Given that the state House has not met in six weeks and has not even adopted rules for the new session, lawmakers are very far from tackling the fair school funding required by the state constitution, as recently determined by the Commonwealth Court decision.

Beyond that, the Legislature has a lousy track record of complying with court orders regarding the state government’s constitutional compliance. In 1996, for example, the state Supreme Court found that the state government was responsible for funding the constitutionally mandated Unified Court System; 27 years later, counties still primarily fund the courts.

So advocates of fairly distributed state funding for education, who were buoyed by the Commonwealth Court decision, should temper their enthusiasm.

But when the House reconvenes Tuesday, it will have an opportunity to get a start on fairer school funding by attending to another aspect of public education finance that long has been in need of reform.

The state government does not directly fund public charter schools. Rather, each district pays tuition to charters for each child within its borders who attends a charter, online or in person. The tuition is based on the district’s own cost-per-student, rather than the charter’s actual costs. The result is a bonanza for many charter schools, which typically have costs far lower than the tuition payments, enabling them to pay for advertising and to maintain massive reserves.

Sen. Judy Schwank, a Berks County Democrat, plans to reintroduce a bill that would allow public school districts not to pay tuition to online charter schools if they offer comparable online courses of their own.

That approach makes sense, especially since student performance at online charter schools is no better than that of their conventional public school peers. And it would provide millions more dollars for public school districts without raising taxes, particularly for hard-pressed urban districts where costs-per-student, thus charter tuition payments, are highest.

But even if that initiative fails, reforming charter funding to pay those schools based on their actual costs still would be a major step to help struggling districts inch closer to adequate funding.

–Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice