BY VINAYA SAKSENA

CUMBERLAND — Mayor Daniel McKee expressed gratitude toward General Assembly officials representing Cumberland on Friday after learning that they voted to allow new charter schools to be opened in Rhode Island again, eliminating one major hurdle in his pursuit of education alternatives.

For months, the mayor has been talking up ideas he has been pursuing that he has said will offer families more choices with regard to education, while also improving performance and lowering educational costs. His ideas, which included a possible regional school operated in cooperation with a non-profit organization, won what he saw as a major victory in the Statehouse this week.
“I was at the Statehouse last night just after the Senate passed the budget,” McKee said Friday. “We’re very pleased that the leadership in the Senate supported the (idea).”
McKee’s plan had faced criticism from some educators, who suggested that his proposal would circumvent prevailing wage laws and compete with public schools for funding. However, McKee and his supporters have maintained that the idea should be pursued given the state’s dire financial circumstances, adding that the schools would be intended to complement public schools, not hurt them.
“Remember, this is public education,” McKee said. “We have exemptions on certain provisions of the (law), but we’ll be working with RIDE (Rhode Island Department of Education).”
Now that charter schools have been given the go-ahead by state legislators, McKee said he intended to begin a three-step process to bring the idea closer to fruition. The first step would involve maximizing the outside resources that could be involved in the project by reaching out to various non-profit agencies which could help get it off the ground, while the second would involve promoting the idea both inside and outside of Rhode Island.
The third step, he said, would be to begin meeting with interested non-profits to discuss the idea further. 
McKee said he and his collaborators had already been in contact with some non-profits about the project, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Broad Foundation. He said he hoped to submit a proposal for the school in the fall of 2008 and open the school around September of 2009.