Peter Greene describes the shocked reaction of charter operators when Governor Tom Wolf proposed that they be regularly audited and that their payments should be aligned with 5heir services. Pennsylvania has a funding formula that is heavily tilted to favor the charter industry. Their lobbyists want to keep it that way.
In his 2020 budget speech, Wolf tried to soothe the industry and thread the needle, saying that Pennsylvania students should get a great education “whether in a traditional public school or a charter school” an noting that “Pennsylvania has a history of school choice, which I support.” But he also said that some charter schools are “little more than fronts for private management companies, and the only innovations they’re coming up with involve finding new ways to take money out of the pockets of property taxpayers.”
The 2021 budget has several features to tighten up Pennsylvania’s exceptionally loose charter industry.
Pennsylvania’s 14 cyber charters will be audited. “Wait,” you say. “the cyber charters aren’t audited?” The answer is “barely;” six of the charters have never been audited at all, and the largest cyber charter in the state, Commonwealth Charter Academy, was last audited in 2012.
The proposal also targets cyber charter funding, one of the deeply nonsensical features of the Pennsylvania charter landscape. Cybers get 100% of the same payment as a brick and mortar charter school–even though they have no bricks, no mortar, and none of the other expenses of an actual school building. Consequently, cyber schools in PA are making money hand over fist, and taxpayer dollars go to things like advertising ($1,000 per student recruited at one charter) and, no kidding, a cool robot dog. The governor proposes to set a statewide cyber tuition rate that is still mighty generous. The state’s in-house online education program costs about $5,400 per student per year, and the governor proposes a set $9,500 tuition rate.
The proposal also looks to fix the charter reimbursement rate for special ed. Currently, a charter gets the same high payment rate for all special ed students, whether they need a full-time aid and extensive specialized supports, or they just need a few adaptations in a regular classroom. That has made students with special needs into cash cows in PA. This is extra nuts because PAS actually has a tiered system for rating special needs–it just isn’t used when paying charters. The governor’s proposal is that charters should be paid an amount in line with the actual costs of educating the students.
The governor also proposes more oversight and accountability for the Education Improvement Tax Credit and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit, Pennsylvania’s two tax credit scholarship (aka voucher) programs.
Wolf also plans to address Pennsylvania’s funding inequities, among the very worst in the nation, with a nearly $2 billion increase in school spending. So charters get less, and public schools get more (including getting to keep more of the public tax dollars they used to have to hand over to charters).
None of this is a hit with the school choice crowd. It’s a little nuts, really, because the governor’s proposal boils down to “Pay the charters what it actually costs to educate the students instead of paying them what it costs to educate the students PLUS a big fat taxpayer-funded bonus.” It’s an exceptionally not-very-radical proposal.
But the pushback is already coming, because GOP leaders in the House and Senate are already prepped and ready to join the national push for more choiciness.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Pennsylvania is long overdue to revise its charter school reimbursement policies that have undermined the economic stability of the commonwealth. Frankly, I am surprised that it has taken Wolf this long to attempt to rein in charter costs. Pennsylvania residents should vote out the corrupt members of the legislature that are making money from so-called school choice. The only way reason can be restored is to get rid of corrupt politicians that are looking for more ways to send tax dollars into private pockets. Nobody needs more choice. Pennsylvania needs to adequately fund the schools that serve the most students, public schools.
Private sector charters, virtual or brick and mortar, are another example of cutthroat capitalism U.S. style that worships at the altar of greed and the hell with everything else, even the planet’s environment humans NEED to survive as a species.
The anti-regulatory theory of action: Private enterprise, guns, and racism should never regulated and controlled. The recipients of government support and women’s bodies should always be regulated and controlled.
**. . . proposed that they be regularly audited and that their payments should be aligned with their services.**
OVERSIGHT of public monies . . . what a concept. CBK
Indeed. They confuse the two ways the word can be defined. They want oversight, not oversight.
Hit the wrong box, meant to be response to CBK above.
Why of course they all willingly opened their books and practices up for all to see!
Wait, I think that was in an alternate life that that happened.
Ed reform has moved WELL beyond charters and private school vouchers.
The newest political campaign by ed reformers is to allocate each family a set sum to purchase educational services on an unregulated market:
” Having access to an Education Freedom Account would be like a health savings account for New Hampshire parents — it would allow them to direct funds to the providers who meet the unique needs of their children.”
Vouchers on steroids. Anyone can decide they’re now a public education contractor and collect public funding for services.
Led, as usual, by Jeb Bush.
There is going to be an absolute explosion of junk “educational services contractors”, all publicly funded. Once they’re receiving public funding they’ll all lobby to keep and expand the funding and fight any regulation or oversight.
This is really radical. It’s a complete privatization of the K-12 education system and ALL of ed reform are backing it, lockstep. There’s no dissenters or debate at all.
https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/op-eds/jeb-bush-an-opportunity-to-close-the-opportunity-gap/article_cf05e2ed-ae86-54d2-934c-ef8b0eb42c76.html
They completely misled the public on their agenda. It was never about “improving public schools”. It was replacing public schools with a commercial education market.
Ed reformers all depict teacher union lobbying as evil, but why is charter lobbying different?
These junk charters in Pennsylvania are all lobbying to evade regulation and oversight, like all government contractors do in every sector.
Why is one set of lobbyists “bad” and the other set of lobbyists “good”? Because ed reformers support the charter lobbyists ideologically?
If you oppose adults lobbying for their own interest, you should also oppose the charter lobby but we never hear about charter lobbyists.
In ed reform, it is pure and noble and good to lobby for charters, but icky and bad and self interested to lobby for public schools.
Why is this? What is the possible rational reason for the disparate treatment other than an ideological preference for privatized school systems?
Chiara, by now you know that anyone who supports public schools–not charters and vouchers–must surely be paid by the teachers’ unions.
I am not.
I am sure you are not either.
Why do they lie?
Can it be because they are paid to lobby for privatization and assume everyone else is also paid?
If you are in ed reform and lobby for charters and vouchers because “you care about” charter and voucher students, then shouldn’t the same hold true for students in public schools? Why are public school supporters depicted as “self interested” and charter and voucher supporters depicted as self sacrificing and noble?
Public school students don’t deserve advocates for their schools? Why not?
It’s ridiculous and it makes no sense. Pure ideological bias. Charter and voucher lobbyists are pure and self sacrificing only because ed reformers support charter and private schools and oppose public schools. There’s no other possible reason they draw this ridiculous distinction between their “good” lobbyists and our “bad” lobbyists.
Once again, Ohio public school students got the shaft from the ed reform lobby:
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2021/02/05/ohio-school-funding-gov-mike-dewine-budget-lawmakers-plan/4386312001/
DeWine’s new budget has huge increases for voucher and charter funding, but nothing for students who attend the (ideologically incorrect) public schools.
This is what happens with ed reform governance- their work to weaken and eradicate public schools takes a real toll on public school students. Our kids are the collateral damage of this privatization push.
It’s like this every year in Ohio- the ed reform wish list on vouchers and charters is granted and they take the funding right out of the state stipend for public school students. Individual students who remain in public schools are funding the expansion of charters and vouchers.
Since Walmart took over Little Rock “public schools,” the results are excruciatingly clear: Privatized schools, including charters, are bad for kids, learning, schools and “an educated populace.” Just as standardized tests cannot measure education, these schools cannot educate. The question is how to pull away from this debacle and do better. Democracy depends on it.