DN Editorial: Charter reform, anyone?

MAYBE the Walter Palmer Leadership Learning Partners Charter School should be renamed the "Palmer Chutzpah Academy."

The charter school claims that the school district owes it $1.3 million, and without that money the 1,290-student school might close.

The problem is, the charter under which Palmer is operating allows it to have only 675 students. The money coming from the school district is based on that number, not on the higher number.

In May, the Supreme Court overturned a lower-court ruling and said that Palmer's 2005 agreement with the district for 675 students was valid and that it wasn't entitled to more money.

Palmer brought the district to court again this week, but a judge agreed with the district and said that Palmer wasn't entitled to any more money. Now the fate of those Palmer students is up in the air.

As recently as Sept. 16, Palmer informed the district that if it didn't get the money, it might close on Sept. 19.

There are a few things we don't understand in this saga. First, the $1.3 million that Palmer claims it needs to stay open is a fraction of the total it gets to operate - $11 million in 2012-2013.

School's been open for only three weeks. Surely all that money isn't gone already, is it? So why close so soon? We suppose it would be better than having the school year get well underway and then close later in the year, when it would be harder for students to make the transition to other schools.

If the school closes, any unused money is supposed to go back to the district; in Palmer's case, it seems unlikely there would be any money if it closes. Which means that 1,290 additional students must be absorbed by an already-struggling district.

Last spring, the SRC moved to revoke Palmer's charter, citing a host of problems, including a 2012 audit showing that the school was not in sound financial health, with big deficits and virtually no cash reserve.

Palmer is a lesson in the dire need for reforming the charter system in the state. Virtually every attempt at "charter reform" at the state level has been to grant more independence to charters, not less, and to expand the numbers of charters without the proper framework for managing them well. Right now, the district oversees "bricks and mortar" charters, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education oversees cyber charters. But the district's thin ranks makes this oversight problematic. And the PDE's involvement sometimes hinders that oversight.

For example, any time a charter school has students in excess of what is allowed by the district, the charter can get payments for those students directly from the state, which then withholds that amount from the district; it is up to the district to appeal. In fact, for a few years, the state paid Palmer for its excess students.

Last year, the state withheld $10 million from the Philadelphia School District for such charter requests . . . and a whopping $275 million from school districts around the state. How on earth can any district provide true oversight and accountability of charters - or its own operations - if they have no say over the number of students enrolled in charters, and if the state continues to override district authority and pay charters directly for extra students?

Once again, it's the students who will pay the price of a broken system. Parents should be outraged, and demand real reform.