As charter schools take an increasing toll on the Northampton public school system, forcing deep cuts in teaching staff and programs, more and more people are questioning the origins of this privatization initiative and wondering why the city has no control over its cost.

Northampton's financial obligation to charter schools in Hadley and Haydenville is expected to be more than $800,000 next year and will only grow as tuitions rise and the schools expand. The city will have little choice but to continue trimming the public system. Charter school budgets cannot be cut. Charter schools operate outside the local democratic process.

In substantive ways, charter schools are the opposite of public schools. Charters are publicly funded but privately run, governed by self-appointed boards of trustees. While public schools are required to serve a broad range of students, charters are free to focus on a narrow theme or curriculum, appealing only to certain students and their families.

Also, charters are free to limit enrollment, far different from public schools which often struggle with large classes and crowded buildings. Charters do not need to hire certified teachers. Nor must they deal with one of the most expensive obligations facing public schools, serving children with severe disabilities.

Charter school funding is also conveniently secure. Charters receive financial priority over public schools. Their money comes off the top of a community's state education aid. It does not matter whether state aid increases or decreases or what financial contingencies a public school faces, charter schools get their money first. Guaranteed.

The architects of the charter initiative, during the administration of Gov. William Weld, knew that communities struggling to adequately fund their public schools would not likely vote to support new charter schools. So Weld's advisors short-circuited the democratic process. They vested the state Board of Education, dominated by Weld appointees, with the power to establish charter schools. And they arranged that charter funding would be deducted from state aid before it reached local communities.

Meeting what amounts to a huge unfunded mandate requires that communities either increase property taxes (difficult under Prop 2 1/2), shift funds from other municipal departments or, as in the case of Northampton this year, cut back on public schools.

When you look at the skewed regulations and the enormous cost - and the increasing hardship for children in public schools - you wonder how proponents of privatization have pulled off this incredible coup. And where has the media been during the process? The explanation is only too familiar: Money and power and the media fascination with something "new."

Almost 12 years of Republican governors has meant constant support for privatization from the powerful state Board of Education. In an incredible conflict of interest, the chairman of the board also serves as the executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank that has raised millions of dollars to get charter schools up and running.

Pioneer is part of national network of right wing policy centers and charter school action groups including the Hoover Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Walton Family Fund, backed by corporate giants such Wal-Mart, the Gap and Old Navy.

Also, large for-profit charter school management companies have played an influential, although quiet role in shaping the state's charter school policies. For-profits such as Edison, Advantage Schools and SABIS International now manage 10 of the state's 35 commonwealth charter schools. Together those 10 schools enroll well over half of all the children attending charter schools in the state.

Meanwhile, the media, too rarely willing to invest in any substantive independent analysis, has been content to parrot conservative handouts dating to the Reagan era declaring that public schools are "failing" and only competition from the private sector can spur improvement. No independent studies have yet confirmed the academic success of charter schools. No independent studies have documented any significant innovations.

However, charter schools have an immediate appeal to parents who feel the local public school is too large or unresponsive (or in many cases too diverse). The difficulty is that charter schools only grow at the expense of the public system. By draining away millions of dollars, a few small charter schools necessarily lead to larger and more poorly staffed public schools.

One of the great triumphs of charter school proponents has been their success in framing the language of discussion. They have trained the media to accept the cleverly Orwellian phrase "school choice" to characterize privatization. The harsh reality is that neither tax payers in Northampton nor the parents of the city's public school children have any choice. Charter schools are imposed and funded from the top. It will take a change at the top before the true costs of privatization are fully explored.

Paul Dunphy is vice chair of the Williamsburg School Committee and an education policy analyst with Citizens for Public Schools.