Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
Cyber charter reform is not parent-shaming
The commentary defending cyber charter schools (“Do not shun cybercharter school students,” March 11, 2024) attempts to convince readers that standardizing cyber charter tuition is anti-school choice. In reality, standardizing the state’s cyber charter tuition is a healthy, long overdue policy change that improves educational options across the board.
If cyber charters really need more hardearned taxpayer dollars, they wouldn’t be sitting on $250,000,000 in the bank. They also wouldn’t have been able to spend $16 million on advertising.
What Reese Flurie of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools conveniently omits in her commentary is the glaring fact that cybers are failing their students at extremely high rates, with only 37% of cyber students passing the 2023 ELA PSSA test and 14% passing math. On average, cyber charter students performed 27 percentage points worse than their peers in traditional public schools.
Another uncomfortable truth: Pennsylvania is home to the most unregulated and largest cyber charter sector in the country.
A standardized tuition rate for cyber charter students in Pennsylvania is a commonsense reform that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree upon. Right now, cyber charters — without the same overhead expenses as brick and mortar schools — get the same tuition rate as brick and mortar schools. And cyber tuition rates vary wildly based on the student’s home school district. This defies logic. These students are logging into the same websites, so why should cyber charters receive $10,000 more to educate a student from Radnor compared to a student from Upper Darby?
Proponents of cyber charter reform are not shaming parents for making personal choices about their child’s education; we are merely pointing out the cybers are grossly overpaid and are not held accountable for their gross underperformance. Reigning in taxpayer overspending on cyber charters is pro school choice because redistributing scarce education dollars to underfunded school districts will improve education choices for parents and children.