skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Trump vows to pursue executions after Biden commutes most of the federal death row; Mississippi group working in 71 counties to end homelessness in Mississippi; Farmers no longer feeling Farm Bill anguish, but relief might be fleeting; Addressing Montana's expanding 'news deserts.'

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

President-elect Donald Trump considers reclaiming Panama Canal. Lawmakers are uncertain Trump's cabinet will help everyday Americans and, advocates feel Biden must reconsider clemency actions.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Rural folks could soon be shut out of loans for natural disasters if Project 2025 has its way, Taos, New Mexico weighs options for its housing shortage, and the top states providing America's Christmas trees revealed.

Challenging Charters' Profits from Students with Disabilities

play audio
Play

Friday, October 14, 2016   

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Public education advocates are asking legislators to fix a state law that currently gives charter schools more special-education funding than they spend on students with disabilities. The amounts the charter schools receive for special education are based on an average of what local public schools spend to provide services to students with disabilities.

Susan Spicka, the executive director of the group, Education Voters of Pennsylvania, cited a report from the Pennsylvania School Board Association that found charters are taking students with relatively mild disabilities, then using some of that funding on other programs.

"Charters should not be taking funding intended for students with disabilities and spending it on whatever else it is that they want to spend it on," she said. "And we're talking $100 million. That's a lot of money."

Spicka said there is an easy fix, and Education Voters has launched a campaign to raise public awareness and encourage legislators to act when they return to Harrisburg in January.

The current law, she said, gives charters a disincentive to enroll students with disabilities that require more costly interventions. Spicka pointed out that leaving public schools with the most expensive students to educate drives up the average cost.

"And then, charter schools receive a higher tuition rate every year, so they reap an increasing windfall off students with mild disabilities, while the students with the most significant disabilities end up concentrated in the traditional public schools," she explained.

In 2014, a bipartisan commission created a special education funding formula that matches funding to expenses. But Spicka explained that right now, it only applies to traditional public schools.

"So, if this formula were applied to charter schools, it would match the funding from school districts to charter schools with the actual costs of educating students," she added.

She also added that when public schools have more students that cost more than the average to educate, they often are forced to cut other programs to compensate.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Juana Valle's well is one of 20 sites tested in California's San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast regions in the first round of preliminary sampling by University of California-Berkeley researchers and the Community Water Center. The results showed 96 parts per trillion of total PFAS in her water, including 32 parts per trillion of PFOS - both considered potentially hazardous amounts. (Hannah Norman/KFF Health News)

Environment

play sound

By Hannah Norman for KFF Health News.Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the KFF Health News-Public News Ser…


Environment

play sound

Animal rights organizers are regrouping after mixed results at the ballot box in November. A measure targeting factory farms passed in Berkeley but …

Environment

play sound

Farmers in Nebraska and across the nation might not be in panic mode anymore thanks to another extension of the Farm Bill but they still want Congress…


Immigration law experts say applying for asylum status can be very lengthy, and that programs such as Temporary Protected Status can fill the void for people fleeing violence elsewhere in the world. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

With 2025 almost here, organizations assisting Minnesota's Latino populations say they're laser focused on a couple of areas - mental health-care …

Social Issues

play sound

A new report found Connecticut's fiscal controls on the state budget restrict long-term growth. The controls were introduced during the 2018 budget …

Beef tallow is made from parts of the cow that are not sold as meat and are transported instead to rendering plants. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

By Jessica Scott-Reid for Sentient.Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for Arkansas News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collab…

play sound

By Julieta Cardenas for Sentient.Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Texas News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration …

Social Issues

play sound

Cities and states, including Mississippi, are grappling with rising homelessness. In Mississippi, 982 people experience homelessness daily…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021