School budget season resurrects charter reform

Tuition to charter schools was cited as a major factor for huge deficits, increasing as more students leave public schools.

School budget numbers for next year are starting to come into focus, and it’s not a pretty picture.

In just the North Penn-Souderton-Pennridge region, projected deficits in the first budget drafts range from $6.6 million in Souderton to $15.5 million in North Penn.

In all three districts, tuition to charter schools was cited as a large factor in the expense gaps, increasing as more students disenroll from public school systems riddled with pandemic complications.

Pennridge is scheduled to vote this week on a charter school reform resolution which has been making its way around the state since last spring. About 400 school districts have already approved the Pennsylvania School Board Associations resolution that asks state lawmakers to change the way it sets the rates the districts pay those enrolled in a charter school.

“This is not a resolution that’s advocating one way or another for charter schools in terms of their existence and whether families choose that,” Pennridge Superintendent David Bolton said at the Jan. 11 meeting of the board’s Finance Committee.

“The purpose of this resolution is to ask for a more fair funding formula for charter school education, and especially cyber charter education,” Bolton said.

Under the state formula, Pennridge has to pay $13,385.78 of tuition for regular education students enrolled in a charter school this year even though the district offers a “very successful” cyber program that costs about $5,000 per student, Bolton said.

The PSBA resolution “calls upon the General Assembly to meaningfully revise the existing flawed charter school funding systems for regular and special education to ensure that school districts and taxpayers are no longer overpaying these schools or reimbursing for costs the charter schools do not incur.”

The current push for charter reform started about a year ago when more than 30 superintendents from districts in five counties formed a coalition, the Leaders for Educational Accountability and Reform Network, targeting legislative action on reform. LEARN is comprised of “school leaders who are standing up for public education and fighting for charter school reform,” said Frank Gallagher, superintendent of Souderton Area School District at a January 2020 press conference.

Even in early spring at the same time boards were grappling with closing schools as the pandemic took hold, charter funding reform was being discussed and supported at board meetings. The Pottstown School Board adopted the resolution in April. “We want to remind the legislators that this is still very much on our minds,” said Pottstown Schools Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez at the time.

In the ensuing months, districts had a lot more on their minds, as the fall season began with hybrid, virtual, and staggered days of in-person learning.

As districts have grappled with health and safety issues, they have also seen more students disenrolled for the charter option, increasing costs to the districts.

In every analysis, school officials note they are not anti-charter. The issues they want to see addressed are outdated funding formulas, lack of accountability that is required of public schools, and a level playing field.

The most recent proposal — now already 12 months old with no legislative action — seeks to establish performance standards for charter schools to hold them accountable for educational outcomes, to cap enrollment at low performing cyber charter schools until they demonstrate improvement, require charter management companies to be subject to the state Right to Know Act and State Ethics Act, and create fair and equitable funding practices.

In special education alone, making funding more equitable would save districts hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to an analysis on the state Department of Education website. Reading School District would save $1.2M; West Chester, $806,000; William Penn in Delaware County, $1.3M; Norristown, $1M; and Pottstown, $176,000.

Charter schools are a choice every parent has the right to make. But the current system puts an undue financial burden on every taxpayer, who does not have a choice.

The urgency is even more pressing than it was pre-pandemic. We urge lawmakers to give this common-sense financial relief to schools and taxpayers. That’s a choice that benefits everyone.