Your editorial indicated that, since 1998, CCCS "has become one of the largest elementary charter schools in the country." This has occurred despite numerous attempts by the education department and other opponents of charter school growth to impose enrollment caps on charter schools.

When we built our first school building in 2001, it was the first new school building constructed in Chester since 1931. We now have nine new buildings for our students, including two new gymnasiums. We maintain an average class size of 23 students, with a teacher and a teaching assistant in every classroom.

In the most recent Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests, 60 percent of CCCS students scored "advanced or proficient" in math, compared with 21 percent for Chester Upland School District students. Fifty-seven percent of CCCS students were "advanced or proficient" in reading, compared with 27 percent for the district's students.

CCCS produces these results with just 75 percent of the per-student budget allocation available to the district.

Interestingly, according to the most recent PennData Report, 21.8 percent of CCCS students receive special-education services, compared with 25 percent of district.

The education department's actions, therefore, are curious.

Are these repeated audits really undertaken out of legitimate educational concerns, or are they influenced by political opponents who see the success of charter schools like CCCS as a threat to their less innovative and less effective way of educating students?

Spencer Seaton
Board chairman
Chester Community Charter School

Editor's note: According to school district figures reported to The Inquirer, nearly 30 percent of CCCS students are in special ed classes, vs. 20 percent of the district's noncharter students.