Posts
(or, Why School Board Members Roll their Eyes when the
Subject is Brought Up)
The concept of the charter school was first articulated back
in the 1980s by Albert Shanker, the head of the New York City teachers’ union.
Charter schools were conceived as an extension of the public school system –
“incubators of experimentation” – to be run by public school teachers, but
having the flexibility to try out new ideas, which, if successful, could be
templates for school improvement. In State College, our alternative school, the
Delta Program, is the closest to matching Shanker’s original vision.
But there are some
other pretty good local examples. One of our charter schools was built on the
small learning community model; another emphasizes project-based learning; yet
another, instruction in multiple languages. These models have value to students
and their parents, and they could provide us with useful insight. But any value
we receive from these ‘experiments’ comes in spite of state policy, not because
of it.
First, Pennsylvania law allows for little meaningful
oversight of charter schools, and there’s no mechanism for closing an
ineffective one. There is neither accountability nor transparency; it is next
to impossible to find out how charter schools spend their money. And while the
local school district technically has the authority to deny a charter school
application, the PA Dept. of Education has made it quite clear that it is willing
to overrule local decisions.
Second, nearly all charter school funding comes from the
pocket of the ‘hosting’ school district. This wasn’t always the case. The district’s
‘average per pupil expenditure’ is the amount that charter schools receive for
each student they enroll. But recognizing that school districts have certain
‘fixed’ costs (construction debt, for example) that don’t disappear when
students transfer to a charter school, the Commonwealth initially promised to
pick up 30% of the tab - a promise that was never kept. In recent years, state reimbursement has
dropped to zero. Guess who picks up the tab now? (In State College, that amounts to about $5
million/year.)
But it’s worse than that. Here are two examples that taxpayers
should find outrageous.
On average, the cost for educating a special education
student is about double that of a regular student, and charter schools receive
that higher amount for each special education student they enroll. The actual
cost of educating these students, however, varies considerably. So, some
charter schools have learned to ‘cherry pick’ the less expensive students, and
pocket the difference. Alternatively, many students have magically received a
special ed designation only upon enrolling in a charter school.
As a result, last year $350 million dollars flowed from
public schools (and their taxpayers) into charter schools for special education
purposes. But charter schools spent only $150 million. That’s a $200 million
dollar profit, at taxpayer expense.
Then there’s the pension ‘double-dip’. School districts are
required to contribute a percentage of teacher salaries into the state pension
fund, and that amount is part of the calculation of per pupil expenses that
charter schools receive. But the state reimburses charter schools for that very
expense so, in effect, they receive the money twice. The cost to taxpayers: close to $1 billion
dollars over the next six years!
Addressing these two issues alone would have gone a long way
towards plugging the hole in the current state budget.
One might assume that these are simple oversights,
relatively easy to fix legislatively. In fact, “charter school reform”
legislation was recently introduced that would have addressed these issues. You
might ask, who would oppose it? Well,
the for-profit charter schools, of course! - who just happen to be major
campaign contributors to many of our legislators in Harrisburg. (In fact, as a
result of intense charter school lobbying, said provisions were removed from the
aforementioned legislation.)
The others who opposed it see charter schools as a way to
slowly erode support for the entire public school system. But years of research
have demonstrated that charter schools, on average, perform no better than
‘regular’ public schools - and because there’s so little oversight, sometimes
quite worse. More disturbing: Pennsylvania ranks third from the bottom
nationally in charter school performance. Is the current system a defensible
use of taxpayer money? The answer seems obvious.
