Battle over charter school ballot question heating up

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who said charter schools offer important educational options for minority students, spent Tuesday morning going door to door in Springfield drumming up support for the question.

Baker said that charter schools are "the single intervention of the past 20 years" that has worked to eliminate the state's persistent achievement gap between white students and minority students.

Others who oppose the measure include Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh, who planned to headline an anti-Question 2 rally Tuesday evening in the Dorchester neighborhood with Democratic U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark and Boston city councilors and community leaders.

If the board received more than 12 applications in a year, the proposed law would give priority to new or expanded charter schools in districts where student performance on statewide assessments is in the bottom 25 percent of all districts in the previous two years and where parent demand is greatest.