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Work continues to ease stress on charter schools

by Bob Kellogg
One News Now
May 8, 2014

Tension between public schools and charter schools in Pennsylvania has been tense and competitive over the years. Legislation could help ease the situation.

Nathan Benefield of the Commonwealth Foundation says charter schools have to go to the public schools for approval to operate. He says it’s like putting MacDonald’s in control of approving any new Wendy’s opening.

“It’s a big conflict, and that’s why in Pennsylvania right now we have 40,000 students on a waiting list to get into charter schools,” he tells OneNewsNow. “There simply aren’t enough spots available for the families who want them.”

Kara Kerwin of the Center for Education Reform says Pennsylvania legislators have grappled for a long time to get to a bill that would enable universities to become the authorizers of charters, easing the tension between public and charter schools.

“Where the process for legislation fails is because it’s brought along a lot of baggage from previous legislative cycles,” she explains. “Which means there is a lot of over-regulatory language that is unnecessary in the legislation and there are also some pieces of the bill that could financially hurt charter schools even more than they already are being hurt.”

Kerwin says states that have university authorizers have some of the strongest charter schools in the nation.