 1910 in order to make sure that horses and buggies are going to get a fair share of the market,” he told Choice Media.

“The simplest point about all of this is, suppose it were only a minority of people who are in favor of this, but that minority included all of the parents with children who would like to have this particular choice,” he said. “I see no reason why the state interest is not served by spending less money to get these kids a better education, even if a majority of the population thought otherwise.”

Epstein and Choice Media also discussed charter school issues in New York, a teacher tenure battle in Missouri, a Common Core lawsuit, and questions about racial diversity in charter schools.