Pottsgrove, Pottstown, 73 Montco Board Members Back Gov. Tom Wolf's Charter School Reforms

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Pottsown School Board member Laura Johnson has long been active in the fight for fair school funding. In June of 2019, she was a keynote speaker at a Fair Funding Rally in Harrisburg.

Both the Pottsgrove and Pottstown school boards have come out in favor of the charter school reforms proposed by Gov. Tom Wolf in his proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts in June.

Additionally,  a letter in support of the reforms penned by Pottstown School Board member Laura Johnson has garnered the signature of 73 school board members across Montgomery County.

Johnson co-founded the advocacy group Pennsylvanians for Fair Funding, which works to mobilize public school parents to push their state legislators to adopt the state's Fair Funding Formula for all education funding and not just a small portion of it.

Pottsgrove issued its statement of support on Feb. 26. It is reproduced below:

On behalf of the constituents of the Pottsgrove School District and working to ensure fair and equitable educational funding, we support Governor Wolf’s Charter School Reform proposal.

“We are grateful that Governor Wolf and members of the General Assembly understand the urgent need for charter school funding reform for Pennsylvania taxpayers. This bipartisan proposal will end overpayments to charter schools that have driven up property taxes and preserve parent choice.”

“The proposed legislation will save $229 million dollars for school districts this year, but more importantly, it will finally address the biggest cost drivers in school district budgets. To continue on the current path is financially unsustainable.”

“Our current funding system allows charter schools to divert resources meant for students with disabilities for other purposes. It also forces school districts to pay twice as much for cyber charter programs than we pay for our own remote learning programs. Neither is acceptable. Both must be changed.”

“We thank Governor Wolf, Representatives Joe Ciresi and Tracy Pennycuick, and Senators Lindsay Williams and Jim Brewster for leading this effort. We urge the General Assembly to move swiftly to enact these reforms and put Pennsylvania on the path toward a more accountable and fiscally sound charter funding system.”

Johnson's letter, signed by 73 school board members throughout Montgomery County, was released Tuesday. It is reproduced below:

It's no secret that Pennsylvania’s public schools and taxpayers have been under serious pressure because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus and the mitigation efforts have strained our education system and our economy in profound ways, impacting each community member, from the children in our schools to seniors on fixed incomes. As school board members from around Montgomery County, we have seen up close just how overwhelming some of these challenges have been.

As we look ahead at the state budget season, we know our lawmakers will have many difficult decisions to make. However, we suggest that one decision is actually quite straightforward:

Enacting "Common Sense Charter School Reform" will reduce the strain on students and taxpayers alike without costing the Commonwealth a cent or eliminating school choice.

Each of us has been elected to oversee the wise use of tax dollars and ensure a quality education for every student in our district. Yet while we try to do our job, we find we have no control or oversight of the charter tuition that is siphoned away from our schools. Unfair and unreasonable mandates regarding cyber charter payments have meant that public schools have had to pay tuition far above the level that it costs to educate a cyber student.

Even more egregious are the grossly inequitable special education charter rates that public schools are mandated to pay even for students who require very few services. For example, the Methacton School District is forced to send $38,324 for each special education student, even when their only extra service is speech therapy once a week. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that charters often spend special education tuition on expenses that have nothing to do with special education.

These excessive charges hurt students in the public schools. Each dollar that is taken for a charter school is a dollar that isn’t available for curriculum, AP courses, music classes, co-curriculars, and guidance counselors. Some of our schools struggle with overcrowded classrooms, some with a shortage of special education support. These problems are tough to remedy when there is no money left to hire new teachers or aides.

Unreasonable charter payments hurt the local taxpayer as well, particularly homeowners with low or fixed incomes.

Pennsylvania relies very heavily on local property taxes to pay for public education, which means those taxes must be raised to cover rising charter payments. This situation can have some alarming consequences for local school districts. For example, between 2012 and 2017, every dollar Pottstown raised in new property tax revenue went to pay for the increase in mandated charter payments, and even then money had to be diverted from the classroom to cover charter tuition.

Despite being responsible for charter expenses, the local school districts have no control over those charter costs - the bills get sent and we must pay them. This puts both local school boards and taxpayers in a powerless situation.

For many districts, this problem has become particularly clear this school year as cyber charters have used the pandemic as a business opportunity to acquire new “customers” on the taxpayers dime. Cyber charters have been investing their taxpayer dollars on massive advertising campaigns and have seen a 59 percent spike in enrollment in this last year.

Cyber charters schools, as a group, are among the poorest performing schools in the state and have little oversight or accountability. Families who choose cyber schools may do so for individual or non-academic reasons, a choice we respect. However, we shouldn't have to ask taxpayers to pay two or three times as much for students who go to these schools, particularly when districts have almost universally created their own quality virtual options.

Many of our districts will be compelled to raise property taxes during this pandemic simply to cover the increase in excessive charter costs. This tax increase is effectively a Charter Fee on every taxpayer in the district.

Governor Wolf’s proposed budget plan calls for fundamental charter school reform which includes accountability measures and a per pupil reimbursement in line with actual costs. Lawmakers in Harrisburg have a duty to support a quality education for all students and to protect taxpayers from financial exploitation. They can do this by supporting Common Sense Charter School Reform.

Visit https://www.pacharterchange.org to learn more and discover tools to advocate.