Inquirer Editorial: Charters need a better law

How bad is Pennsylvania's charter school law? So bad that it required the destitute Philadelphia district to pay $305,000 to a dysfunctional charter that has been shut down. The state Senate may vote this week to replace the 1997 act, but the legislation has flaws that must be corrected.

It's clear that the charters need better oversight. Too many misspend funds and do no better academically than regular schools. Instead of providing oversight, too many local districts get caught up in the competition for students and the public funds that follow the schoolchildren.

Senate Bill 1085 could make the lack of effective oversight worse by allowing colleges and universities to autonomously authorize and operate charters without providing clear incentives for them to cooperate with the local districts that are required to help pay the charters' bills.

Reform is needed, but the legislature must get this right. The new law shouldn't include the current provision that is forcing Philadelphia to shell out $305,000 in tuition payments to the operators of a cyber charter that enrolled students it knew it wasn't authorized to enroll.

Solomon Charter School was authorized only for students in the sixth through 11th grades, but it enrolled 200 elementary students. The district has balked at paying those students' tuition, but current law allows a charter to petition the state for disputed funds, which then deducts that amount from the district's state allocation.

The experience with Solomon is a good example of the need for better oversight. Not only did Solomon enroll ineligible students, but the cyber charter improperly operated as a brick-and-mortar institution, taking up residence in a building that also included a sex-offender clinic.

Solomon suspended operations last month in part because of safety concerns. Officials said they didn't know about the treatment center until a patient informed them. Apparently, the district, though charged with oversight of the charter, wasn't monitoring its location.

In addition to the disputed $305,000, the district says it had previously overpaid Solomon $437,000 for the unauthorized elementary students. Meanwhile, Solomon officials contend the district owes it another $297,000 for the days it operated in October.

The lure of so much money screams for better oversight. Without it, there will be more cases like the one playing out this month in federal court, where charter operator Dorothy June Brown is accused of fraudulently collecting $6.7 million in a scheme that included phantom school board members, faked documents, and insider deals.

Publicly funded charters should be alternatives for students in poorly performing regular schools. But the charters must be better regulated than they are now.