James Roebuck’s Common Sense Reforms for Greater Charter School Accountability

I’m more pro-charter schools than I would guess the median KP reader is, but one thing I think PA’s charter skeptics are absolutely right about is the lack of accountability. The key virtue of a liberal regulatory approach to charters is supposed to be that we let charters experiment with different education approaches, and then public schools rip off the best stuff they come up with. Under the current regulations though, they’re just kind of a black hole of unaccountability, and not only can’t we measure whether or not their approaches are working, we can’t even see what they’re doing with the public money they get. It’s like the worst of all worlds.

Luckily there’s some good news on this front, as the Yinzercation blog says some lawmakers are pushing a bill with some common sense reforms that will make charters more transparent and accountable to both the taxpayers and parents:

■Limit unassigned fund balances for charter and cyber charter schools, consistent with the limits already in effect for traditional public schools. In 2010, the auditor general reported that charter schools had $108 million in reserve funds. Nearly half of charter schools had a cumulative reserve fund balance above traditional public schools’ limit of 12 percent of their annual spending. The charter school balances ranged as high as 95 percent.

■Remove the “double dip” for pension costs by charter and cyber charter schools. Presently, a school district’s cost for retirement expenditure is not subtracted from expenditures in the tuition calculation that determines funding for charters. This sets up a “double dip” since state law guarantees charter schools reimbursement for their retirement costs. The Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials estimates that between 2011-12 and 2016-17, eliminating the “double dip” would save school districts $510 million, including $45.8 million in savings for 2012-13.

■Limit the amount of special education funding that a charter or cyber charter school receives per student to the school district’s total per-pupil spending for special education services. The state funding formula’s 16 percent cap on school district special education population does not apply to charter schools. An official of Bensalem Township High School in Bucks County testified last year that this results in paying $3,425 more per charter school special education student than Bensalem is paying for its own special education students.

■Require year-end audits by the state Department of Education to determine the actual costs of education services of charter and cyber charter schools, followed by an annual year-end final reconciliation process of tuition payments from school districts against those actual costs. Any overpayments would be returned to the school districts. In the 2010-11 school year, non-special education tuition rates per student ranged from $4,478 to $16,915.

■Increase transparency for contractors that provide management, educational or administrative services to charter and cyber charter schools by requiring disclosure of a financial relationship with for-profit providers. [PA House.com 10-2-12]