Gov flip-flops on what used to be his signature issue
By Alexander Castro, Rhode Island Current
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| Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current |
“The circumstances have changed,” McKee told reporters Thursday.
Back in 2021, McKee suggested he’d veto a similar, albeit unsuccessful, piece of legislation. Part of the bedrock in the governor’s political brand had been his push for the creation of mayoral academies — a special kind of public charter school — during his time as the mayor of Cumberland in the late 2000s.
“I haven’t backed off, like, say, ‘Oh, let’s put charters out of business.’ I haven’t said that,” McKee told reporters after an unrelated afternoon appearance at a Law Day essay contest award ceremony for high schoolers at Rhode Island Supreme Court. “I said, ‘Let’s support the charters.’ And I’ve done that more than once.”
But much has changed in the five years since McKee took office, he told reporters.
BREAKING NEWS from Ted Nesi, WPRI:
NO endorsement for McKee from RI Democratic
Party. Highly unusual for an incumbent.
Those circumstances include enrollment declines in public schools — about 10,000 students in all, in the time he’s been governor, McKee said — and a pressing need to reassess how the state funds education via a formula for determining state aid to local school districts.
“The moratorium is going to give us a chance to really work through those issues, and also continue to make sure that the charter schools are delivering and helping us achieve the goal that I’ve set, to help us meet or exceed Massachusetts levels by 2030,” McKee said. “So I’m a public school guy.”
As of Thursday evening, McKee, who faces a competitive reelection campaign this year, had still not received a public endorsement from the state’s teachers’ unions, which strongly backed the moratorium and cap. Democratic primary opponent Helena Buonanno Foulkes had already said she would have vetoed the bill.
Foulkes said in a statement texted to Rhode Island Current Tuesday, “While my top priority is strengthening our public schools, a blanket moratorium is the wrong tool.”
Foulkes referenced “the thousands on charter waiting lists” — figures echoed in state education department data, which shows the families had submitted 30,202 applications for 3,170 available charter seats in the 2025-2026 school year, much higher than the 12,005 applications submitted in the 2014-2015 school year.
‘A moment in time to kind of pause, reassess’
Last week, at an unrelated news conference on the Washington Bridge, McKee suggested he was on the fence, questioning the need to lower the statewide cap on charter schools from 35 to 28. The General Assembly had originally drafted the legislation to lower the cap to 25 charters max. McKee said those additional slots in the bills’ final version will “certainly…give us some level of growth once the moratorium ends.”
One charter, De La Comunidad Bilingual School, received preliminary but not final approval earlier this year to open a school serving students from Providence, Pawtucket and Cranston. The moratorium’s passage, which includes a retroactive cutoff clause for charters not approved before July 1, 2025, effectively foreclosed on the school’s ability to open.
A representative for De La Comunidad did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. McKee said he had met with the school’s leadership Wednesday.
“I think that they should, if they feel strongly that they have support in the General Assembly, they should go back in the next session, get legislation…and go deliver your case,” McKee recounted for reporters.
But the public charter system and public distinct school system which run in tandem — systems which run parallel and split finite resources, moratorium supporters have argued — ultimately need more study, McKee agreed.
“I look at this as a moment in time to kind of pause, reassess, making sure my commitment to this role is exactly as it’s always been,” McKee said.
The pause will allow for a 16-member commission to investigate the findings of the Blue Ribbon Commission, a special panel led by the Rhode Island Foundation which released its recommendations for a new school funding formula in January. Moratorium supporters cited the commission’s extensive suggestions for redoing public school funding as one reason to pause charter expansion. If charters are paused for a while, proponents argue, the commission’s recommendations can be more thoroughly studied — and ideally implemented.
“You got to be very careful about what you agree to,” McKee said about retooling the formula, “in making sure that the distribution is equitable and fair to communities right now that are struggling. All the communities are struggling.”
“This pause really says, ‘Look, we’re going to look at the whole picture. We’re not going to say that any one piece is more important than the other,” McKee said.
‘Disappointing flip flop’
Stop the Wait, a charter advocacy group, called McKee’s signature a “disappointing flip flop” in a statement from Janie Segui-Rodriguez, the group’s founder and CEO.
“This is not a policy outcome,” Segui-Rodriguez wrote. “This is a deeply personal loss for families who had real hope, and for children who deserved better than to become collateral damage in a political fight they never asked to be part of.”
Segui-Rodriguez pointed a finger specifically at Senate President Valarie Lawson, who works as president of the National Education Association Rhode Island.
“[H]er daytime job is to advance union priorities, and her nighttime job is to set the Senate calendar and shape legislation,” Segui-Rodriguez wrote. “Children and families are not at the table — they are on the menu. This is what happens when special interests are put before students.”
A Senate spokesperson for Lawson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Meanwhile, the first word in a text message from Sen. Melissa Murray, the Woonsocket Democrat who sponsored the moratorium legislation in her chamber, was “Interesting” when asked about her reaction to the news.
“Wasn’t sure that was going to actually happen,” Murray added.
Murray said she hopes state leaders will take the opportunity “to really dig deep” into the Blue Ribbon proposal to craft “a new formula that works for all students, and especially one that actually funds the actual cost of high cost special education.”
“An overhaul is desperately needed,” Murray said.
Jeremy Sencer, an organizer and representative for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, concurred in a Thursday phone interview that McKee’s signature should be viewed as a chance to revisit how Rhode Island funds its public schools. The moratorium debate, he said, had been staged too pronouncedly with an “us against them mindset.”
“If a longtime charter advocate, such as Governor McKee, recognizes the need for this bill, that tells us that it’s a prudent step to make sure that all children have the resources they need, and that we make sure districts that serve the needs of all students,” Sencer said.
Many public school districts, Sencer reiterated, continue to struggle to educate high-need students requiring special education, as well as multilingual learners.
Sencer said his teachers’ union wants to meet with charter groups on next steps, including expansion of dual-language programs.
Rep. Leonela Felix, a Pawtucket Democrat who vigorously spoke against the bill during a House floor debate last week and even tried to send it back to committee, said in a text message Thursday that she was “seriously disappointed” by McKee’s signing the bill.
When asked by reporters if he had signed the legislation at the behest of teachers’ unions, possibly in exchange for endorsement, McKee replied, “That hadn’t happened, but I can tell you, I meet with all the parties.”
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