Good morning. My name is Paul Dunphy. I am a parent a and policy analyst for Citizens for Public Schools and the Mass Coalition for Equitable Education.

 I want to echo the sentiments expressed last month by Mr. Thomas that took issue with the board¹s recommended cuts in magnet school grants and reimbursements for money lost to charter schools. This is not the time for the board to be retreating from social and financial responsibility. And given the state's bleak economic outlook this is certainly not the time to be opening more charter schools.

 I also want to register my dismay, though certainly not my surprise that a member of the board has intervened to oppose my appointment to the Racial Imbalance Advisory Council. Of 80 people recommended by the commissioner last month for various advisory boards, I have the distinction of being the only one a member of the board has maneuvered to block.

 I say I'm dismayed but not surprised because I've spoken out in favor of integration, and affirmative action and in favor of equal opportunity. I know, as Vernon Jordan put it the other day, that the spirit of racism is still at large in America. But I know that's not a point of view some members of the board want to hear.

 I¹ve also opposed privatization. Opposed the charter school and voucher plans favored by some members of the board. And I was early in expressing concern that the board of education was becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the Pioneer Institute.

 I've always found it ironic that activists with Pioneer - supposed champions of the free market - should have crafted school regulations that actually protect charter schools from competition and shield them from meaningful accountability.

 Meaningful accountability? The department of education has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to a company called SchoolWorks to guide its evaluation of charter schools. And who is the president of SchoolWorks but a member of the board of directors of the fastest growing for-profit charter school company in the state, Beacon Education Management. You call that accountability? I call conflict of interest and breach of the public trust.

 The only real accountability has come from outside the department, from the Auditor and the Inspector General. In past four years, commonwealth charter schools have been the subject of more critical reports than any other program, more than any other initiative in the state, including the Big Dig.

 You can keep me off the Racial Imbalance Advisory Council. And you can pull controversial speakers off conference programs, and cook the books on MCAS scores. You can try to discredit the research of Citizens for Public Schools.

 But what you can¹t do - what you can't do - is silence the many voices for racial justice and for inclusive, diverse,   democratically accountable public schools.

 We will continue to speak. And I believe Mr.Chairman - - we will be heard.