Politics

Crushing defeat leaves charter-school movement in limbo

Proponents of Question 2 gathered at Foley’s Irish Pub and Restaurant to watch the election results. Jim Davis/Boston Globe

A majority of voters in nearly every Massachusetts community — including all the state’s cities — rejected the ballot question to expand charter schools, exceeding the worst-case scenario of supporters who hoped it would at least pass in urban areas.

The trouncing puts the future of the charter-school movement into limbo and raises questions about whether supporters should have taken the issue directly to voters to get around a legislative stalemate, resulting in the nation’s most expensive ballot question campaign ever.

“This may have been a Hail Mary pass that shouldn’t have been made,” said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a policy institute supportive of charter schools. “I would have a hard time finding any argument that charters came out ahead on this one.”

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