From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell is proposing that charter schools in Pennsylvania should return any publicly funded special education dollars that are not spent for that purpose. The money would be returned to the school districts that fund the charters by giving subsidies for each child.

[The largest charter school in the state] received $21,840 last school year for each special-education student from its home district … more than three times the $6,812 subsidy it got for each regular student.

But state calculations show that the charter spent less than a third of the $9.4 million it received for special-education students on special education.

Education Department spokesperson Michael Race said the problem is widespread and that the governor’s proposal is “a simple matter of accountability to taxpayers for their dollars. If money is expended for special education, it should be spent on actual special-education needs. If not, it should be returned.”

Charter officials say the figures are skewed because the state’s calculations did not include many indirect special-education expenses.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 2:10 pm and is filed under budget, education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.