Wolf revives push to change charter school funding

Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday revived his push to overhaul how Pennsylvania regulates and funds charter schools, calling for measures that would send less money from school districts to support enrollment in the independently run schools.

The governor endorsed legislation introduced Friday by Democratic lawmakers that aligns with a proposal he backed more than a year ago aimed at curbing payments to cyber charters and changing how charters are funded for special education students.

Wolf also said he would direct state officials to review how cyber charter schools had spent federal coronavirus relief money.

“When the charter school law was drafted, the intent was to bolster our education system,” Wolf said in a news conference. “Instead, that outdated law has become, in some cases, no more than a license for draining funds from traditional schools while providing a poor education to students.”

While last year’s measure stalled due to the pandemic, lawmakers said there was now broader recognition of the need for changes as school districts have pivoted to virtual learning — and as they have lost students to cyber charters, at added cost to their own budgets.

» READ MORE: Cyber charter enrollments are surging. School districts are picking up the tab.

“Almost every district throughout the commonwealth’s 500 school districts have seen what it is to be a cyber school,” said Rep. Joe Ciresi (D., Montgomery). “When the cyber schools would come back to us and say, ‘Well you don’t understand’ ... they do understand it now.”

While Wolf said the proposal had “bipartisan support,” it was immediately criticized by charter advocates. Lenny McAllister, CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, said Wolf “wants to slash funding and limit these options for our state’s neediest families to benefit his political allies.”

Wolf said the legislation would save districts $229 million — including $130 million from setting a statewide rate for tuition payments from school districts to cyber charters, which saw a spike in enrollment this year amid the pandemic.

Currently, districts pay charters for each enrolled student based on the district’s spending on their own students — a rate that varies from $9,170 to $22,300, according to Wolf’s office. The proposal announced Friday would set a standard cyber charter tuition rate of $9,500.

Jessica Hickernell, spokesperson for the charter school coalition, said it opposed a statewide rate because “families pay local property taxes to support public education, and their children attending a public cyber charter school deserve the same level of financial support as the children in their neighborhood who attend the local school district.”

» READ MORE: Wolf’s school funding plan would help Philly. It would give big increases to some wealthier suburban districts, too.

Wolf also called for changes to how all charter schools are compensated for special education students — a common complaint from districts, which say the current method forces artificially high payments to charters. Charter leaders, who object to other aspects of how their funding is calculated, have said that changing special education funding will result in deep cuts to their budgets.

Stacy Gill-Phillips, CEO of the West Philadelphia Achievement Charter Elementary School, said Friday that Philadelphia charters “operate on an extremely tight budget,” and that “any cut in resources” would derail progress in returning students to classrooms.

Wolf also called for the creation of new performance standards for charter schools — while cyber charters are authorized by the state, brick-and-mortar charters are approved by local school districts — and caps on cyber charter enrollment, among other measures.