Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives Education Committee Tuesday issued a letter opposing new regulations Governor Tom Wolf (D) has imposed on the state’s charter schools.
All 15 Republicans on the committee voted to authorize the letter to the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and the Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) while all 10 Democrats voted against it. Majority Chairman Curt Sonney (R-Erie) said the panel is not voicing opposition to every new rule on the list published last month but merely those that frustrate reputable charter schools’ ability to operate.
Wolf’s Secretary of Education Noe Ortega has characterized the regulations as advancing “transparency, equity, quality and accountability in the implementation of the Charter School Law.”
The committee message criticizes PDE for instructing charter schools to share detailed financial data with school districts while failing to guide the districts in evaluating that data. The letter also takes issue with the PDE requiring charters to purchase “adequate liability and other appropriate insurance” without defining what that other insurance is.
Furthermore, the letter criticizes the department for providing no clear guidance for denying or cancelling a school’s charter and failing to outline the process of reviewing a charter before granting it a five-year renewal. Committee Republicans also objected to the instatement of grade-level enrollment caps, something not required in the 1997 state law that authorized charter schools’ creation.
“There are many [rules] that are on this list that do not add clarity but add confusion,” Sonney said before the vote. “We don’t need that. We have confusion now within this system; we don’t need to be adding more to it.”
PDE’s move isn’t final yet. Those who wish to express their opinions on the matter to the IRRC have until March 21 to do so. The commission will meet at 10 a.m. that day at the 14th floor conference room at 333 Market St. in Harrisburg to consider the regulations.
The Keystone State currently has 179 charter schools, public institutions not administered by school districts, though a district must approve a charter school’s application for that school to operate within its borders. The charter institutions, some of which conduct in-person classes and some of which provide online instruction, accept the children of parents who enroll them based on random selection. Across all 67 counties, 170,000 students attend a charter school and 40,000 students are on charter-school wait lists in Philadelphia alone, according to the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools.
Charter-school supporters believe the PDE’s new rules not only threaten the schools but also run counter to correct policymaking procedure insofar as state lawmakers played no substantive role in their formation.
“This is how the administration has handled many things throughout the last two years and, personally, I find it offensive that we’re going to say that it’s well within their boundary as one branch to decide things that affect so many people’s lives,” State Rep. Meghan Schroeder (R-Warminster) said. “If that’s how this building is going to act for the next couple months until the governor leaves this building, I’m not going to be a part of it. I think we should talk and be all in the conversation together.”
State Representative Mark Longietti (D-Hermitage), the committee’s minority chair, told colleagues he supports the regulations, which he believes will make the state’s charter schools more transparent and financially responsible.
“These regulations will provide much needed clarity to a charter-school law that is now 25 years old,” Longietti said. “They are promulgated well within the Department of Education’s statutory authority and are clear, reasonable and in the best interest of the taxpayers of Pennsylvania and the needs of our educational system and the students it serves. … Charter schools are public schools funded by public tax dollars; as such the same accountability and fiscal controls need to be in place as are in our school districts.”
– – –
Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Governor Tom Wolf” by Governor Tom Wolf. CC BY 2.0. Background Photo “Classroom” by Wokandapix.
