For the first time in 25 years, Pennsylvania officials imposed new regulations on charter schools. Charter advocates were not happy, nor were the Republicans who control the legislature.
Pennsylvania’s charter schools may be required to follow certain accounting and audit standards, comply with state ethics requirements, and post enrollment policies on their websites under new rules opposed by charter advocates and Republican lawmakers.
The rules, passed by the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission on Monday in a 3-2 vote, were proposed by Gov. Tom Wolf as part of a broader effort to overhaul how charters are regulated and funded — a perennially contentious issue in the education world. Charters, which educate 170,000 students across Pennsylvania, including one-third of all Philadelphia public school students, are paid by school districts based on enrollment….
Mastery Schools, Philadelphia’s largest charter network, said in written comments submitted to the commission that the regulations “threaten the very existence of the public charter schools that have been transformative to our children’s lives.”
The same regulations that public schools must follow are somehow a mortal threat to charters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Pennsylvania is long overdue for a revision to its charter school policy that has allowed charter schools to receive preferential funding with little to no accountability. These changes are step in the right direction by requiring charter schools to be transparent and accountable to an independent audit. There is still more work to be done on budget matters. For years the state legislature, some of whom are invested in charter schools, have blocked any attempt to revise the unfair funding formula that grossly overpays the failing cyber charters. The changes are not a threat to charter schools. They are only a threat to the reckless profiteering and shady practices common in charter schools.
Let us shed voluminous crocodile tears for these poor Charters AND for the huge monetary interests which support them.
Yes, it is heartbreaking that PA charters are asked to be transparent and accountable!
About time. What Charter schools have gotten away with is criminal and sick.
Agree with retired teacher.
Hello Diane: A potential charter ploy in California:
I usually peruse and sign some of the petitions on those tables they set up outside the grocery store. The one last week was about “funding the arts” in K-12 education. Well, who but the worst among us is NOT for funding the arts in K-12 education. So I started to sign, and then thought I’d better read it first. The first line went something like this:
For legislation to fund the arts in K-12 California schools “(including charter schools) . . .”
I almost missed it. Such language SEEMS innocuous, UNLESS the reader/voter understands that public schools will take the financial hit and, more, are on the block by a long-term, well-funded, and incremental movement to privatize everything public in the country aka: make the US into a pay-for-play, transactional-only klepto-state, and where the powers that be put curriculum aimed at what’s best for the students, and at creating thoughtful citizens in a democracy FIRST, . . . just after they get theirs and make certain adjustments to the curriculum.
Whereupon, I scratched off my partial signature and address. CBK
exposing the entire “reform” game: even the word reform sounds useful to those who have no idea of the larger intentions
Hmm, “transformative to students.”
I’d like to know what they meant by “transformative” and then demand they back up that claim with total transparency to prove they are not lying.
““threaten the very existence of the public charter schools that have been transformative to our children’s lives.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ad infinitum. So much to laugh at (in a sad distorted way) in that short statement.