By Richard Gaines
The state inspector general has found reason to dispute the legal standing of the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School, giving its opponents — including the city's mayor and legislative delegation — new ammunition in their argument that the charter should be pulled and that the school's existence will further funding inequities.
In a 12-page letter to Gov. Deval Patrick, Inspector General Gregory Sullivan reported said he found that the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education improperly approved the Gloucester charter school application, and had no authority to do so.
He asserted that the state Charter School Office's rejection of the Gloucester charter barred the state Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester from recommending its approval, and the board thus had no business approving it.
"It was beyond the legal authority" of the board to approve the charter, Sullivan wrote. "The process used in approving the (Gloucester charter application) was procedurally defective, and the inspector general concludes that the board's granting of the charter was without authority of law. For these reasons, the inspector general concludes that the charter should be deemed void."
But the letter, to be followed by an official report, has no legal impact. In implicit acknowledgement, Sullivan wrote that Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester, who overrode the Charter School Office to recommend the charter for the Gloucester school and the board which approved his recommendation on a 6-5 vote, "can either take action to change regulations and procedures" or follow the ones that apply now.
Sullivan's intervention was requested by state Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, and Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, D-Gloucester, who have questioned the process by which the higher state bureaucractic office countervened the finding of the lower office, and have opposed the creation of the public charter school with its arts' based curriculum.
Ferrante told the Times she has a meeting scheduled for today with Sullivan and state Rep. Marty Walz of Boston, who is co-chair of the legislature's Joint Education Committee, to examine options for action.
"Sen. Tarr and I have maintained since the beginning of the process that procedures put in place by the Legislature and the Department of Education have not been followed," Ferrante said. "This report by an independent, non-partisan office reaffirms that. It is very important that procedures are followed and mean something."
Tarr said it was "incumbent on the governor to get his administration under control on this issue — they are disregarding his orders and the law. He (governor) demanded action and action was not forthcoming."
Tarr said the "board is unwilling to examine its own mistakes and take corrective action. It is the role of the governor to be the final arbiter of justice here."
In a prepared statement sent to the Times, the office of Gov. Deval Patrick said that, while the governor has confidence in Chester and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Patrick "has been consistent and clear that review of the Gloucester charter required more transparency and has twice asked the board to restart its process and reconsider its decision."
"His view has not changed," said gubernatorial spokeswoman Kimberly Haberlin.
The Gloucester charter school, which has its charter in hand and is scheduled to open in September, is in the process of organizing its staff and finalizing a site.
Responding to the inspector general's report, Mayor Carolyn Kirk prodded the governor to do more than "tweak" the process.
"What the governor should be doing is working with Gloucester to improve education without harming every other child in the district," Kirk said.
"We have the opportunity to fold the tent on the Gloucester Charter Arts School and come to together as a community to tackle education reform in Gloucester to close the achievement gap that exists in our system," the mayor said.
She said the creation of the charter school will mean "one third of Gloucester's state aide would have ended up in 7 percent of the students, which is outrageous."
But Kirk also said, "We need to move past the financial arguments to how to close the achievement gap between middle class and lower income students."
She said her opposition to the charter school for Gloucester "does not mean we are defending the status quo. We have to have a better solution in place," Kirk added.
Amy Ballin, chairwoman of the board of the Gloucester Community Arts School, said yesterday she had not seen the letter from Sullivan and deferred questions about the Inspector General's report to Colin Zick, the school's attorney.
In a telephone interview with the Times last night, Zick said the inspector general's finding seemed "pre-ordained" and "not a good piece of work, but in any event would have no substantive impact on the situation except to "get people on both sides of the situation upset."
"My client is going forward because (it) has a charter," Zick said.
He added that there is no easy way to unwind the process that produced the charter.
"You can't unbake the cake," said Zick, speculating that the legal work was "results driven," not a legitimate study of the approval process.
Ballin said she is hoping for a "more cooperative effort" from the mayor and others opposed to the project.
"Everybody is frustrated at the adversarial effort," she said.
The process used to approve the Gloucester charter school drew statewide attention in September after the Times obtained via the public records process and published an e-mail from Paul Reville, the governor's education secretary, to Chester indicating that, while the Gloucester charter application may have been a "bitter pill" to swallow, he and the board needed to approve it as a means of advancing the governor's "agenda" on education reform.
The Gloucester charter was the only one of three applications to gain state board approval in 2009, with proposals for Worcester and Waltham failing to win recommendations from either the CSO or Chester and the board.
Chester made his recommendation for approval just days after he received the memo, though he has denied it was a factor in his decision.
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or via e-mail at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.
