Rising charter enrollment with lackluster results in Delaware County

PCCY points out urgent need for an overhaul to worst charter law in the country

Lansdowne (March 15, 2018) – Charter school performance is a mixed bag while costs and enrollment are rising in Delaware County, according to a new report released by Public Citizens for Children and Youth. A panel discussion on charter schools this morning featuring elected officials, experts, and student leader concluded these issues can only worsen as long as state legislation that governs charter schools remains unchanged.

The report, Uncharted Territory: Implications of Rising Charter Enrollment in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Suburbs, points to the state’s incoherent and inefficient method of funding charter schools, and inadequate oversight of charter performance, calling for a critical overhaul of what is often referred to as the worst charter law in the country.

“Uncharted Territory makes it clear there are fundamental flaws with the Commonwealth’s method of authorizing and funding charter schools,” said Tomea Sippio-Smith, PCCY’s K-12 Policy Director. “Without charter law reform, growing enrollment in charter schools means increasing burdens for taxpayers without reasonable assurance of high quality results for students.”

Charter schools have markedly transformed the educational landscape in Pennsylvania over the past twenty years. By thoroughly examining charter schools in suburban southeast Pennsylvania, the report determines the degree to which these charter schools are an efficient and effective use of taxpayer dollars.

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 schools spend a significantly higher amount of money on administrative costs (17%, versus 5% for suburban school districts)
• 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.
• A third of charter schools have higher fund balances than any suburban school district

Commenting on the report State Representative James Santora said, “Cyber charter schools need to be capped on their funding. Their expenses are less than traditional brick and mortar schools and should be funded accordingly.  As new cyber public schools are authorized, we need to look at allowing districts to offer the alternative learning environment to their students prior to having them head to a cyber charter.”

Uncharted Territory also found that most suburban charter schools are struggling.

“The promise of charter schools is greater efficiency and higher levels of student achievement,” said Daniel G. Nerelli, Superintendent, Upper Darby School District. “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.”

As the charter schools are growing in cost and enrollment, coupled with their lackluster performance, outdated and weak charter school law warrants increasing attention. PCCY has created a checklist to ensure effective reforms to the state charter school law.

Recommendations to improve the charter funding system include:

• Adopt the 21-point checklist in state law for high quality charter authorization
• Re-instate the charter reimbursement line in the State education budget; Set the amount high enough to cover each districts’ stranded costs
• Adopt a standardized cyber charter tuition proposal
• Apply the state’s public school special education funding formula to charter schools
• Cap charter school fund balances at a level consistent with the cap for school districts

The checklist can be found here: bit.ly/PCCYCharterChecklist

The report, Uncharted Territory, can be found here: www.childrenfirstpa.org/unchartedterritory

Delaware County Charter Schools, By the Numbers

• Of the 15,725 students in charters in the suburbs (Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks, Chester counties), 5,721 are in Delaware County
• Delaware County school districts spend $79 million on charters; across the four suburbs, districts spend $217 million on charters
• Charter tuition varies widely across districts:
  • Non-special education students: $8,818 (paid by Upper Darby) to $16,040 (paid Radnor) to the same charter
  • Special education students: $22,848 (paid Penn-Delco) to $47,025 (paid Radnor) to the same charter
• Charters typically receive far more special education funding than they spend on special education services:
  • Total special education revenue paid by Delaware districts to charters: $17,959,926
  • Total special education expenditures by charters in Delaware County: $8,681,959

###