Bill: Charter schools should reveal funding
Legislation would require them to disclose they are taxpayer funded
There are two words on billboards, mailers and internet ads for charter schools that have come to grate on state Rep. Mike Schlossberg.
“Free tuition.”
While it’s true that charter and cyberschool students do not need to personally hand over cash for admittance, the schools are not free. Charter schools are public, so their funding comes from Pennsylvania taxpayers, just like public school districts.
“I just think we need to be consistent in how we present this,” Schlossberg said Thursday. “If they’re going to spend taxpayer money, we need to disclose that to taxpayers.”
A bill that passed the state House on Wednesday with little resistance includes numerous accountability changes for charter schools, including language that would require them to disclose that they are taxpayerfunded. The wording for that change comes from legislation crafted by Schlossberg.
The state Senate has yet to
vote on the bill.
The bill also would:
■ Impose ethical obligations on charter school boards and administrators.
■ Set membership and quorum requirements for charter school boards.
■ Require annual independent financial audits for charter schools.
■ Set limits on charter schools’ allowable unassigned fund balances.
When a student elects to attend a charter or cyberschool, money from their home district goes with them. The amount differs depending on the student’s home district and whether he or she is categorized as a regular or special education student.
Diane LaBelle, executive director and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts, said she has no problem with the disclosure.
“I totally agree with that requirement,” LaBelle said Friday. “I am always the one saying these are taxpayer dollars paying for this so we need to be responsible stewards with this money.”
LaBelle said Charter Arts gets students from 42 districts, including buses of students from the Poconos, Bucks and Berks counties.
One student from Lancaster would wake around 4 a.m. to get to the south Bethlehem school, she said.
The public does not always understand how charter schools are funded, she and school district officials agree. Regularly, LaBelle said, parents ask how much the tuition costs. She then explains how the school receives tax money.
LaBelle believes that as residents become more acquainted with the system, it will foster more support for school choice in Pennsylvania.
“Parents are looking to get an education for their child that fits their child,” she said. “Having a choice of a school for a particular child is the most important part.”
School districts are sending millions of dollars in real estate tax revenue to charter and cyberschools to fund education for those students. Allentown, for instance, paid about $43 million in charter school costs during the 2017-18 school year. That bill could climb to $60 million next year.
Northampton Area School District has seen charter school costs increase $350,000 in the last year to $3.6 million, according to Superintendent Joseph Kovalchik.
“Does that sound like it’s free? The funds to pay for this increase and all costs related to this area comes from the taxpayers of NASD,” he said.
That includes transportation bills. Kovalchik noted that a district must foot the bill to bus a student to a charter school within 10 miles of a sending district’s border. For a rural district such as Northampton Area, that can become a costly endeavor, all of it funded by taxpayers.
Parkland spent $1.7 million on charter schools during the 2018-19 school year. Superintendent Richard Sniscak said it’s frustrating to see charter school ads that claim free tuition without any acknowledgement of how the schools are actually funded. He called such omissions misleading.
“I think the community, in general, doesn’t equate charter schools with public ed all the time,” Sniscak said. “We’re the ones who have to answer to the taxpayer. They do not. And that’s part of the accountability gap that exists with funding charter schools.”