News

Excel Academy is seeking a vendor to provide communication consultant services. Responses are due no later than 12:00 p.m. on July 26th, 2022. Interested parties should contact the Director of Development and Communications, Diane Cohen at dcohen@excelacademy.org for a copy of the Request for Proposals.

Excel Academy Rhode Island is seeking a vendor to provide transportation services for our founding school in Rhode Island for the 2022-2023 school year. Responses are due no later than 12:00 p.m. on Friday, April 1^st, 2022. Interested parties should contact the Dean of Operations, Dayana Molina at dmolina@excelacademy.org for a copy of our Request for Proposal.

Excel Academy Rhode Island is seeking a vendor to provide architectural and engineering services in support of the school’s Stage II application to the Rhode Island Department of Education School Building Authority. Responses are due no later than March 1, 2022.  Interested parties should contact Robert Baldwin at rbaldwin@qpdco.com .

Excel Academy Rhode Island is seeking a qualified Owner’s Project Manager (OPM) in support of facility development projects. Responses are due no later than February 22, 2022.  Interested parties should contact Robert Baldwin at rbaldwin@qpdco.com .

Excel Academy Rhode Island is seeking a vendor to provide nutrition services for our founding school in Rhode Island for the 2022-2023 school year. Responses are due no later than 12:00 p.m. on Friday, February 4^th, 2022. Interested parties should contact the Dean of Operations, Dayana Molina at dmolina@excelacademy.org for a copy of our Request for Proposal.

Agreement on charter schools ‘unlikely’

By Michael P. Norton for State House News Service in Wicked Local Tewksbury

“It’s unlikely that the Massachusetts House and Senate will be able to agree on a charter school expansion bill that would prompt charter school proponents to drop a proposed ballot question, key lawmakers told school committee members on Tuesday.”

Easthampton City Council votes to oppose new charter schools in Massachusetts

By Mary Serreze for MassLive

“The City Council voted 7-0 Wednesday night to adopt a resolution opposing any attempt to “lift the cap” on charter schools in Massachusetts.”

Editorial: State Senate’s cynical reform would hurt charter schools

By the Eagle-Tribune

“Some 34,000 Massachusetts children are stuck on waiting lists for charter schools. The state Senate seems hell-bent on keeping them there.”

Guest Commentary: It’s Time to Stop Hiding Behind Graduation Rates

By Nicolas C. Donohue for Learning Lab

“It is easy to point to high school seniors graduating at an all-time high rate of 82 percent nationally and say that we are making great strides across the country in guiding students into rewarding futures. And an 87 percent rate in Massachusetts might even strengthen the argument to suggest that we are leading the way in doing so.”

Editorial: senate won’t bend 

By The Boston Herald

“The two sides will go through the motions, of course. DeLeo cites a 2014 bill sponsored by Rep. Alice Peisch, House chair of the Joint Committee on Education, as his model for a charter school bill. But we should all get the TV mute buttons ready because any House bill has now been prematurely declared “DOA” — and the war of the airwaves is coming.”

Video Clip: Stan Rosenberg On the Record Segment 2

By WCVB

“We couldn’t get the votes for a charter bill last term, we got the votes this time by bringing everybody to the table and crafting a bill that really changed the discussion from the 4 to 8% of the kids in charters to 100% of the kids in the public schools.” 

Charter expansion backed by bay state majority, poll shows

By State House News Service in New Boston Post

“The survey from the Western New England University Polling Institute suggests a proposed ballot question to allow up to 12 new charter schools or expansions each year would pass, if it is placed on the ballot in November.”

Massachusetts voters support charter school expansion

By Shira Schoenberg for MassLive

“Massachusetts voters also support a ballot proposal to expand access to charter schools, the poll found. But many voters still do not know enough about that issue to make up their minds.”

Massachusetts Senate approves charter school overhaul bill

By Ron Miles for State of the Senate KS

“After more than five hours of tenuous debate over a charter school reform bill, the state Senate voted in favor of the act Thursday evening by a margin of 22-13.”

From the right: Structure helps student expression

By Roberta Schaefer for Telegram.com

“Critics claim that strict discipline stymies students’ creativity. But schools that are well-structured and calm do not prevent students from developing their identity or thinking for themselves. In fact, in such schools, children feel free to express themselves precisely because they do feel safe.”

Guest Opinion: Mass. should expand, rather than limit, charter schools

By Charles Chieppo for Wicked Local Taunton

“Statewide, charter ELL students achieve better English proficiency than their peers, and Boston charter schools have closed nearly 90 percent of the achievement gap that exists between ELLs and native English speakers in the Boston Public Schools (BPS).”

City Councilor Tito Jackson: Some Boston School Discipline ‘Unreasonable’

By CBS Boston

“Part of the reason for the high rate of suspensions is the fact that many charter schools have zero-tolerance policies, Jackson said. He added he found it ironic that, in the city of Boston, a child is considered truant after missing school eight times, but not after being suspended as many or more times.”

Editorial: A bad bill gets worse

By The Boston Herald

“The Senate charter school bill was bad from the start, but during floor debate Thursday senators actually managed to make the thing even worse. Any pretense that this bill was a good-faith effort to accommodate those who support an expansion of charter schools — and to stave off an expensive and risky ballot campaign in November — is long gone.”

Chieppo: Charters are succeeding: Why we should expand, not limit them

By Charles Chieppo for MetroWest Daily News

“Statewide, charter ELL students achieve better English proficiency than their peers, and Boston charter schools have closed nearly 90 percent of the achievement gap that exists between ELLs and native English speakers in the Boston Public Schools (BPS). Basing these conclusions on comparisons between charter students and those who entered lotteries but weren’t selected isolates the impact of charter schools.”

Senate charter school effort runs off course

By Michael Jonas for Commonwealth 

“By the time they were done, the bill had gotten away from Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz, the Senate education committee chairwoman, who watched with dismay as her colleagues added an amendment that would effectively freeze charter growth in the state.”

No, charters aren’t ‘draining’ BPS funding

By Scot Lehigh for The Boston Globe

“Here’s what “drain” really means: After a six-year transition period, district schools no longer receive any funding for a student who, more than a half-decade earlier, departed for a charter. (If your bathtub drained that slowly, you’d probably call a plumber.)”

Those concerned about race and equality should champion charters

By Jeanne Allen for The Boston Globe

“Massachusetts charter schools are not only among the highest performing in the nation, but they serve a student population that’s 58 percent black and Latino, while statewide that figure is 27 percent.”

Charter schools erode right of all kids to get a public education

By Tom Larkin for The Boston Globe

“Charter schools discriminate among children and erode that right. They siphon off money, political capital, and other resources from traditional local public schools. They are a slap in the face to the children, families, teachers, administrators, and change agents remaining in the public schools.”

Senate’s charter school bill falls short

By The Boston Globe

“Unless dramatically different legislation emerges, charter advocates should go ahead with their referendum plan so that voters can get a chance to meet the clear demand for additional seats at charter schools.”

Mass. Senate releases charter school overhaul bill

By Steve LeBlanc for Telegram.com

” Massachusetts Senate leaders have unveiled a bill that they say would allow more charter schools that serve at-risk students while largely maintaining the existing statewide cap on the schools.”

Racial aspects tinge Mass. charter debate

By David Scharfenberg for The Boston Globe

“The high-stakes fight over lifting the state’s cap on charter schools has become highly racialized, making one of the most contentious political contests in Massachusetts’ recent history even more tense.”

Editorial: Lesson for the mayor

By Herald Staff for the Boston Herald

“Those who complain that public schools are suffering because of a loss of revenue to charter schools, for example, aren’t finding a lot of sympathy with Walsh. City kids are getting a good education in charters, he said, and Boston’s duty is to get district schools to the point where there is no difference in quality between the two.”

Rick Holmes:This rivalry only hurts students

By Rick Holmes for Wicked Local Cape Cod

“But the anti-charter narrative is built on myths. Charter schools are indeed public schools, in every sense of the word. They are funded by the taxpayers and open to all. If more students want to enroll than the school can handle, placements are made through a lottery, not a test. In Boston, charter schools reach thousands of the neediest students from the toughest neighborhoods, often performing small miracles.”

Editorial: equal choices for all

By Herald Staff for the Boston Herald

“But in addition to giving families in underserved communities a choice, these schools happen to be making serious progress in narrowing the academic achievement gap between minority students and their white peers — in some cases, eliminating it. Why would anyone, but especially the NAACP, want to shut that door?”

Charter-school battle today at Statehouse

By Michael P. Norton for State House News Service in Sentinel & Enterprise

“Parents, educators, students and others aligned with The Campaign to Save Our Public Schools were set to gather outside the Statehouse today to make the case that adding more charters will harm education in school districts that they say are already losing too much money to public charter schools.”

Loving teaching, not the pay

By Amelia Pak-Harvey for Lowell Sun

“Danehy’s salary as an early-childhood educator is at the center of a statewide push to increase the average salary to $27,250 a year… But finding that money could be tough in a budget that’s already stretched dozens of ways over education proposals and plans — charter-school reimbursement changes, vocational- school grants, and a push for universal pre-kindergarten.”

Tommy Chang optimistic about extra funding for BPS

By Jack Encarnacao for the Boston Herald

“After weeks of tension over a budget deficit, Boston schools’ chief now says he is cautiously optimistic about upcoming state and federal funding that will determine if the district can preserve $11 million for his signature initiatives — including adding up to 300 preschool seats and a $1 million pilot program to add rigor and enrichment opportunities in the fourth grade.”