We continue with Susan Spicka’s excellent list of top-five reasons our state senators should oppose the current charter “reform” bill before them. Susan has been speaking with many legislators about this bill and tells us that there is very little understanding of its policy failures, even among its supporters, as she points out below. It’s up to us to take action now, or watch as this thing sails into law.
Reason #4 our State Senators Should Oppose SB 1085
Language that charter schools be models of innovation has been inexplicably stripped from SB 1085
SB 1085 eliminates longstanding requirements that charter schools be models of innovation for other public schools.
Removal of this key language from the legislation begs the question, If the purpose of charter schools is not to provide something different and better than the traditional public schools, what is their purpose?
As Pennsylvanians certainly cannot afford to fund a second, parallel, costly, and completely duplicative system of public education, it is essential that any charter school reform legislation retain language that requires charter schools to be models of innovation for our public schools.
It is not clear why this language was removed from the bill in the first place. Strangely enough, even Senator Smucker, the prime sponsor of SB 1085, was surprised to learn that it had been stripped from his own bill. (Smucker p. 21)
Please contact your senator here and urge him or her to oppose SB 1085. Feel free to cut and paste this message:
Please oppose SB 1085 because language requiring charter schools to be models of innovation for public schools has been stripped from the bill.
Removal of this key language from the legislation begs the question –If the purpose of charter schools is not to provide something different and better than the traditional public schools what is their purpose?
As Pennsylvanians certainly cannot afford to fund a second, parallel, costly, and completely duplicative system of public education, it is essential that any charter school reform legislation retain language requiring charter schools to be models of innovation for our public schools.
Yinzercation 