The corporate-backed effort to expand charter schools in Massachusetts is opposed by likely voters in that state, according to a new poll released Tuesday.
The WBUR poll, conducted Sept. 7-10 by The MassINC Polling Group, found 48 percent of respondents opposed to Question 2—which would allow up to 12 new charter schools a year statewide—and 41 percent in favor. Eleven percent of respondents said they were undecided.
Money has been flowing into what the Boston Globe says “could be the most expensive ballot campaign in state history,” with supporters of the proposal having raised roughly $12 million, almost double their opponents.
As WBUR reports:
Indeed, teacher and blogger Mercedes Schneider further revealed in a post this weekend that “[t]he Waltons are not the only out-of-state billionaires using their wealth to influence the charter cap in a state in which they do not reside.” According to the September 9 filing of the Question 2 ballot committee, she wrote, Houston billionaire John Arnold and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg have each contributed more than $240,000 to the campaign.
Meanwhile, the Globe noted on Tuesday that while most of the pro-charter money “came from out-of-state sources,” Boston’s business leaders have also been opening up their checkbooks in support of the initiative.
The November ballot measure (pdf) would lift the charter cap that’s currently in place and “add to the $408 million that charter schools already divert from district schools,” as the grassroots organization Citizens for Public Schools says on its website.
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