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Although they emphasized that they were not seeking to end charter cyber schools, three district superintendents in Central Pennsylvania urged, with a sense of urgency, system reform to eliminate inequalities.
Citing unfair funding formulas and the quality of education that charter school students receive, school district superintendents from Keystone Central, State College and Moshannon Valley participated in a virtual discussion aimed at educating the public about the issue. .
Keystone Central Superintendent Dr. Jacquelyn M. Martin presented her district, which serves 3,700 students in rural Clinton County and other townships in Potter and Center Counties.
“Of the 500 districts in the Commonwealth, our district has the largest geographic footprint as we encompass over 980 square miles,” Martin said.
“Just over half of the real estate in our region is designated as state land and generates minimal tax revenue. So you can see how the budget pressures based on charter funding are going to have a significant impact on our rural district ”, she said.
Martin noted that of the district’s $ 82 million budget, more than 11% of budgeted spending includes charter tuition fees for about 500 students.
“These numbers should alarm anyone who understands the current charter tuition funding formula, because that means in real dollars that the $ 9 million of tuition we pay each year is also included in our budgeted spending. Thus, a simple calculation shows that the charter tuition fees in our district are automatically inflated by $ 2,400 per student ”, Martin said.
“If charter tuition fees were excluded from the current charter tuition formula, for Keystone it would result in a reduction of $ 1.2 million each year,” she continued.
“To put that into perspective for you, if our local council took the maximum tax increase allowed by the Act 1 index, it would generate approximately $ 700,000 in new revenue. Our charter increases alone are close to $ 1 million per year. Thus, the current calculations of the financing of the charter are undoubtedly obsolete and seriously flawed ”, Martin said.
Martin cited an example of funding inequity when she worked in another district several years ago, she approached a vendor, who also provided the curriculum for a charter cyber school that s ‘was installed in this district. She explained how she had managed to bring the district costs per student down to less than $ 1,000 for the same services the charter cyber school was receiving.
“At that time, the tuition fees paid per district were $ 16,000 per student per year at the charter school. Same program, same teachers, huge price difference ”, she said.
“It is difficult to understand why our taxpayers should pay $ 16,000 to a charter school when the same curriculum could be provided for a fraction of the cost. “ she added.
One problem, as Martin stated, is the money that is funneled from districts in the central part of the state to public charter cyber schools in the more densely populated counties in the south-central and south-central parts of the state. east as well as western counties.
“Cyber-charter organizations have received millions of our local dollars to educate students remotely, but spending far less than any brick-and-mortar school and ultimately producing below average academic results. There isn’t a single cyber or brick and mortar charter that receives our tuition money that performs better academically than Keystone Central, ” Martin said.
“The archaic charter school law has drained funds from our rural community for more than two decades, pouring in excessively into the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Philadelphia.” she added.
Dr Robert J. O’Donnell, Superintendent of State College School District, and Dr John W. Zesiger, Superintendent of Moshannon Valley School District, also spoke during the virtual discussion hosted by the Keystone Center for Charter Change at the Pennsylvania School. Association of the board of directors.
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