It’s time for reform at Pa.’s charter schools

The two stories sat side by side on the same page earlier this week. The placement could not have been more ironic.

On the same day that Gov. Tom Wolf made good on another campaign pledge, this time to establish a division inside the state Education Department to keep tabs on the state’s burgeoning charter school industry, the CEO from a cyber charter school was in court to plead guilty to tax fraud charges.

Charter schools, set up in Pennsylvania by the Charter School Law - Act 22 of 1997, to offer Pennsylvania families an alternative to public schools that increasingly fail to offer families, usually in struggling communities, an adequate alternative, too often have failed to do so. In fact, too often test scores at charters have varied little from their counterparts in the public schools.

What has changed is the huge economic impact the desertion of those children – and the state funding that follows them – has had on public schools.

And of course, the bottom line for charter schools and their backers. The business of charter schools has proved in many cases to be quite lucrative.

For years the Chester Upland School District has struggled with the concept of charter schools, so much so that in recent years as many as half the district’s students have instead opted to enroll in charter schools. The biggest brick and mortar charter school in the country, Chester Community Charter School, calls Chester Upland home.

The public school district has found all those students – and state funding – fleeing public schools has been a huge drain on the district’s efforts to turn around its fortunes – both the bottom line and the education it can offer its children.

Public school officials point to charter reimbursements as a big reason for their financial ills, and in some cases their education shortcomings. Charter school officials fire back that they are simply offering an alternative to families who are sick and tired of being offered a second-rate education in public schools.

The two sides have long debated costs, the formula the state uses to reimburse charter schools, and the real bottom line, test scores and achievement levels offered by the charter schools.

Wolf takes his action just weeks after a damning report from state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, who did not mince words in condemning the state charter school law.

“Our charter school law is simply the worst charter school law in the United States,” DePasquale said.

In one particular instance, he suggested that much of the fiscal woes that perpetually afflict the School District of Philadelphia can be laid at the feet of charter schools.

The auditor general believes the law fails to give public school districts the tools it needs to be ensure the quality of charters they grant.

He said the skirmishes between public schools and their charters too often descend into turf wars with both sides battling for state funding, rather than the schools’ primary mission, educating children.

“The tension between the district that authorized them and the charter school has to end,” DePasquale said. Good luck with that, especially since every effort to enact meaningful reform of the charter law in Harrisburg has been beaten back by lobbyists.

In addition, last week the Pennsylvania School Boards Association weighed in. As you might expect, they’re not the charter schools’ biggest fans. They blasted the charters as being top heavy, with administration costs double that of public schools.

Wolf has empowered Education Secretary Pedro Rivera to set up a separate office with the aim of holding charter schools to the same standards as public schools.

The four-employee division will review the schools’ financial and educational programs, increase visits by Department of Education workers and focus on charter and cyber reauthorizations.

Pennsylvania currently has about 175 brick-andmortar charters schools and 14 cyber-charters. They enroll 132,531 students statewide.

One area sure to be scrutinized is another longtime bone of contention between public and charter schools. That is the charters’ propensity to enroll special education students. Too often the incentive is economic, rather than education. Simply put, the charter gets a bigger reimbursement from the state, regardless of the severity of a student’s learning challenge.

One statewide charter official, Bob Fayfich, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition for Public Charter Schools, actually agreed with some of DePasquale’s calls for reforms, with one major caveat.

They fear the report merely could be used as a cudgel by some districts to fight re-authorization of a charter school.

Wolf’s panel is a good move. We hope they study DePasquale’s recommendations and start whipping the charters into shape.

The tension between public schools and their charter counterparts has gone on too long. And for too long it’s all been about dollars and cents, instead of common sense and offering a quality education to every child in Pennsylvania.