Testimony of Dr. Sherley Bretous, Joint Committee on Education, In Opposition to Bills That Would Harm Charter Public Schools

Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Sherley Bretous, and I am the Executive Director of Benjamin Banneker Charter Public School in Cambridge, a school that has closed the achievement gap for the last 6 consecutive years. But today, I am here representing the thousands of dedicated charter public school educators all across the Commonwealth. 

Charter public schools serve over 46,000 Massachusetts students. Due to enrollment limits, an additional 21,000 children are currently on charter public school wait lists. Families are voting and demonstrating that charter public schools are a valued, critical part of our public education system.

Charter public schools were founded to help address long-standing achievement and opportunity gaps. They were granted increased autonomy to enable innovative and creative solutions to persistent educational challenges. Some of our schools leverage that autonomy to increase learning time through longer school days or year. Others implement unique instructional approaches, from Montessori models to early college models. Autonomy in hiring practices has enabled charter public schools to diversify our teaching staff. Students in charter public schools are three times more likely to have a teacher of color than their peers across the state. 

Research has found that learning gains in Massachusetts charters are among the highest in the nation. Our students gain the equivalent of 41 extra days of learning in both reading and mathematics, every year, as compared with their peers in our state’s traditional public schools. 

Data recently released by the DESE reveals that graduates who attended a charter public school were more likely to enroll in college than their peers who attended traditional public schools. In fact, Black graduates were nearly 40% more likely to attend college, and Latinx graduates were 66% more likely to attend college, if they had graduated from a charter public school. 

Massachusetts charter public schools help strengthen our public education system. We must  REJECT legislation that would hurt our schools, our educators, and our children. 

Thank you.