February 26, 2021

 HARRISBURG, PA (February 26, 2021) – Susan Spicka the executive director of Education Voters of PA, a nonpartisan, nonprofit, statewide public education policy and advocacy organization issued the following statement in response to Governor Wolf’s proposed charter school accountability plan,

“Governor Wolf’s proposed changes to Pennsylvania’s charter school law are welcome, necessary, and long overdue.  In 2020-2021, Pennsylvania taxpayers will spend nearly $3 billion on charter school tuition bills, including an estimated $980 million that will be sent to cyber charter schools. Because the state provides no subsidy to school districts for charter school expenditures, these costs will largely be paid for by property tax dollars.

These proposed reforms would reduce wasteful spending on cyber charter schools by more closely matching cyber school tuition rates with the actual cost of educating students at home on a computer; eliminate the profit that charters reap off of payments for students with disabilities by using the same special education funding formula for district and charter schools; and create strong protections against conflicts of interest, nepotism, and financial self-dealing among individuals in the charter sector to prevent the excessive profiteering that has occurred in the past.

These are commonsense reforms that should receive broad, bipartisan support.”

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