This article, appearing in the Local section of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, discusses the attempt of the school committee to persuade the administration to restore the department's annual project fair which was cancelled due to lack of funds. The administration has recently received money in the form of charter school reimbursements and the committee would like to see this money put towards project fair. These reimbursements are part of the effort to "defray the costs of losing students to charter schools."
The charter schools in Worcester receive far more educational funding than other area schools, for example, this year $11.2 million dollars from Worcester's educational funding was set aside for the charter schools in the city. The loss of students to charter schools not only forced Worcester public schools to cut the project fair but also their Arts festival, the Academic Olympics and Odyssey of the Minds programs.
Charter School of Wilmington flagpole
Charter School of Wilmington side entrance
Charter School of Wilmington front entranceDespite the push by the school committee for the reimbursement money to be spent on the Project fair the city insisted that the money would only be spent on "high growth communities."
Although maybe not fully intended, this phrase "high growth communities" has many underlying meanings and can be taken in different contexts. Often when cities are putting special efforts into "cleaning up" a neighborhood or assisting an already "growing" area, what is really going on is that the neighborhood is transformed in order to attract upper-class, wealthier citizens and become a neighborhood consisting of higher incomes, bigger, nicer homes and larger property values. Perhaps the school committee wants to invest most of its money in these "high growth communities" because the hope to attract a certain type of people to an area by improving their schools.
According to the Massachusetts Charter Schools website, charter schools were created in order...