HARRISBURG, Dad. (AP) – A Pennsylvania regulatory board on Monday approved Governor Tom Wolf’s proposal to subject charter schools to stricter ethical and accounting measures and to try to stamp out discriminatory admissions decisions.
The party line of 3-2 voted by the Independent Regulatory Review Commission on a proposed regulation that, along with Wolf, was supported by Democratic lawmakers and public school boards and advocates, but opposed by Republican lawmakers and charter schools.
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The ordinance also requires charter schools to use a new payment system designed to avoid disputes with public school boards and provide health care benefits to teachers similar to the authorizing school district. In addition, applicants who want to start a charter school are required to provide more detailed information.
Wolf, a Democrat, ordered the ordinance after more than a decade of deadlock in the state legislature over updating Pennsylvania’s 25-year charter school law, and because public schools struggle to make concessions to help with rapidly rising school costs.
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Public school proponents have long pushed for measures to ensure charter schools are not fronts for profitable operations that dump taxpayers’ money into marketing efforts while being overpaid for services rendered and electing students.
Opponents say the ordinance goes beyond the original law and will damage the ability of new charter schools to open and make it easier to close them unfairly.
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