Representative Mike Ramone, Charter School Lobbyist
SYNOPSIS:
Under existing law, when a child applies to enter a charter school, the burden is placed upon that charter school to contact the previous school district of the child to determine if the child was subject to expulsion. There are also children who are placed in alternative schools programs for discipline reasons who were not expelled. It has become more common for parents of these children to apply for enrollment in charter schools in order to circumvent the expulsion or discipline program. This has been made possible because some school districts have not responded to the requests made by charter schools for these discipline or expulsion records. If the Charter school enrolls the student and later discovers this issue, the Charter school is not permitted to disenroll the student and is thereafter responsible for that child’s cost2. The previous school district thus benefits financially from its failure to respond as it is no longer responsible for the cost of that child3. The changes in this bill close this loophole for parents and remove the disincentive for school districts to respond to these requests. If the previous school district fails to respond to a request, they will now have to resume responsibility for the costs of the child. The loophole should be closed for many of these parents as the charter schools will have this information available to it when deciding whether to enroll a child, and they are required to disenroll the student upon discovery of this information.
SPONSOR: Rep. Ramone & Sen. Simpson;
Reps. D. Short, Wilson, M. Smith; Sens. Hocker, Richardson
Emphasis mine.
What is this buffoonery from Representative Ramone and Senator Simpson? And I did a double take, there’s a democrat co-sponsoring. I verified it: Rep. Melanie George Smith still has a D behind her name. Though maybe she doesn’t realize it’s there.
Let’s re-state this ground rule, as Rep. Ramone et al seems to have forgotten it or didn’t know about it at all: Charter schools ARE public schools. They are funded with the same tax money as district schools.
2 Mr. Ramone needs to read the regs pertaining to per student funding in public education. When a student moves from a District school to a Charter school, the tax money collected by the original district for spending on that student goes with the student to the charter. There is no fiscal “responsibility” borne by the Charter, the sending District is paying that child’s per-student expense. If Mr. Ramone doesn’t believe me, I have a $21 million charter bill Christina School District is paying this year for him to look at. Email me, Rep Ramone: brianstephan@gmail.com and I can help you understand how public schools are funded in this state.
3 Districts can’t benefit financially by sending a student to a charter. Why? See note 2 above. The district SENDS the money with the student wherever the student goes in the realm of public education in Delaware, yet still maintains the teacher, classroom, building the student left behind. I have absolutely no clue where he’s finding this information or who’s feeding it to him. Maybe he’s just completely making it up out of thin air.
As for the bolded portion above, there already is a law on the books that requires the sending district to provide a student’s file upon request. If the sending district is not complying with the law, this is a law enforcement problem. You don’t have to create financial disincentives for districts; they already exist: Charters. And it’s already against the law to not provide a district or charter with student records upon request.
If we really want to talk about disincentives for disenrolling students, how about penalizing charters when they expel students who then return to District schools without the Charter sending the remaining portion of the kid’s funding back with him/her? That actually happens.
So what’s this amendment actually for? Let’s hope it dies a quick death in committee.
Tags: charter schools Delaware, Delaware Education, Delaware Republicans, Discrimination, Featured, Rep. Mike Ramone
Brian, House Bill 28 would take care of your last paragraph. It hasn’t moved since a year ago. Ramone got the idea for this from a teacher in Delaware. From a charter school. A charter that recently had MANY problems. We are now at the point where the charter crowd is throwing anything against the wall to see if it sticks. Anything that will benefit them. I may not be a big fan of Earl Jaques, but I would hope even he has enough sense to not let this even be heard in the House Education Committee.
Help me out here. Wasn’t it Ramone that wanted to lease a building he owned to a Charter School (special interest was fitness)?
Honestly, it’s scary how little some legislators know about education. Where did these people get this bogus info?
Don’t get me started….Mike Ramone & Charter schools & his business….
I hope it dies in committee so I don’t have to explain in detail how stupid and evil it is.
If the State appropriates monies to the Christiana Dist to be passed on to the charter schools, how come 2015 $ are retained for an extended time !
AND why is the next referendum is requesting 4+ million local $$ for payments to charter schools. I did not think local Christiana $ could go to State chartered, charter schools.
Does that mean Christiana embezzled the State pass through, and is going to “make it up” through the referendum ? Mat Denn’s gang need to keep an eye out.
Uh, Nala- I think you jumped to a few too many conclusions and may have hit your head.
Charter payments are made when Districts have sufficient funds to actually make the payment and may be divided up into more than 1 payment.
I don’t know where you’re getting your information on what money will be raised by the next Christina referendum and where it’ll be used, but “Charter Payments” is not a line item on the proposal for monies raised by referendum.
I also don’t know how you can embezzle monies that have been paid out already.
PS- “state” chartered charter schools are still public schools in terms of funding. The money follows the student. If a Christina kid goes from District to Charter, that kid’s funding goes with him/her. If the kid comes from Charter back to District, the money comes back with him/her.
PPS – the state appropriates ~55% of the funding for each public school student (no matter what public school they go to). The remaining ~45% comes from District residents and businesses in the form of property taxes.