It's not just the money

The Philadelphia School Partnership, which began about four years ago with the mission of raising private money for public schools, hasn't tried to hide its preference for charters. It's not an infatuation: High-quality charter schools have proven their academic effectiveness with motivated students who have escaped from chronically bad traditional public schools.

To open charters' doors to more students, the PSP has offered the School District $25 million to end its moratorium on expanding the number and size of charters in the city, plus another $10 million to help turn around failing traditional schools. Charters are primarily funded with public money taken from the district's budget, and the district has authority over their creation and growth.

The district was right not to pounce on the PSP offer. It's inadequate. In fact, the School District believes it would need about 20 times as much to cover the cost of creating 15,000 new charter seats over six years. The district would still have to fund the schools the students left, paying for utilities, transportation, and maybe even the same number of teachers.

Acknowledging the discrepancy in calculations, PSP executive director Mark Gleason said his organization's offer was never meant to cover all of the district's so-called "stranded costs." Rather, he said, the group wants to help the district expand charters now while it waits for the state to develop a new school funding formula that would eventually fill any budget gaps.

Gleason is asking the School District to act on faith. That would be risky, even with a new governor who says he wants to give Pennsylvania schools more money.

But Gleason is right to point to the state as the key to charter expansion not just in Philadelphia, but in other districts as well. Harrisburg could start by restoring the more than $200 million a year used to reimburse districts for charter schools before then-Gov. Tom Corbett cut it from the budget in 2011.

But it's not just the money. Oversight of Philadelphia's charters has been spotty at best. Some city charters are excellent, but too many that seemed like good ideas when they were licensed are no better academically than the worst district schools. Others seem more focused on padding their operators' pocketbooks than on educating children.

There should be more opportunities for Philadelphia children to attend good charter schools. It's been seven years since a charter has opened in the city. But licensing more charter schools requires more than the PSP's cash. It requires the governor and legislature to make it a priority to address the funding and regulation problems that justifiably limit charter expansion.