To the editor:
The Times' Nov. 19 editorial on the proposed Gloucester Community Arts Charter School ("IG's probe into state process shouldn't affect approved charter") misses an extremely important point.
Independent evaluators in the Charter School Office came to the conclusion that, "The founding group is not recommended to be chartered because overall they did not meet the criteria for the final charter application."
The standard for spending millions of dollars to open a new school needs to be a little higher than the lack of intentional false statements in the application. It needs to be higher than the standard apparently endorsed by Education Secretary Paul Reville when he said, in his e-mail to Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Mitchell Chester, "... you, I and the governor all need to send at least one positive signal in this batch (of charter applications)." (First reported by the Times, Saturday, Sept. 19).
Can someone please explain to me why I would want to send my child to a school that was created only because a government official felt it would help Gov. Patrick get re-elected and allow him to keep his job?
Peter Dolan
Mt. Pleasant Avenue, Gloucester
