State Rep. Curt Sonney has the high-profile role of chairing the House Education Committee.
A year after being named chairman of the House Education Committee, state Rep. Curt Sonney finds himself in the thick of several efforts to reform Pennsylvania’s system of education at multiple levels.
“I often tell people that as a rank and file (House member), you just ride on the bus,” said Sonney, a Harborcreek Township Republican who represents the 4th Legislative District. “As a chairman, you get to drive it.
“And quite frankly, it’s up to the individual chairman if he wants to drive aggressively and really try to shake up the system or not if he doesn’t want to step into that arena of total controversy. And believe me, I’ve been swimming in controversy since I became chairman.”
Since being handed the keys to that bus, Sonney has proposed a major overhaul of the state’s cyber charter school system. He’s introduced legislation that would enable the chancellor and board of governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education to enact changes that would create efficiencies and save money at the 14 universities in the system. And he holds a key vote as a member of the state Board of Education on Erie County’s community college application.
In coming months, Sonney will also find himself at the center of a debate over Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed budget and the education funding it prescribes, including a $200 million annual investment in a higher education scholarship program for low- and middle-income students who enter the PASSHE system. The program would be funded by subsidies for the horse-racing industry.
Cyber charter challenge
One of Sonney’s first proposals was a change to the state’s system of privately operated but state-funded cyber charter schools.
Nearly 35,000 students statewide were enrolled in the 14 cyber charter schools last school year. Those virtual schools, which differ from bricks-and-mortar charters, receive $500 million annually from public school districts for tuition.
While cyber charter operators have claimed they are underfunded, public school administrators have argued the funding they divert to cyber charters is not proportional to the educational outcomes they deliver. They also argue that cyber charter schools are being paid far more than what it costs to educate a student and that cyber charters lack accountability.
Sonney’s bill would reclassify the 14 cyber charter schools as “educational content providers” and require them to compete with other cyber programs that fall into that category.
The proposal would move oversight of cyber programs from the state to the local communities that fund them by doing two things.
First, the bill would enable all public school districts to create their own cyber education programs or to contract with a third-party vendor, like an intermediate unit, a cyber charter school, college, another school district or educational entity.
Second, it would require a school district to offer two alternatives for full-time cyber education by contracting with a third-party vendor.
“What my bill does is it essentially discontinues the use of those 14 institutions calling themselves a cyber school. In essence, my bill would call them an educational content provider instead of instead of a cyber school,” Sonney said. “Therefore, they would compete with any other educational content provider. And of course, they would have to meet all of the requirements necessary. But they would be competing with the universe, so to speak, for those contracts.”
The bill remains in committee.
‘Bull by the horns’
Sonney has also proposed one of a package of bills that would advance reforms of the PASSHE system proposed by new Chancellor Dan Greenstein.
The PASSHE system includes 14 state-owned universities, including Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.
According to the Associated Press, the system is wrestling with declining enrollment from fewer in-state high school graduates and less direct state aid, which has led to tuition increases and cutbacks. Fall enrollment was down 20 percent since 2010.
Sonney called it a “failing system” because those 14 universities function independently of each other rather than working to contain costs by sharing services and eliminating redundancies.
“I can’t tell you how many chancellors I have seen come and go while I’ve been in the legislature and, and as a rank-and-file member it was always, ‘is this going to be the one that is willing to take the bull by the horns and make the necessary changes in this system?’ We got that with Chancellor Greenstein.”
Sonney’s specific bill would empower Greenstein and the PASSHE board of governors to make changes they are currently unable to make within the system.
“There’s no central governance over all of them,” he said. “The reality is that the system just isn’t working today and it needs to restructure its governance.”
Community college
As committee chairman, Sonney sits on several other boards, including the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, the Public Higher Education Funding Commission that was created last year, and the state Board of Education.
Sonney’s seat on the latter puts him at the center of what could be a very close vote next month on Erie County’s application for a community college. Sonney believes the county already has a community college in the form of the Northern Pennsylvania Regional College, which is state-funded but not recognized as an official community college by the state.
Though Sonney followed the board’s business — and, at times, sent surrogates to board meetings in his place — throughout 2019, he didn’t attend his first meeting until November, when the entire board considered the county’s application for the first time.
Sonney doesn’t like to intervene in municipal government issues unless it’s part of his job as a state lawmaker.
“I try to stay out of local issues. This is a local issue,” Sonney said. “But that’s my job and I’m not going to run from my job. Is it a difficult decision? Sure it is a difficult decision, but I’m in this position to make difficult decisions. Believe me, I was in Harrisburg sitting 10 feet away from the entire Erie delegation. Guess who was the last one to vote? Me.”
At that meeting, Sonney joined seven other board members in an 8-6 vote that delayed a decision on the community college application and instead set an evidentiary hearing for March 18 at Blasco Library.
Sonney believes the community college would duplicate services provided by the NPRC and that the latter will be further along in its development by the time a community college would be up and running.
He’s spoken to several constituents who don’t want to pay for a community college, but said he knows many who support it, too. At the November hearing, for example, nearly 25 proponents addressed the board over two days, some of them twice. Not one person voiced opposition.
“This is the establishment of Erie County, right?” he said. “These are the political figures. I’ve heard from, obviously, Erie County businesses that absolutely believe Erie County should have its own. Our biggest benefactor in Erie, Tom Hagen (chairman of the board of Erie Insurance) he sets money aside for it because he believes that Erie County should have a community college. So, yeah, there’s pressure on Curt Sonney.”
Sonney has no insight on how the board will act next month, he told the Erie Times-News.
“I’m like everyone else,” he said. “I honestly have no idea. There’s no way to gauge this.”
Improving the system
Sonney said he knows he and the entire General Assembly have their work cut out for them when it comes to addressing education. He has proposed or is working on other bills that address the system.
“When it comes to education, I felt that we should be doing a little bit more as a legislative body,” he said. “It’s just the simple fact that there’s almost no area of education that shouldn’t be scrutinized and looked at. We should always be looking to try to improve the system.”
The duties of chairing the House Education Committee could have fallen in someone else’s lap.
Last year at the start of a new two-year session, Sonney asked to chair either the education or professional licensure committee, which, unlike the former, he had been a member of for several years.
Sonney’s glad it worked out the way it did.
“I’m not afraid to speak my mind and I’m not afraid to attempt to change things,“ he said, “:and I’m going to continue to do that as long as I have the ability to do it.”
Contact Matthew Rink: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ETNrink.
