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RICHMOND — The charter school movement in Virginia suffered a bitter, narrow defeat Tuesday, when a pair of Republican senators split with their party and defeated a measure that could have opened the door to charter expansion.

“Republicans killed charter schools in Virginia,” state Sen. Mark Obenshain, who has worked for two years on Virginia’s arduous process to change the state constitution on this issue, Tweeted after the vote.

Charters are public schools, but they face fewer regulations that traditional public schools, allowing them to experiment with teaching methods. They siphon taxpayer money from local school districts, which put local school officials from across the state against Obenshain’s effort to increase charter numbers around the state.

The state constitution currently allows charters, but only if a local school board approves them. There are nine currently approved in Virginia—far less than in other states that allow charters.

Obenshain’s measure would have asked voters in November to change the constitution and allow the groups behind charters to appeal local denials to the State Board of Education. There are several pieces of legislation involved in making this change, but an important one—Senate Joint Resolution 6—went down early Monday afternoon.