Charter Renewals – Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools

Southwest Leadership Academy Charter Non-Renewal Hearing Report

by Lynda Rubin

Southwest Leadership Academy Charter School (SLACS) has had less than stellar academic and financial accomplishments for years. The K-8 school in Southwest Philadelphia was originally authorized by the SRC in 2007 as a K-6 at one location, but currently operates out of two rented facilities, (Gr. 3-8) 7107 Paschall Ave, 19142 (its original location) and (Gr K-2) 6901 Woodland Ave, 19142. It has a City-wide admissions designation, but students reside mainly in the local geographical areas and Delaware County (to which some prior students moved while attending SLACS and continued at SLACS). The school’s student composition is 89% African American, 7% Hispanic and 4% White. Asian Pacific and Multiracial. 13% have special needs, 4% are English Language Learners (ELL) and 69% of the population lives in poverty status.

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Board Addresses Possible Charter School Conflicts of Interest

Ears on the Board Of Education: January 26, 2023

by Diane Payne

FINALLY!

Before the vote on the three Charter School renewals appearing on this agenda, President Streater made a statement about his concerns surrounding the interrelatedness of Charter School Boards, Charter Management Operators, and attorneys. He made clear that overlapping Boards and attorneys do not provide the adequate protection needed to be good stewards of public funds. This is one of many aspects of charter operations that are never publicly discussed except by APPS. It is almost impossible to follow the money funneled into charter schools and know who is benefitting from public funds and whose pockets are being filled with the many interconnected groups. (More detail on this will appear in the voting section.)

Board Renews Charters without Public Hearings

The Philadelphia Board of Education is just days away from renewing several charter schools, many of which have not met the basic standards set by the Board. The Board’s policies and practices ensure that the public has fewer opportunities to testify on how renewing the charters affect their neighborhood schools. The Board will also be voting to expand the enrollment of Keystone Academy Charter by over 40%, again with no public review. At its May action meeting, the Board added a Charter Schools Office presentation to the agenda just hours before the meeting convened and after they closed the window to sign up to testify. The Board holds no renewal hearings as other districts in the state do. Yet the Board will be voting to renew most of the twenty-two schools in this year’s cohort. Anyone who spoke at the May meeting–not knowing that the Board would be voting on the renewals next month– may be barred from speaking in June.

by Lisa Haver

To read more, click here.

Board Should Not Renew Substandard Charters

Not one of the 2021 charter schools in the 2021 cohort has met academic standards. The District’s Charter Schools Office, however, has recommended all for 5-year renewals. This represents a cost to the district of approximately $ $484, 053, 891.

Most of the schools in this cohort failed to meet most of the conditions they agreed to in their previous renewal agreements. That should come as no surprise. As then-CSO Director DawnLynne Kacer told the School Reform Commission in 2017, there are no formal consequences for failing to meet conditions. With this year’s recommendations, we see that there are also no consequences for not meeting conditions included in a legal surrender agreement clause.

None of the seven Renaissance charters in the 2021 cohort meets academic standards. APPS cited District reporting in our 2020 analysis of the Renaissance charters in concluding that none of the operators came close to keeping their promise to turn around the neighborhood public schools: The companies awarded contracts to manage those schools promised to “effect dramatic change” at “chronically underperforming schools”. The District, over the past ten years, has spent hundreds of millions on Renaissance schools while getting very little in return. Although the Initiative stipulated that “Renaissance Schools will be granted greater autonomy in exchange for increased accountability”, there has actually been less accountability, as seen by the repeated renewals of Renaissance charters that fail to meet basic standards, let alone surpass District performance.

Note: All academic data taken from most recent CSO renewal evaluations, District school profiles and District SPRs. All CEO salary/compensation data from 2018 and 2019 IRS Form 990s. Projected costs of operating of charter schools based on 2021 District budget information.

This report was written by Lisa Haver, Karel Kilimnik, Deborah Grill, Diane Payne and Ilene Poses.

Click on the name of the school to read the report:

Universal Charter School at Audenreid

Universal Charter School at Vare Stem and Arts Academy

Mastery Charter Schools at Wister, Clymer, Gratz and Shoemaker

Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School

Global Leadership Academy at Huey

TECH Freire Charter School

Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School

Lindley Academy Charter School at Birney

YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School