There is an ongoing newspaper series about the 20th anniversary of charter school legislation in Pennsylvania. The first piece focused on the original intent of the legislation and the data related to charters (both brick and mortar and cyber) today. The second piece examined the Clairton School District in Allegheny County and the District’s experience with charters. That district has 113 students living in its borders that attend charter schools; no brick and mortar charters are located in the District. The state Department of Education has a division set up to handle charter schools.
The Allegheny Institute did a lot of research on charter schools in its early years. Two reports from 2000 (here and here). Both offer a detailed history of the charter school movement and their approaches to K-12 education as compared with traditional public schools. As noted in the latter report, a rejection of a charter school board was predicated upon the issues noted in the Clairton article: money. “The cost of supporting charter schools is the most prohibitive thing” was noted by a board member (of an unnamed district). Two years ago a different approval process for charter schools was floated to minimize the friction between the school district and the proposed charter. And once upon a time the Pittsburgh Public Schools wanted to try and improve the relationship it had with charter schools.
