Fowler-Finn’s other main critique of charter schools--—that they divert funding from the school district—is shared by Cambridge Mayor Michael A. Sullivan, who chairs the School Committee.

Sullivan says that if all the students that leave the school district to attend the charter school came from only one school, then the city would be able to save money by cutting back on teachers and utilities. But as the students will be drawn in “dribs and drabs” from 12 elementary and middle schools, he says it is unlikely that any one school will lose enough students to make cost-saving teacher cutbacks possible.

However, Shattuck Professor of Government Paul E. Peterson, who is the Director of the Program on Education Policy at KSG, says such claims are specious.

“This is one of those claims that is always made that I think has the least merit,” Peterson says. “All the money is doing is following the child. If you don’t have the student, you don’t need the money.”

Peterson says the belief that the district will suffer disproportionate losses is based on the false assumption that the school cannot adjust its expenditures to reflect the changing number of students in the district.

“[Fowler-Finn] basically is saying that most of his costs are fixed. This is not true. Most of your costs are personnel costs,” Peterson says. “The percentage of children leaving the district to go to charter schools is a trivial number compared to the changes in demography every year.”

PRINCIPAL CONCERNS

Both critics and supporters of the new school admit that Evans’ history as principal of CRLS from 1999 through 2001 has added a personal element to the debate.

“There are some underlying issues...regarding the conditions under which she both ran the school and left it,” Sullivan says of Evans’ leadership at CRLS. “In some cases, it is described as disarray.”

During her administration, Evans attempted far-reaching changes to CRLS. One such reform was the abolishment of the traditional house system. Students used to choose a smaller community in which they took most of their classes.

Evans saw the house system as a place where de facto segregation along ethnic and economic lines prevailed.

In place of the houses, Evans created schools within CRLS, academic communities to which students would be assigned in order to create a racial and socioeconomic balance.

But the plan to eliminate parental choice in school assignments—one of the key parts of Evans’ restructuring—was very nearly overturned by the School Committee in 2000.

In a 2003 essay on her tenure at CRLS published in the magazine Phi Delta Kappan, Evans cited this battle with the School Committee—in addition to other actions that she deemed “micromanagement”—as “the last straw,” after which it was impossible for her to continue as principal.