Pennsylvania Charter Law Analyzed by National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a leading proponent of the charter sector, recently released its annual review of charter laws in the 42 states that provide for the creation of charter schools.  The Alliance rated each state's charter laws based on 20 "essential components" found in the Alliance's model law such as:  no caps on the number of charters, authorizer accountability, transparent charter application, review and decision-making processes, clear student recruitment procedures, clear special education responsibilities and equitable access to capital funding and facilities.

The good news is that Pennsylvania's laws ranked 16th of the 42 states' laws reviewed.  Last year, however, the Alliance rated Pennsyvania 12th.  The Commonwealth dropped in the rankings because its laws remained unchanged while other states amended their charter laws and moved ahead.  According to the Alliance, Pennsylvania fared best on having a transparent charter application, review and decision-making process, having fiscally and legally autonomous schools with independent public charter school boards, and providing for an exemption from collective bargaining.  Our feeling is that the decision-making process is not tranparent since the authorizers are largely local school boards with agendas that may be at odds with furthering the innivative spirit of charters.  Moreover, funding to charters needs to pass through the local school district before reaching the charter. 

Pennsylvania, according to the Alliance, needs to improve on allowing multi-school charter contracts, having authorizer and overall program accountability and adequate authorizer funding.  The Alliance gave the Comonwealth no points on each of these essential components.  Indeed, the current charter law prohibits multi-charter contracts and there is no additional funding for authorizers.

The bottom line is that Pennsylvania's 1997 charter law is becoming outdated and in need of reform.  The legislature's failure to move forward with significant improvements to the law is unfortunate and the entrepreneurial educators looking to start charters may look outside Pennsylvania and to other states that foster a more attractive climate to develop charter schools.