Gov. Tom Wolf calls charter schools ‘private,’ draws heated response from their largest advocacy group
To say Gov. Tom Wolf struck a nerve with the charter school community when he recently referred to their schools as “private” is putting it mildly, but his administration is not backing away from that description.
An organization representing those schools sent Wolf a letter on Thursday voicing their “grave concerns” about his comments as well as his perception of charters, which are public schools that operate independently of school districts.
“I am shocked that you and your staff are unaware that none of Pennsylvanian’s charter schools [brick-and-mortar or cyber] are private or for-profit institutions,” states the letter signed by Ana Meyers, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, the state’s largest organization representing charter schools.
“I would have thought that a governor who has championed public education like you have over the past four-plus years would know better. I believe that you would have a much better understanding of how charter schools operate in Pennsylvania if you took the time to visit a few of them.”
Wolf referred to charter schools as “the privatization of education in our public schools” at a July news conference celebrating historic funding increases for public schools included in the 2019-20 budget. In a news release about that event, he lamented the “increasing amounts of school funding siphoned by private cyber and charter schools” and called for increased accountability of the public funds flowing to charter schools.
According to the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials, school districts paid charter schools more than $1.8 billion last year, CONTINUE READING: Gov. Tom Wolf calls charter schools ‘private,’ draws heated response from their largest advocacy group - pennlive.com
