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News & Information
On Cyber School Reform, The Devil Is In The Details
June 5, 2007
Timothy Daniels, Ed.D.
IN GOVERNMENT, THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS. So it is with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) recent Op-ed circulated across Pennsylvania suggesting Pennsylvania's Cyber Charter Schools are overreacting to legislation that would destroy Pennsylvania's leadership position in cyber education. Truth is State Representative Karen Beyer (R-Lehigh Valley), a former School Board President, is representing her interest group, PSBA, by proposing Legislation to limit competition in public education by under-funding and destroying the independence of cyber charter schools. This is not surprising since enrollment in Pennsylvania's eleven cyber charter schools is growing at an astounding rate: cyber charter school enrollment has grown from 11,000 in 2005-2006 to a projected 20,000 plus in 2007-2008.
To eliminate competition, PSBA enlisted the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) to support Rep. Beyer's legislation which will hurt children. PSEA uni-serve reps pace the corridors in Harrisburg trying to persuade legislators to vote against what is a very popular option, a choice, for the electorate. This is a classic case of interest group versus voter preference. Public polling in Pennsylvania reveals two-thirds of the voting public supports the idea of families having the choice of public charter schools in Pennsylvania. More than half support families having the choice of cyber charter public schools (a concept many of those opposed or undecided still do not yet fully understand).
Cyber charter schools are public schools that deliver a substantial amount of instruction over the internet. These popular schools provide much needed choices to students who, for a variety of reasons, have trouble attending regular public schools. Often health needs of the individual student dictate the need. Other families choose cyber schools because of safety concerns in some regular public schools. Other times, high performance young athletes, actors and others need the scheduling flexibility that a cyber charter school provides.
PSBA contends Rep Beyer's legislation, which it wrote and then vetted with Rep. Beyer, is just intended to "rein in the costs of charter schools and make them more accountable." Say what?
- Beyer's bill would more than halve the funding cyber charter schools receive, starving them by reducing their per pupil allocation to about one-third of what the average of schools districts spend per student.
- Beyer's bill would place PA Department of Education and Intermediate Unit personnel on charter boards, destroying their independent status.
- Beyer's bill proposes an enrollment cutoff date of May 31 for student enrollment in the following school year, placing an arbitrary enrollment restriction on cybers that no other type of public school faces.
- Beyer's bill proposes changing the very definition of cyber charter school, proposing that the law be changed from, a cyber charter school delivering a "significant" portion of its instruction to students via the internet, to a cyber school delivering "all" of their instruction via the internet. This would close many of the student centers that cyber schools have where their students receive leadership training, special education testing, gifted education, performing arts and tutoring.
In short, rather than "fine tune" cyber charter schools, as PSBA contends, Rep. Beyer's legislation will irreparably harm children attending cyber charter schools.
PSBA/PSEA also wants to make cyber charter schools "more accountable." Really? All charter schools, including cyber charter schools, are already the most accountable form of public education. Like school districts, cyber charter schools must undergo an annual local audit, be audited periodically by the State Auditor General, fulfill a frequent Federal Program audit (Title I, II, III, IV and VI), and visited by the PA Department of Education every two years for a special education audit. They also complete every state child accounting report (attendance and enrollment) and more than a dozen other state annual reports. Charter school students must, by law, take the annual PA System of School Assessment Tests (PSSA) and have their results published on the PDE website. Then, in addition to all the regular state reporting and assessment reports, cyber charter schools must undergo a massive "annual report" to the state, which is available for public inspection. On top of all this, cyber charter schools are subject to customer choice, which is a level of accountability far higher than school districts ever face. If a cyber charter fails to provide what a child needs, his or her parents simply choose another school.
Finally, PSBA claims "those who support cyber charter schools ...continue to...accuse the PSBA and other organizations representing public education (PSEA) of trying to get rid of them." Truthfully, for cyber charter schools, and for all charter schools, to turn their back on this coordinated campaign carried out against them would make our critics right. We would be ineffective and unaccountable. As 120 charter public schools, including 11 cyber members, representing more than 60,000 families in Pennsylvania, we would not be being accountable to our customers: our children and our families, if we did not defend ourselves. To turn our backs would be a disservice to the thousands of Pennsylvania Families whom have selected cyber charter schools, a new type of public school, to educate their children. The Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools will not abandon the children we serve!
Dr. Tim Daniels is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools (PCCS). PCCS was founded in 1999 and now has more than 150 institutional and business members.
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