This is a report on charter school funding in Pennsylvania, especially the effect of excess special education funding for charter schools. It was
distributed by the Keystone State Education Coalition.
The KSEC writes:
“Each time charter schools skim marginal need special ed students out of public school districts, they artificially cause the average special ed cost to spiral higher for the next year’s special ed charter school tuition rate.
“YouTube Video: The $200 Million/Year PA Charter School Special Ed Funding Windfall For Dummies
“Would the special ed funding bill HB2138/SB1316 be the “end of charter schools as we know it”? It might be, especially for the operators of for-profit management companies that contract with charter schools. As best we can tell, instead of special ed money serving special needs students, it appears that the windfall has funded things like multi-million dollar CEO compensation, over 19,000 local TV commercials, a jet and Florida condo, generous political campaign contributions and a 20,000 square foot mansion on the beach in Palm Beach Florida. Here’s a three minute youtube video produced by KEYSEC Co-Chair Mark B. Miller that clearly explains how this happens.
Want more than a three minute video on this topic? Here’s a great piece by long-time ed writer Dale Mezzacappa for the notebook….
“City charters get $100M more for special ed than they spend; debate rages in Harrisburg”
the notebook By Dale Mezzacappa on June 5, 2014 02:12 PM
Philadelphia charter schools received more than $175 million last year to educate special education students, but spent only about $77 million for that purpose, according to aNotebook analysis of state documents. That is a nearly $100 million gap at a time when city education leaders are considering raising some class sizes to 41 students and laying off 800 more teachers in District-run schools due to severe funding shortfalls. Payments to charters, which are fixed under law, make up nearly a third of its $2.4 billion budget.
The issue goes beyond Philadelphia. Statewide, charters, including cybers, collect about $350 million for special education students, but spend just $156 million on them, according to calculations from the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO). The Notebook used the PASBO analysis of state data to calculate the numbers for Philadelphia, which has half the state’s 170 charter schools.
http://thenotebook.org/blog/147324/special-education-funding-formula-changes-recommended
Daily postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 3250 Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators, legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, Governor’s staff, current/former PA Secretaries of Education, PTO/PTA officers, parent advocates, teacher leaders, education professors, members of the press and a broad array of P-16 regulatory agencies, professional associations and education advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook and Twitter
These daily emails are archived and searchable at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
This was in Sunday’s paper–an op/ed for charters. I am currently in a discussion with a former teacher on BATS who likes Charters. Please go to this article and AZ BATS and dispute this with me.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2014/06/14/charter-schools-give-parents-choices-want/10500737/
It would also be great if some of you could go to this piece and leave your thoughts.
Thanks.
Good explanation in the video. This is why it is imperative that: per pupil services mandated by law = funding provided by the state = services provided by the school.
Charter schools exploit sloppy accounting in state funding? So who is at fault more, and what can be fixed? Fixing the funding formulas is a good start.
Yes, it’s a rip off and everybody knows it but it continues unabated. Until the people, by any means necessary, stop their being abused, it will continue
It’s not accidental sloppy accounting. It’s blatant disregard for the moral law of right vs.wrong. The crooked pols want their cut and there’s so much money to be made, especially in poor areas, that it will only continue until the people force it to stop.
This.
As my wife always stipulates and sometimes cynically, “follow the money.” Everyone, this is about money not the education of our children, special or otherwise and it is going to only get worst with money becoming more and more in short supply. Long established institutions of government monopolies are in the fight of their life and any newcomers to compete with them are an enemy even if they have developed innovations that they are willing to emulate but not credit. As this recent article establishes, charter schools are making a PROFIT and are reinvesting the profits into capital investments to increase the quality of their delivery. The Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA) is clearly against Charter Schools making a profit and reinvesting it as capital expenses and growing on the backs GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES whose benefits and wages continue to soar on the backs of tax payers whose dwindling income decreases hourly. WE CANNOT AFFORD THIS GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY ON EDUCATION OR OTHER SERVICES THAT CAN BE BETTER PROVIDED BY PRIVATE BUT WELL REGULATED SERVICES. This is all about dwindling resources and how best to manage its course.http://www.pennlive.com/…/supporters_of_charter_schools…