Dubious math on charter schools
Post a commentDuring a recent School Reform Commission meeting, Commissioner Joseph Dworetzky decried the cost of independent charter school expansion under the Philadelphia School District's reform plan, saying district Renaissance Schools have been less costly. We at the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools disagree with the commissioner's math as well as his philosophy on education reform.
Dworetzky and others are overlooking the fact that the costs of any reforms have been exacerbated by the inability or refusal of previous commissioners to "rightsize" the district. This failure of governance has dragged the district into a fiscal hole. Ironically, as the current SRC strives to dig the district out of fiscal trouble and improve learning opportunities for children in all schools, critics continue to perpetuate the faulty thinking and math that brought about this condition.Over the last six years, the Philadelphia School District's spending ballooned by $531 million,