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Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale recently said our state has the nation’s worst charter school law.
As Democratic chairman of the House Education Committee, I agree. I have introduced legislation to reform this nearly 20-year-old law and bring much-needed accountability in performance and finances to these tax-funded, privately run schools.
The state law that authorized charters hasn’t been reformed since it passed in 1997. It’s just common sense to revisit a major law, especially when significant problems are apparent.
Some Pennsylvania charter schools are doing a good job of educating children and managing taxpayer dollars, but it’s hard to miss the evidence of the need for reforming others.
We keep seeing revelations like the news last year that charter schools in Philadelphia have racked up nearly $500 million in debt. Taxpayers could ultimately be responsible for all of that debt. Several charter school personnel around the state have faced criminal charges. And there is no shortage of potential conflicts of interest. Finally, many charter schools perform only the same or worse than traditional public schools in educating our kids.
The governor’s office has estimated we can save at least $160 million by passing strong charter school reform. I believe the actual figure is far higher. For example, it does not include the nearly $200 million gap that an Education Law Center study found for 2012-13 between what Pennsylvania school districts paid charter schools for special education and what the charter schools actually spent on services for special-needs students.
Every dollar we can save through meaningful charter school reform would bolster struggling schools and prevent a repeat of the just-ended state budget impasse.
Unfortunately, efforts to pass strong charter school reform in Pennsylvania have been blocked. The main reason is that special interests like the private charter school operators have too much influence on your state Legislature, which is also in need of reform.
In addition, charters and traditional public schools have been left to fight over scarce education dollars because of four years of cuts under former Gov. Tom Corbett.
In 2014, Gov. Tom Wolf defeated Corbett by nearly 10 percentage points, largely on a platform of restoring education funding, closing corporate tax loopholes and passing a reasonable tax on natural gas drilling companies. However, special interests have so far convinced the Republican-majority legislature to resist these popular changes.
It’s time to push back against the special interests and do what’s right for students, parents and taxpayers.
We can’t afford to treat meaningful charter school reform and state government reform as “either/or” – we need both, and fixing our government would help to pass the charter school reforms in my bipartisan charter school reform bill (H.B. 1328) – reforms our children and taxpayers desperately need.
Gov. Wolf has put forth a plan to reform our broken state government. It also deserves prompt consideration. Instead of hoping special-interest money and partisan district lines might protect Republican legislators from a wave of frustration with politicians, there’s still time for Harrisburg to do the right thing on education and reforming government.
As Republican state Rep. Mike Vereb said recently, “If we work on issues that aren’t ‘gotcha Governor,’ we can really start getting something done.”