Tell Your State Senator to Reject Senate Bill 1085

For years, Pennsylvania school districts and many others have been screaming for charter school reform. In September, Harrisburg took a decent first step by passing House Bill 618 by a vote of 132-62. The bill called for saving money by erasing the pension double dip for cyber-charter schools and requiring all charters to return overpayments to school districts. The bill also continued to give local school boards the ability to approve or disapprove new charters and perform important oversight.

The Senate version of charter school reform is Senate Bill 1085 and it is a bad bill for Pennsylvania taxpayers and for public education in general. The bill foolishly removes local school boards from being the one voice in the approval of new charter schools and instead shares that function with outside entities. The bill also removes language about charters being models of innovation, which was clearly one of the main ideas for originally establishing these schools. As a result, PA would be wide open to a costly and redundant system of public education where new charters would simply mimic local public schools. Senate Bill 1085 also does very little to reduce the cost to local school districts.    

Some alarming facts about PA charter schools From the Keystone State Education Coalition:

• Nick Trombetta, founder of the state’s largest cyber charter school, is on trial under a 41 count federal indictment for allegedly stealing $1 million.

• June Brown is on trial for allegedly defrauding the 4 Philadelphia charter schools that she founded of $6.7 million.

• In Wayne, PA Agora Cyber Charter School used tax dollars to pay for more than 19,000 local TV commercials. Agora has never made AYP but it is reported that it made over $31 million for K12 in one academic year and the K12 C.E.O. was paid $5 million in 2011.

• In Harrisburg, PA Office of Open records executive director Terry Mutchler said her office had received 239 appeals in cases in which charter schools either rejected or failed to answer from the public.

• In Palm Beach Florida, Governor Tom Corbett’s largest individual campaign donor is building a new 20,000 square foot mansion on a $29 million beachfront lot. He has spent the last 6 years fighting a right-to know request for over 6 years regarding financial details of his management company’s operation of the state’s largest brick and mortar charter school.

Some other alarming facts:

•  No Cyber Charter School in PA made Adequate Yearly Progress during 2012.

• 6 new cyber charter applications have been sent to the State Department of Education.

• According to the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO), in every case Pennsylvania cyber charter school students have performed worse than the public schools from which they draw students.

• According to a report given by East Penn School Director Ken Bacher, limiting cyber charter tuition to the same amount that it costs for school to provide the same service would save local districts over $7 million per year.

• The Department of the Auditor General recently issued a report that showed Pennsylvania could save $365 million a year in taxpayer money by adopting separate charter and cyber charter school funding formulas similar to those used in other states.

• Recently Allentown School District Superintendent Russ Mayo told State Representative Mike Schlossberg that five years ago Allentown paid $3 million to charter schools compared to $19 million this year:  An increase of over 600%.

Obviously, the original point of charter schools in PA was not to create poorly performing public schools that do little more than enrich a few individuals. Rather, these schools were to be innovative laboratories providing a unique choice to students and taxpayers. Clearly real reform is needed and Senate bill 1085 moves in the exactly the wrong direction by making it easier to create unaccountable, less innovative charters that are approved without the review of local taxpayers and school boards.

Please contact your local state Senators and ask them to vote no on Senate Bill 1085. Contact links for Senators Pat Browne and Robert Mensch are listed below:

Senator Pat Browne: http://www.senatorbrowne.com/contact-me/