A new charter and cyber school reform bill has been introduced in Harrisburg that's garnering support from the state organizations representing teacher unions, school business officials, school administrators and rural and small districts. The charter and cyber school community is not supportive of it.
Public school officials have long argued the state charter school funding formula is flawed.Calls for reform reached a roar once the state this year stopped reimbursing traditional districts for a portion of their charter school costs. Critics argue charter and cyber charter schools are not held accountable for the taxpayer dollars they receive and that they should only be paid what it costs them to educate a child.
Districts pay cyber and brick-and-mortar charter schools the same tuition calculated on a district’s average per pupil cost less certain expenses, which varies district to district.
Bethlehem Area School District pays $8,539 for a regular education student and $16,391 per special education students to charter schools. While Saucon Valley School District pays $11,561 per regular education student and $21,165 per special needs student to cyber and charter schools.
On Monday, state Rep. Mike Fleck, R-Huntingdon/Blair/Mifflin, released details of his charter and cyber charter school reform bill. According to Fleck and the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, the bill would:
- Mandate year-end audits of cyber charter and charter schools to ensure schools are being paid for their actual education costs and eliminate non-instructional services from tuition payments. Audits would be public.
- Ban charters from using taxpayer dollars on school advertising.
- Remove the so-called pension cost double dip, saving an estimated $510 million by 2016-17. A school district’s retirement costs are not subtracted from its costs allowing a “double dip” for charters since the state reimburses their retirement costs.
- Charters would be paid the actual cost of educating a special needs student based on a year-end audit and reimbursement would be capped at the same level traditional districts receive from the state.
“Rep. Fleck’s bill is basically death by a thousand cuts,” Bradmon said.Setting a flat tuition would hurt rural and poorer districts, who pay lower cyber and charter tuition, by likely increasing the student tuition, she said.
“If we could level funding within 500 districts then the funding for cyber and charter schools would then be solved,” Bradmon said.Her organization supports Rep. Thomas Killion’s, R-Delaware/Chester, efforts to create an entity to oversee cyber and charter schools, require greater ethics accountability and streamline the approval process, she said.
Follow @sarasatullo