I am a teacher of Leadership electives at the Pennsylvania
Leadership Charter School. I can see significant differences between our school
and other state wide cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania. Our lessons are
different from the other cyber schools in the state. Our teachers have embraced
the mission of pioneering a new education platform and have designed their own
lessons. Many of our sister schools in the state have opted for a different
system. K-12 and Commonwealth Connections have created a school based
curriculum that can be transferred easily from school to school. This model
works very well to recreate their learning in other schools; however, it does
not follow what is happening using the best practices available. The best
educational practices follow models where students can apply their learning to
the real world. When I went to a traditional schools in the 1960’s and 70’s we
had independent instructional approaches where students could work at their own
pace, and it worked great for independent learners. It was called SRA. My wife, the visual learner excelled at this.
She reached the ultimate color achievements while I was stuck at the lower
level because my learning style was more social and auditory. “Hey at least I
wasn’t aqua,” would be in the back of my mind. Many of the systems that are transferable follow this SRA independent instruction style. There are now off the
shelf lessons that you can plug into online schools to get you up and running
quickly, and less expensively. These
independent instruction learning models are targeted to raise achievement test scores,
but they generally do not teach how to think critically or solve problems. When
I was in China on our annual international exchange the students complained to
me that they memorize much information, but do not know how to apply it. Is
this were our educational system is heading? The school that we exchange with
had us complete a mock peace conference at the Chinese school. I saw much
critical thinking and problem solving happening in the classroom that day. Students
came up to me at the end of class and asked, “What is this new method of
teaching called?" I told them we call it role play.
The Charter school movement is being is being attacked by
special interest groups right now. Charter schools are facing funding cuts by
as much as 20%. If these funding cuts happen, then many innovative practices
will be stripped from schools. The Charter School movement has its enemies. The
School Board Association and Teacher’s Union of Pennsylvania feel threatened
because they have little input into the way charter schools are governed. The
proposed cuts will cause all charter schools to be reduced to the common
denominator of independent instruction. The opponents of charter school education
are calling the “per student” funding that is being transferred to charter
schools an unfunded mandate. Is it an unfunded mandate, or is it the cost of
innovating education? Everyone knows that we must compete on a global level. This is driving change. Innovation is the
process of change, and if we are going to have it, then we must fund it.
The latest challenge to our funding is coming in the form of
a Special Education cut. I have included a letter from Representative Daniel
Truitt about this problem. Dan has been a real hero in the fight for
educational innovation on the state level, and I hope that every PA Legislator
will read his note below.
This is the second day in a row (and at least the third time overall) that this organization has distributed bad data to legislators on this issue and I feel compelled to respond.
The $350M figure that they are calling “Charter Special Education Tuition” includes approximately $177M in regular education tuition. So, the assertion that charter schools are getting a windfall of $200M per year is a lie, just like the assertion that we cut $1B from education is a lie. We should all be offended by this organization and its representatives for attempting to mislead legislators who are tasked with making very important decisions that will affect the children of this commonwealth.
I have the spreadsheet that is the source of the data provided below and would be happy to provide it to anyone who is interested. It shows that school districts paid charter schools $917,767,997.07 in non-special education tuition for 100,351 students (student count from a different source). That’s an average of $9,146.00 per student (much less than school districts spend on their own students). The spreadsheet also shows that school districts paid charter schools $350,562,878.63 in special education tuition for 19,114 special education students. That’s an average of $18,341.00 per special education student to cover their regular education expenses AND their special education expenses.
So, the $350M figure below includes only $9,195.00 per student to cover special education expenses. PASBO distributed a letter on April 29th which stated that charter schools” spent—on average—only $8,500 per student on special education instructional costs”.
Given that PASBO has overstated the revenue that charter schools receive, I would not be surprised if they also understated the costs and I’m looking into the cost-side numbers as well.
Please note that the end result of HB-2138/SB-1316 would be that the “average” charter school would receive only $4,664.46 (51% of $9,146.00) to cover the $8,500.00 expense mentioned above.
The bottom line is that this is a complex mathematical issue. While the underlying concept behind HB-2138/SB-1316 (3-tiered funding formula) makes sense for the distribution of state funds to school districts, that entire portion of the bills is neutralized by hold harmless provisions that really make these bills nothing more than charter school funding bills. Unfortunately, the charter school section of the bills is deeply flawed and needs extensive rework.
I realize that this subject is about as fun as watching paint dry, but, I would be happy to sit down with anyone who is interested and go over the math and the spreadsheets.
Remember, we are talking about special education students here. Getting this wrong could easily lead to lawsuits and a PR nightmare. Of course, the fact that we’ll be screwing 19,114 special education students should be enough of a reason to go back and get it right.
Regards,
Dan Truit
