Massachusetts is not failing in its responsibility to educate its youth by having a cap on charter schools, according to a high court ruling that found attending one of the alternative institutions is not a constitutional right.
“The education clause provides a right for all the Commonwealth’s children to receive an adequate education, not a right to attend charter schools,” wrote Supreme Judicial Court Justice Kimberly S. Budd, in a unanimous decision released yesterday.
Five unidentified Boston public school students challenged the validity of the state’s cap on charter schools. They argued that the cap “arbitrarily and unfairly deprives” children in the poorest districts from receiving an “adequate education.”
“The burden of the charter enrollment cap — an arbitrary limit that furthers no legitimate educational goal — falls squarely and disproportionately on children in less affluent districts like Boston,” the appeal, filed last year, states.
Superior Court Justice Heidi E. Brieger tossed the suit, and the SJC agreed to weigh in on the charter school debate — an ongoing controversy that has been duked out in the halls of the State House and at the ballot box.