Real school reform creates access to educational opportunities for every child Philadelphia Federation of Teachers #edreform #ows

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers:

To: All House Members From: Jerry Jordan, President, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers The 20,000 teachers, staff and retirees represented by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers support real and meaningful charter school reforms. We support legislation that emulates Governor Corbett's often repeated goal of "transparency and accountability" in the operation and administration of taxpayer financed public charter schools. Currently, two bills on second consideration in the House, SB 560 and SB 858 contain three proposed amendments dealing with, among other things, charter schools. The amendments contain some of the concepts that we believe are necessary to address the mismanagement of funds involved with the 19 Philadelphia charter schools now under federal investigation. It is a start down the road of taxpayer transparency, accountability and ethical practices for all publicly financed charter schools, their contract operators and their employees, administrators and vendors. Unfortunately, the proposed amendments do much more by expanding charters and cyber charters, stripping local control out of the charter granting and renewal process, creating an unconstitutional voucher program and dramatically increasing the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) – all at the expense of our children and their real, immediate educational needs. We are encouraging a no vote on the Turzai amendments to the Senate education bills on the voting calendar because of the following major flaws: • These amendments creating vouchers, expanding charter schools and EITC create a huge unfunded mandate on local school districts and are simply unaffordable given the current economic environment. At a time when public schools have made real and serious cuts due to an $860 million decrease in overall state funding and are facing possible cuts in the upcoming budget year, no tax dollars should be spent on a new and unfunded entitlement program for public charter schools, or private schools that have no academic or financial accountability. • The current structure of education funding is left unaddressed, but the proposed amendments allow for new charter and cyber charters to be approved by a new statewide authorizer, exacerbating the financial problems and destroying Pennsylvania's unique structure for local school control. • The broadly proposed expansion of charter schools strips local school boards of their power and ability to grant and/or renew charters. Rather, a statewide, politically appointed and motivated Board with a distinct pro charter statutory bias would be empowered to grant and renew charters and the renewal period would be then be doubled. • The amendments dramatically expands cyber charter schools that have proven to be the worst performing of all the charter schools operating in PA and at an extreme cost to the Commonwealth. The average annual administrative expenditure per student for charter schools is double the cost of traditional public school districts yet the academic performance for traditional public schools is higher (83% of public schools made AYP in 2010 versus 71% of charter schools) according to PDE. • Turzai's amendments would allow taxpayer dollars to be accessible to religious extremist bent on teaching our children their terroristic philosophy with foreign teachers. Thesecharter schools are now operating in 25 states including Pennsylvania. The amendments encourage segregation of students along economic, religious and political status and enhance social alienation. • The voucher portion of the amendments directly violates at least 4 PA constitutional provisions that prohibit public school funds from being used to fund private, non state controlled and/or sectarian education. • No legislation that makes so many complex, far reaching changes in the most fundamental of state responsibilities, which is the education of our most important resource - our children, should be compressed into such a short time frame before the House. Without the consideration and respect of the House's own oversight Education Committee and providing less than one day for members to read, analyze, review and contemplate. It creates a recipe for a public policy disaster. This is simply bad public policy being foisted upon our children and our communities in a cynical and offensive back door manipulation of the Legislative process. If we are truly focused on "reform" to better serve the students in the boundaries of the struggling schools identified as having high concentrations of poverty, special needs students and non-English speaking households the proposed amendments must be rejected. We need to focus our time, energy, and resources on what it takes to improve the educational opportunities for all students and not just a few. Real school reform creates access to educational opportunities for every child in Pennsylvania. That is achieved by investing in programs proven to work particularly in the schools that need them the most. Sincerely, Jerry Jordan President