Education Advocates Call Charter-School Reform Bill Flawed
April 25, 2017 – Public News Service PA – by Andrea Sears
HARRISBURG, Pa. – Legislation to reform charter schools in Pennsylvania could come up for a vote any day now, but education advocates say the bill doesn’t fix the problem. House Bill 97 could be the first major reform of the state’s charter-school law since it was enacted 20 years ago.
But, while it makes some improvements, such as creating a standard student-enrollment application, Kristina Moon, staff attorney at the Education Law Center, says it falls far short of being meaningful reform.
“This misses an opportunity to fix some serious problems that we see with the failure of charter schools to provide quality education in a transparent way that allows the authorizing school districts to hold them accountable,” she explained.