How big a mess is Pennsylvania’s charter school sector? This big.
The governor is vowing to restructure it.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) has been making charter-school supporters in his state mighty unhappy.
The charter sector in Pennsylvania has long been beset by fraud and a lack of transparency and accountability. In fact, in 2016, the state’s auditor general called the state charter law the “worst” in the nation.
Now Wolf has raised the ire of supporters of charter schools — which are publicly funded but privately operated — referring to the “growing cost of privatization of our public schools” while discussing cyber charters.
Meanwhile, a recent news release issued by the governor’s office said he wanted to stop the drain of public resources from traditional public school districts that instead are going to these schools: “Pennsylvania must help school districts struggling with the problem of increasing amounts of school funding siphoned by private cyber and charter schools.” Calling these schools “private” angered charter supporters, who say they are public because they are publicly funded (though not accountable to the public in the same way school districts are).
Now Wolf is moving ahead to try to change the charter sector in his state in the absence of movement from the Republican-led legislature. In August, he said he would, among other things, use executive power to make sure charters are held to the same “ethical and transparency standards of public schools,” and allow school districts to cap the number of charters.
This post looks at the state of the charter sector in Pennsylvania, the reality that Wolf is trying to change. It was written by Carol Burris, a former New York high school principal who serves as executive director of the Network for Public Education, a nonprofit advocacy group for public schools.
Burris was named the 2010 Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals named her the New York State High School Principal of the Year in 2013. Burris has been chronicling problems with CONTINUE READING: How big a mess is Pennsylvania’s charter school sector? This big. - The Washington Post
