Last week, the North Penn School Board and special finance committee both discussed charter school funding, with the school board voted unanimously at the March 18 action meeting to approve a resolution calling for charter school funding reform.
PA Rep. Joseph Ciresi, (D - 146), who is sponsoring HB-272, attended the special finance committee meeting virtually on March 16 to talk about charter schools and cyber charter schools, how they get paid, what they get paid, and making it fair for all schools and students.
“This is not about getting rid of - what people love to say, is ‘choice,’” Ciresi said. “I’m not a fan of choice, I’ll put it out there, but I believe that you have to have it.”
“Why it’s so important for us to have this ongoing community conversation is to raise the dialogue about charter school reform in Pennsylvania and what that means to taxpayers, the return on investment, and most importantly the return in terms of success for our students,” said NPSD board member Jonathan Kassa.
Ciresi’s bill has bipartisan support in the PA House of Representatives, he said.
“It’s putting common sense before politics to make a difference in the way that Pennsylvania continues to fund its charter schools, but so that there’s more transparency, accountability, and also keeping much-needed revenues — especially during a pandemic — in our local communities and school districts,” Kassa said.
Ciresi said in this video from the PA House that his 146th district is footing a big bill to send kids to charter schools - too big, in his opinion.
“Out of $19 million in Montgomery County, almost $6 million is coming out of the 146th to pay for cyber charter,” Ciresi said. “All four of our sending [school] districts have their own cyber program, and what some of the bills are saying is that if the school district has a cyber program and the student wants to be enrolled, they should take it in their own district. If they choose not to take it in their district, then it becomes the parents’ [responsibility] to pay for it, no different than going to a private school.”
Ciresi, who has served on the school board in Spring-Ford Area School District for the past 12 years, said across Pennsylvania, almost $440 million in taxpayer dollars are being used by public school districts to support cyber charter schools. He also said that charter school funding hasn’t been reformed since 1997.
“[Districts] will save millions,” Ciresi said.
North Penn stands to save about $620,000 a year with the proposed reform, according to NPSD Chief Financial Officer Steve Skrocki.
Ciresi said the bill does more than just reform funding. It also aims to set realistic standards and guidelines for how and how much districts are paying for special education and tuition, and it will outline uniform expectations for schools and teachers and hold them accountable for student performance.
“The charter school will have to perform at a certain level,” Ciresi said at the special finance committee meeting last week.
“The bigger issue is that not one cyber charter passed average yearly progress (AYP), and their graduation rates are among some of the lowest across the Commonwealth,” Ciresi said in the video from the PA House. “So, we’re doing no justice to our children who are part of these private cyber charter programs.”
The bill proposes to standardize the costs for providing special education services, which currently range anywhere from $8,000 per student to $36,000. The same goes for tuition, which can be from $15,000 to $30,000.
“The charters are pushing [costs] way up because there’s no accountability,” he said.
With the proposed reform the per-pupil, per-year rates will be set and the charter schools will have to provide services within those set rates.
“We’ll see a true cost for tuition,” Ciresi said.
Despite the level of reform the bill promises, Ciresi said he still doesn’t feel like it’s enough, and more could be done, but it leaves room for future improvement.
“Does this bill have everything in it that it should? No. Does it go far enough? As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t,” Ciresi said. “$9,500 is still a lot of money for a cyber charter school. A lot of us believe that it could be $5,000 or less, but it was a compromise to get this bill on the floor.”
Ultimately, reform is not about punishing charter schools or students, or to shut the schools down.
“What I hear a lot of, is ‘You’re going to destroy the charter schools, or the cyber, and my child likes it.’ We’re not doing that,” Ciresi said. “We’re making it fair and equitable, that everyone is treated equally.”
See also:
Republicans Hammer Education Leaders Over Proposed Charter School Cuts In Pennsylvania
Pa. School Districts Unprepared For Soaring Cyber Charter Enrollment
Editorial: State Educational Mandates And Their Relationship With Property Taxes
North Penn’s Curt Dietrich Joins State Public School Superintendents In Call For Charter Reform
School Officials Across PA Push For State To Address Special Education, Charter School Funding
