No debate…we’re in Uncharted Territory

High school junior Charlene Canning may very well be the best young debater in the country. But she, and the rest of her Penn Wood HS team, will be denied the national stage simply because they’re in the wrong district. Other teams may cruise to nationals but Charlene’s team’s funding will only take them as far as the state championship because per-student funding varies so widely and irrationally.

This week, Charlene spoke as part of a panel discussion about PCCY’s latest report, Uncharted Territory: Implications of Rising Charter Enrollment in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Suburbs. It follows a report we published in January detailing the impact of charter school governance under PA’s terrible charter law.  

Charlene’s issue, says report author and PCCY research associate David Loeb, is a clear example of the inequities of PA’s school funding system, which are baked into the charter payment system, resulting in wildly different charter payments depending on the wealth of a student’s district.

While Penn Wood HS isn’t a charter, Charlene explains that money going to charter schools means less money for traditional public schools. (Her district, William Penn, is one of the plaintiffs suing the state over school funding.)

Uncharted Territory describes the impact of the state’s incoherent and inefficient method of funding charter schools and calls for a critical overhaul in what is often referred to as the worst charter law in the country.

Our most troubling findings include:

• Half of the suburban brick and mortar charter schools score lower on state standardized tests than their southeast school district counterparts with similar shares of disadvantaged students.
• Cyber charter schools consistently perform worse than suburban school districts with similar shares of disadvantaged students.
  
• Despite lower costs, cyber charter schools are paid the same amount per student as brick and mortar charter schools.
  
• Charter payments increase the costs of public education forcing districts to raise taxes to maintain the same level of services for their remaining students in traditional public schools.
  

“The promise of charter schools is greater efficiency and higher levels of student achievement,” said Daniel G. Nerelli, Superintendent, Upper Darby School District, commenting on the report. “We’re seeing neither in Delaware County or neighboring counties. The majority of students attend charter schools that underperform district-run schools—that’s not what they signed up for.”

And it’s not what taxpayers signed up for either. With growing costs, increasing student enrollment, and performance best described as a mixed bag, we may at last be reaching the tipping point that will make effective charter school law reform a reality. Wherever people are in the charter versus district-run school debate, we can all agree we can’t afford business as usual. 

Read our report recommendations in Uncharted Territory HERE.