Over the last year, families, educators, and responsive political leaders have questioned school closures happening in Providence, Rhode Island. One of the key issues of these school closures is the way that closed public school buildings have been taken and then given to semi-private charter schools.
Today the city council is grappling with this exact issue. In short, the Achievement First (AF) private charter management company and the mayor of providence that is on the local AF board want to extend a short lease to twenty (20) years in the now (en)closed Fortes elementary school. This potential deal stands out and must be questioned.
Just a quick reminder first. I was on the Hartford Board of Education from 2010-17 and saw major issues with school choice broadly, including charter schools. Like in Providence, the private Achievement First company was given public space taken from the students, educators, and families displaced from the closed Mark Twain and Lewis Fox Middle schools in Hartford around 2007-08.
So I wanted to check my notes about how this worked out before I joined the board in Hartford. And I found the first Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Hartford Public Schools and a new Achievement First franchise charter school. (AF-HPS MOU document below)
In my opinion, it was an unfair agreement that favored Achievement First over Hartford’s own public schools in terms of taking space and funding. Hartford Public School (at that time) gave Achievement First two closed school buildings – one temporary and one long-term, $1.5 million in public funds for repairs that the closed public schools did not get, and funds to operate the building such as lunch operations, security officers, and other money to support operating costs that are required by law and by agreement. In return, the test scores from AF (for at least some time) would be included in Hartford’s overall result. It was paying for and recapturing test scores from a selected group of students.
In comparison to Providence, the Hartford MOU was for only five (5) years (2008-2013) with potential to extend for five-year increments if no side made any changes or shorten at will. In other words, the deal was five years with possibility but not requirement or guarantee to go to twenty years. It was also different because it was the use of a school building still in the hands of the board of education, not the city council as in Providence. This detail was listed in several location including a unusually-named terms section, “Right to Operate School.” It was unusual because the school board gave no right to the people previously in those buildings to stay in those two schools.
There are questions about how this deal was made. The MOU was signed by superintendent in 2011 despite the term starting in 2008. And I don’t recall the Board of Education voting for the MOU in 2011 (I will search the meeting minutes…). But why was it not signed in 2008?
I have more to say about this past backroom deal in Hartford to give public space to the private Achievement First charter school company for free, plus all sorts of subsidies. But there are many questions for Providence now.
Why wasn’t the Fortes school in Providence just left open as a public school if the space was needed for a school? And why are the people, including the Providence Mayor and Rhode Island Education commissioner of education, pushing to secure a lease for Achievement First to use a closed public school building while at the same time allowing two additional schools to close now in Providence? Also, is Providence really going to rent a building to a private charter school company for $1 a year? Finally, one big question is why did a five-year lease with Achievement First to use an (en)closed school happen in Hartford, but more than a decade later a twenty-year lease is needed in Providence?
Learning from the City 