Public charter schools’ survival is vital to Pennsylvania families

For more than two decades in Pennsylvania, parents have had some ability to decide where, when and how their children will receive their public school education.

Currently, the families of 143,000 of these students have decided that their child’s best choice for a quality, safe and engaging education is a public charter school. And thousands more, including more than 30,000 kids in Philadelphia, are on waiting lists for the opportunity to attend charter schools in Pennsylvania.

Those numbers alone should tell policymakers that public charter schools are a vital educational option for our kids. Yet every year, lawmakers, bureaucrats and special interest groups take aim at public charter schools and seek to impose destructive, crippling measures that would devastate thousands of their constituents. This year, Gov. Wolf has stepped up the anti-charter rhetoric, calling for measures that would reduce funding to charter schools, limit their enrollment and make it easier to close charter schools.

I share the fear of families with children in public charters that they could lose the right to decide what’s best for their children’s education. To protect our education options, we have joined with our families and other advocacy groups to launch 143K Rising to let everyone know the value these schools bring to the commonwealth.

For too long, anti-charter special interest groups have pushed their destructive policies without considering the effect on thousands of charter school families. The 143K Rising campaign is an effort to give those families a voice in their future.

Families choose public charter schools for their children for many reasons. Some children were bullied. Some were attending classes in unsafe neighborhoods. Others were bored in America’s one-size-fits-all educational model.

Many of our public charter school families are minorities or economically disadvantaged. Until PA’s Charter School Law was passed in 1997, these children and their families had no hope of experiencing a satisfying educational environment without the means to move to a better zip code or attend a private school. The charter law gave them an option for their child’s success.

The law also lets public charter schools reimagine our traditional, often tired way of educating students. Public charter schools bring innovation to education. The schools have the freedom to create a learning program that is individualized for every student.

It’s alarming that many people still don’t clearly understand that Pennsylvania charter schools are public schools. They are not operated as a for-profit business. Your school taxes follow a student from their home school district to a public charter school, which on average uses 15 percent less taxpayer funding than traditional school districts.

The law absolutely holds public charter schools accountable: They answer to the authorizing school board and the Pennsylvania Department of Education who have the authority to renew or not to renew a school’s charter. They also answer to the families who have exercised their right to choose a school that best fits their child’s needs.

Most of the students attending public charter schools chose to do so because their home school district in some manner failed to meet their needs. It’s disheartening to see state officials threaten the existence of public charter schools while they make little effort to address the performance decline and safety issues in public school districts, which often are the very reasons a child turned to a public charter school in the first place.

That’s not to say we can’t improve the charter school law. In fact, the state senate has four charter school reform bills that would preserve our public charter schools while updating the law to benefit all stakeholders. These bills are a common sense approach to supporting our 143,000 students -- and the thousands waiting for enrollment -- instead of destroying their chance for a quality public education.

I and my fellow 143K Rising supporters urge our state lawmakers to protect Pennsylvania’s public charter schools and pass meaningful charter school reforms.

Ana Meyers is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools. To learn more about charter school families, go to 143krising.com.

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