Why criticism of cybercharter schools is off base
The Morning Call ran a column earlier this year titled “Pennsylvania cyber charter schools boomed in the pandemic. Why that’s crushing taxpayers.” The column criticized cybercharter schools for overcharging taxpayers and underperforming for their students.
According to the column, cybercharter schools “don’t have the same buildings, supplies and infrastructure to pay for.” As someone who started and currently runs a cybercharter school, Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School, I see the same costs for “infrastructure.”
In addition to having our own building costs, we provide each student a stateof-the-art computer, high-speed internet line and all the technology to back it up. When you add testing site costs (not including salaries), the average infrastructure cost per student at PA Leadership Charter School is $2,951, while the average infrastructure cost per student at 11 Lehigh County school districts is $2,784 (transportation and facilities).
The Center on Reinventing Public Education found the same results in a study of online charter schools, stating, “Costs in most categories were quite similar across online and traditional schools. Three exceptions include technology costs, which are higher in online schools, and facilities and transportation costs, which are higher in traditional schools.”
Four of the 14 Pennsylvania cybercharter schools were started by and are run by local school districts. These students do not take any money away from the district. Any district could start its own cybercharter school (for example, the West Chester Area School District has done this with its 21st Century Cyber Charter School).
But most school districts just create individual cyber courses for their students.
Pennsylvania’s independent cybercharter schools welcome virtual programs, as they are focused on student needs. When the pandemic hit, all 14 cybercharter school CEOs wrote an open letter to all 500 Pennsylvania school districts, offering our expertise to help run or start the virtual programs that school districts were forced to create overnight.
As a result, there have been thousands of contacts between cyber and non-cyber teachers.
The column also criticized the “return on taxpayers’ investment,” citing that “all 14 cyber charters scored below the state average on the 2018-19 English and math assessments.” The solution offered in the column? Cut the funding to cybercharter schools.
The column left out that
52% of all Pennsylvania public schools score below the state average. It also didn’t report that the average student enrolling in a cybercharter school enrolls 1 ½ years behind in their education. For these students, poor English and math assessments are more a failure of the home school district than the cybercharter school.
When SAT/ACT scores are measured, however, Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School has the highest scores of all 180 Pennsylvania charter schools and is in the top 5% of all Pennsylvania high schools. So, how can cutting funding be the solution when what so many children left behind by their school districts really need is increased personalized attention to bring them back to a state of educational equality with their peers?
The reason cybercharter schools are being attacked is that they’re the only charter schools open to all 1.7 million students in the state. They are effective and provide a safe, supportive and scholastically challenging education.
Cybercharter schools affect, on average, less than 3% of the home school’s budget. The real cost drivers are the increases in teacher salaries — averaging 2% per year — and the dramatic increases in cost for the Public School Employees’ Retirement System.
Annually, school districts are now paying more than 35% of a teacher’s salary just to fund the retirement system accounts, and these costs have no end in sight.
I understand why the monopolistic school system dislikes school choice. I understand why the teachers union dislikes a charter school system that has no incentive to unionize. I understand why a brick-andmortar school system struggles to create — with a small portion of its budget — a successful cyber component for its students.
This is a contest between those who believe in choice for all Pennsylvania students and those who do not. I stand committed to working to find ways for charter schools and traditional schools to work together. This, I believe, would ultimately be best for all Pennsylvania students.