Two recent audits and a guilty plea show strong evidence of the need for reform of Pennsylvania’s charter law to provide for more effective oversight of the substantial public money going to the charter sector.  The Inspector General of the US Department of Education and the Pennsylvania Auditor General have both recently concluded that Pennsylvania’s charter law does not provide sufficient oversight or control over charter management organizations. CMOs are organizations that manage charter schools. Although charter schools in Pennsylvania must be organized as non-profits, CMOs can be and often are for-profit organizations. The Pennsylvania charter law doesn’t mention them because the legislature apparently did not envision such entities in the late 1990s when it wrote the law. But they have become an increasingly important part of the charter sector. The two audits highlight challenges that the growth and operation of CMOs present to effective oversight of public funds going to charter schools. The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education found that “charter school relationships with CMOS posed a significant risk to Department …

Last week marked the passing of Phyllis Schlafly, who arguably did more to undermine the equal rights of women than any other woman in United States history. As most know, Mrs. Schlafly tirelessly campaigned against the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution (“ERA”). First drafted in 1923, the ERA stated that “[e]quality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” The ERA failed to obtain ratification in the requisite number of states and Mrs. Schlafly is usually seen as a key architect of its demise. Mrs. Schlafly’s death made me ponder what American law, particularly American Constitutional law, would have looked like without her – that is, with an ERA. Would an ERA have allowed Title VII to have a bona fide occupational qualification, a provision that says that sex is a genuine job requirement for some employment? Would Geduldig v. Aiello (1974), the case finding that pregnancy discrimination was not an equal protection violation, have been decided differently …