SENATE, No. 2342

SECTION 1. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the authority of the board of education to grant commonwealth charters to an applicant pursuant to section 89 of chapter 71 of the General Laws shall be suspended until the following matters have been considered and are the subject of a report requested by creation by this act.

By no later than March 1^st, 2007, the Massachusetts Department of Education shall procure a full and independent review of the effectiveness of charter schools in Massachusetts, to be conducted by a reputable entity not affiliated with charter schools or regular public schools in the Commonwealth. Said study shall examine existing policies governing charter schools as well as all charter schools presently operating in Massachusetts; provided further, that said study shall provide insight into how well charter schools are advancing reforms in Massachusetts, how well they are serving Massachusetts children, and how well they are meeting the mission of replicable innovation defined for them in the Education Reform Act of 1993. Said study shall analyze: 1. The pattern of student, teacher and administrative attrition in comparison with sending school districts to assess the stability of the instructional program and leadership provided by the charter school and to assess the ability of charter schools to retain students and highly qualified personnel; 2. Student recruitment and enrollment patterns, particularly for subgroups identified under the No Child Left Behind Act, in order to ascertain the degree to which charter schools reflect the student distribution of sending school districts, and further the study shall assess the attrition rate for various subgroups in order to identify the type of students who leave the charter school and the reasons for leaving; 3. The qualifications and certifications of teachers and administrators staffing the charter schools to assess the degree to which children are taught by highly qualified personnel; 4. The accuracy of the waiting lists currently reported for enrollment in charter schools; 5. Due process compliance for special education and English language learners and the degree to which charter schools make appropriate accommodations for these students; 6. Compliance with statutes governing the operations of public institutions such as the open meeting law, public bidding laws, and the public records law; 7. The degree to which the charter schools’ programs are consistent with and sustain the original intent outlined in the approved application of said charter school; 8. The degree to which charter schools have created innovative teaching and learning models applicable to the sending public schools and have shared this information with the sending public schools; 9. The pattern of spending for various categories identified in the End-of-the-Year report such as administration, financial management, instruction, special education, maintenance, etc. in comparison with the sending public schools; 10. The general management of charter school student discipline through expulsions, suspensions and other disciplinary actions; 11. Improvement in charter school student performance as compared to that of the sending school districts; 12. Identification of particularly successful and unsuccessful educational practices among charter schools with a delineation of those successful practices that may be replicable within public schools. Further, said study shall include comprehensive recommendations on refinement, improvements and or changes to existing laws governing charter schools. This study shall be completed by no later than March 15^th, 2007, a copy of which shall be filed immediately thereafter with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, the Clerk of the Senate, the Chairs of the House and Senate Committees on Ways and Means, and the Chairs of the Joint Committee on Education.

SECTION 2. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, there shall be a special study commission established to review the findings of the report commissioned in Section 1 of this Act. Said commission shall be comprised of the house and senate chairs of the Committee on Ways and Means or their designees, the house and senate chairs of the Joint Committee on Education, Arts and Humanities or their designees, and one representative selected by each of the following: Massachusetts Association of School Committees, Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, Massachusetts Teachers Association and the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers. Further, the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association shall have three representative designees; one shall be the parent of a student presently enrolled in an Commonwealth Charter School, and shall be a teacher in a Commonwealth Charter School.

SECTION 3. Said commission shall convene within 10 days after submission of said study to the Legislature in order to review said findings; and further, shall meet monthly with the intention of incorporating findings and recommendations contained in said study into a proposal including buy not limited to legislative and or regulatory changes to laws governing charter schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Said commission shall submit said proposal(s) to the chairs of the Joint Committee on education, arts and the humanities by no later than October 1^st, 2007.