Every student in Pennsylvania, regardless of what kind of school they attend, deserves a quality education that meets their individual needs. Under current law, charter schools receive additional funding for any student designated as needing special education services, intended to make sure the student receives that support. But as noted in an Education Law Center report over a decade ago, and unfortunately still relevant to today’s charter school law, “this creates a perverse incentive for charter schools to over-identify students with relatively mild disabilities and to underserve students with more severe or costly-to-serve disabilities.” Since then, some charter school operators have admitted to using these special education payments to subsidize their broader operations.

That is why we plan to introduce legislation that would make the responsibility of performing initial evaluations for special education services the responsibility of the charter school student’s school district of residence or intermediate unit. By placing this responsibility in the hands of a qualified third party, this would make sure that students are receiving accurate and unbiased evaluations by the entities that are already tasked with doing the same for traditional public school and private school students.
 
Please join us in making sure that these important evaluations are detached from financial incentives and done with the students’ needs as the only priority by co-sponsoring this legislation.