Nearly 65,000 Philadelphia Families Made a Choice. The System Overseeing That Choice Has a Structural Flaw. 

by Dr. William Hayes, Board Chair, Philadelphia Charters for Excellence

The Center on Reinventing Public Education, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, and the Brookings Institution do not agree on everything. But they agree on this: when a school district both operates public schools and regulates its charter competitors, the structural conflict compromises oversight.

This is not a fringe position. It is a research consensus.

The fastest-improving urban systems in America recognized this and acted. D.C. established an independent charter board nearly thirty years ago, overseeing a sector that consistently outperforms national urban averages. New York's SUNY Institute oversees nearly 240 schools through a conflict-free process respected nationally. Denver held charter and district schools to identical standards and rose from the 5th percentile in reading and math to the 60th in a decade. Indianapolis empowered the mayor's office as a charter authorizer in 2001, and Indiana's charter law has since been ranked among the strongest in the nation.

Philadelphia has not followed any of these paths.

The School District serves as the sole authorizer of the charter schools that nearly 65,000 Philadelphia families have chosen for their children. The same institution those families chose an alternative to is also the institution that decides whether those options survive, how they are evaluated, and under what conditions they operate. This is not a critique of anyone within the district. Good people, working inside a flawed design, will produce flawed outcomes. Every time.

This is not just what outside researchers have found, and it is what the district's own investigation confirmed. The 2023 Ballard Spahr investigation, commissioned by the Board of Education itself, found no intentional wrongdoing but recommended the district pursue an alternative authorizing model, citing inherent conflicts where the same entity serves as authorizer, evaluator, funder, and competitor.

The district is following through in good faith on one piece of this, working with charter leaders through Project RiSE to strengthen the performance framework. But a better framework inside the same conflicted structure is a pain reliever, not a cure. It may reduce the symptoms, but the condition that causes them remains untreated.

Imagine a Philadelphia where success in any public school is success for the city. Where educators across sectors learn from each other without political calculation. Where governance reflects partnership rather than competition. That is not aspirational language. It is what D.C., New York, Denver, and Indianapolis built through deliberate structural choices that produced measurable results.

Philadelphia Charters for Excellence is calling for accountability without conflict — oversight built around one priority: ensuring the quality of the schools Philadelphia families have chosen for their children.

The models exist. The evidence is clear. Each of these cities faced the same question: are good intentions enough, or do children and families deserve a governance structure designed to produce the outcomes that intention alone cannot guarantee?

In a year when Philadelphia celebrates 250 years as the city where American governance began, there is no better time to demonstrate it still knows how to get governance right.

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Dr. William Hayes is Board Chair of Philadelphia Charters for Excellence (PCE), a nonprofit advocacy organization representing Philadelphia's public brick-and-mortar charter schools and the nearly 65,000 families who have chosen them.