Charter schools face state overhaul in ’17
for the entities running charter schools to fall under the state open records law. In August, the Democratic fiscal watchdog who is seeking re-election next month, said his office found ties between some charter schools and their property owners that could contradict state guidelines that say buildings owned by a charter school are ineligible for lease reimbursement.
Both traditional districts and charter schools generally agree the charter school law was aimed at paving the way for innovative schools that could share best practices — a concept that both sides said hasn’t happened consistently. Charter advocates maintain that the schools were designed to address inequity in education, too.
“Charter public schools must add value and contribute to a menu of quality choices for our youth and their families, especially those who are unable to afford living in a more affluent and wealthy community where there appears to be a correlation between educational quality and students achievement,” said Ron Sofo, City Charter High School’s CEO. “Why do we become concerned when less economically advantaged families exercise choice when a significant portion of our school going population has the means to make these types of choices every day?”
Or, as Anthony Pirrello, CEO of Montessori Regional Charter School in Erie, Pa., put it: With charters, “ZIP code doesn’t doom your life like it does now in traditional districts.”
Traditional school district leaders at the hearing said they’re hemorrhaging money to charter schools each year. In his prepared remarks, Woodland Hills superintendent Alan Johnson said charter school operators in Pittsburgh, Penn Hills, Clairton, McKees Rocks and elsewhere “are exploiting white ‘fright’ and the public’s unfortunate perception of urban schools as blackboard jungles.
“In the 21st century, schools should work toward building bridges between cultures and not using this divide as a recruitment tool,” he said.
Clairton’s school board president, Richard P. Livingston, outlined a litany of problems in his testimony, saying, among other things, the cost of charter schools has caused the district to raise taxes three times in the past decade and that Clairton has no legal standing to oppose charters in surrounding districts that may pull from its student body.
“Both charter and traditional schools compete for money and students,” he said.
In a sometimes tense exchange, Mr. Brewster volleyed with the charter school CEOs over their motivation.
“I don’t want to assume this, but the principals of your nonprofit companies, they got into this business to make money, correct?” he said.
When the CEOs protested, he asked, “We’re educating kids out of the goodness of our hearts?”
“Any charter school that’s run by a management company that runs that charter school for profit, you should create a law that that can’t happen,” Mr. Sofo told him.
No representatives from cyber charter schools were among those testifying. Jeremy Resnick, who oversees the 11 Propel charter schools that enroll 3,700 students in Allegheny County, called for a separate statute that applies to cyber charters that he said many believe exists because of a loophole in the original law.