Internal memo offers candid postmortem of charter fight in Massachusetts

Using in-depth interviews with key players, focus groups of voters, and pre- and post-election surveys, it makes clear that charter advocates underestimated their opponents, who had money to spend, a disciplined message, and compelling messengers: teachers.

By Matt Barnum

Massachusetts charter school advocates had the wind at their backs as they set out to lift the state’s cap on charter schools in 2015. Polls showed strong support, deep-pocketed donors stood ready to fund their efforts, and a popular governor was set to champion their cause.

National charter advocates saw it as a major setback, while opponents were emboldened.

“A loss like we saw in Massachusetts is only made worse if advocates fail to engage in honest conversations about what happened and why,” Joe Williams, director of the Walton group, said in a statement.

The report is an unsparing account of charters advocates’ missteps: taking support that would later evaporate for granted, pushing inconsistent messages, and failing to unite the charter community or gin up much grassroots support.

Using in-depth interviews with key players, focus groups of voters, and pre- and post-election surveys, it makes clear that charter advocates underestimated their opponents, who had money to spend, a disciplined message, and compelling messengers: teachers.

The memo explains that charter advocates’ original plan was to use the threat of a ballot initiative to push state legislators to lift the cap themselves. If that failed, they figured they would win the referendum.

To try to force legislators’ hands, charter advocates were aggressive with the wording of the ballot question, which would have allowed a dozen new charters to open up anywhere in the state every year.

But this time was different. Teachers unions were equally sure that they could prevail at the ballot. “The opposition was so confident that they told their allies not to compromise or provide any concessions to charter advocates,” says the memo, which was written by the Global Strategy Group, a consulting firm.

It also meant that charter school supporters were stuck with a ballot question drafted to force a legislative compromise, rather than one designed to win votes.

“The opposition focused on high quality public schools for all — and it worked,” the memo says.

“There was a very fundamental step that was skipped over and missed in this campaign … very simply the effort to introduce the issue to the public and to frame it,” one person interviewed for the report said. “It just didn’t happen.”

“Considering the political climate of the 2016 election, the lack of endorsements and outright opposition from Democratic leaders exacerbated the partisan nature of Question 2,” the memo says.

The No side had something the Yes side lacked: a trusted messenger.

“Voters wanted to hear about the impact of charter schools from those who would be affected the most by a cap raise: teachers, parents, and students,” the memo says. “These voices were largely absent from the conversation on the Yes side. But voters turned to, and trusted, the opposition’s primary messengers: teachers.”

But voters were more willing to believe the teachers and school boards that opposed the referendum. “It kind of angered me. I was like, Charlie Baker, I’m not going to believe you over the teachers and city councilors that I know,” said one voter. “He’s a business guy.”

State and national teachers unions also helped close the gap with wealthy charter supporters, who still had a significant financial advantage.

“Although [charter] advocates still managed to outspend opponents by almost $10 million, the campaign anticipated that the ability to significantly outspend the unions and dominate the airwaves would be enough,” the memo said. The anti-charter advocates’ more resonant message, use of digital advertising, and strong ground game proved that incorrect.

While Question 2 opponents had massive grassroots support and a united message, the charter community was divided behind the scenes, the memo acknowledges.

Charters that didn’t want to expand saw no upside and serious risk in supporting the effort to lift the cap, and the Charter School Association “was hesitant to involve themselves.”

“The Yes on 2 coalition of advocates was, at best, fractured,” it says.

“Initially, when FES came into town, their idea was to replicate the campaign that they carried out in New York City, which just wasn’t going to work here,” said Dominic Slowey, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association. “There was some friction for what the strategy should be, going back to when FES first came to town. That probably carried over into the campaign.”

Slowey said there was always tension between his group and Families for Excellent Schools, which he said was spoiling for a political battle, a strategy that was not cognizant of the existing cross-party support for charters.

More than a year later, their defeat continues to reverberate locally and nationally. Nina Rees, head of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in an email that one of the lessons she took from the defeat is how important it is to “Ensure voters (and importantly parents) understand what charter schools really are.”

In Massachusetts, Slowey says advocates are still in the recovery stage.

“We spent a lot of time from the mid ’90s up until 2016 building a really positive image of charters across the state,” he said. “We’re going to go back to basic and rebuild the way we built it up to begin with.”

“It’s not going to be overnight,” he said. “We didn’t build it overnight — we kind of lost it overnight — so it won’t be rebuilt overnight.”

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