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DECEMBER 13, 2011 | Policy Points by COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION
Charter School Reform
Pennsylvania charter school enrollment grew from 982 students in 1997 to 91,000 in 2010, as more parents exercised choice in their children's education. On average, charter schools receive and spend only about 83 percent of what school districts spend for each student. Allowing alternative charter school authorizers would increase opportunities
OCTOBER 10, 2011 | Policy Points by COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION
Charter School Funding in Pennsylvania
Many school districts and other advocates complain about the charter school funding mechanism, arguing that it "drains funding" from school districts. This charge must be considered in the context of charter school funding.
OCTOBER 10, 2011 | Policy Report by PRIYA ABRAHAM, NATHAN BENEFIELD
The Learning Revolution
How Cyber Schools and Blended Learning Transform Students' Lives
Online learning serves a significant and growing number of students, and represents a significant shift in how we educate Pennsylvania's children. In light of the growth of cyber and hybrid schools and the debate over their accountability, this Report seeks to help Pennsylvania residents understand more about cyber charter schools, who
Recent Blog Posts
MAY 23, 2012
Why Families Like Cyber and Charter Schools
Nine-year-old Ashley Matunis and her sister, 6-year-old Anna (pictured right), are typical girls who enjoy pizza and pretzels. They are also typical of the kind of students who attend cyber schools. They go to Pennsylvania's largest such school, PA Cyber, which now educates more than 11,000 students across the state.
As the girls' mother Sarah Matunis notes, cyber school meets her daughters' needs in a way regular schools cannot: Third-grader Ashley is learning quicker than average in math, and is now freely learning at the 4th-grade level. Anna was diagnosed with Type I diabetes before she turned 5, so cyber school allows her to keep up with school at home while her mother keeps tabs on her health. "We finally feel like our tax dollars are being used well," she said.
The Matunis girls are just two of some 90,000 students in Pennsylvania in charter schools, which include cyber schools. And the waiting list is 30,000 strong. They and other charter school families gathered in Harrisburg yesterday for their annual day on the hill to remind legislators why school choice is so important: It gives families like the Matunis a chance at an education best-suited to how their children learn and function. Pennsylvania families want lawmakers to protect school choice, and provide more of it.
As for Ashley and Anna, school choice means they could be the next Hannah Tuffy, a Scranton native who is the first graduate of PA Cyber to be accepted to the prestigious U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Let's give more families the schooling options they need to succeed like Hannah.
posted by PRIYA ABRAHAM | 11:30 AM | 0 comment
MARCH 16, 2012
It's Good to be the King (of Charter Schools)
We blogged last month about HB 1973, a bill that would gut funding for cyber schools. Now it turns out there's a bill—recently introduced to the House Education Committee—that goes even further: It would amend public school law and impose more damaging, needless regulation on all charter schools.
Perhaps the most bizarre proposed change is one found on page 2, dealing with how appeal boards review local boards' decisions to issue or deny a charter (the original language is in brackets; the proposed language is underlined):
The appeal board shall [give due consideration to the findings of the local board of directors] use an arbitrary and capricious standard to review the decision of the local board of school directors.
An "arbitrary and capricious standard"? Seriously? Are we in pre-Revolutionary France?
Read the rest of HB 2220, however, and "arbitrary and capricious" fittingly describes the proposed changes. Like HB 1973, the bill limits schools' fund balances, the reserves they accumulate to meet operating expenses and which cover lags in funding, to a maximum of 12 percent of spending. Some lawmakers think this will make charters more like school districts—only they have been duped by an education establishment myth. As of July 2010, 143 school districts had undesignated fund balances exceeding that threshold. The only limit on school district funds is tied to new borrowing. Collectively, school districts had $2.8 billion in reserved funds following the 2009-10 school year.
The bill also outlaws advertising, though cyber and charter schools need to let communities know they exist. Such measures would cover all charter schools, not just cybers. And school districts face no such restriction.
Additionally, school districts would not have to pay cyber schools for "resident students" who attend them if the school districts offer cyber programs. That limits families' ability to use public education dollars at the school of their choice, forcing them into their school district's program if they want a cyber education at all. This bill effectively says that rather than funding children's education, tax dollars should be used to protect the status quo.
We've reported before how cyber and charter schools must meet accountability standards required of regular public schools, plus more. Overall, HB 2220 seeks to hamstring charter and cyber schools and diminish school choice, ensuring traditional public schools not only stay on top of Pennsylvania's education system, but rule over publicly funded charter schools, too. But hey—it's good to be the king.
posted by PRIYA ABRAHAM | 10:00 AM | 0 comment
FEBRUARY 15, 2012
Attacking Cyber School Funding
The House Education Committee held an informational hearing today with administrators from several of Pennsylvania's cyber schools. The school officials mainly addressed myths about cyber school funding and performance, in light of a new bill introduced by Rep. Michael Fleck in December, HB 1973. One testifier described the bill as "a wolf in sheep's clothing, purporting to reform charter operations with the true intent of killing cyber charter schools."
Why such strong language? Cyber schools are public, taxpayer-funded online schools that began a decade ago. They offer parents an alternative to their local brick-and-mortar public school, without the cost of a private education. And they are proving immensely popular, with nearly 28,000 students enrolled today. When a student leaves her school district for a cyber school, public funding—76 percent of the per-student cost, on average—follows the child. Faced with a loss of funding—though it is a minuscule 1 percent of public education spending—school districts are crying foul, and demanding that lawmakers "fix" how cyber schools are funded.
The main funding element of HB 1973 is a restriction: It would mandate that cyber schools keep their "fund balances" —essentially the school's reserves—at 8-12 percent of their budgeted expenditures. Lawrence Jones, President of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, explained why this is a problem:
Half of the 400 school districts refuse to pay for their students enrolled in cyber charter schools, forcing cybers into the four-month long redirection process and often into procurement of loans to cover operating costs...Cyber charters need to retain a fund balance so that taxpayer dollars that currently go to lending institutions and attorneys can instead be used to educate children. Imagine what it would be like to run the government if half of Pennsylvania's taxpayers simply refused to pay their taxes and there were absolutely no recourse to force them to do so.
So, yes: Cyber school officials agree that funding for their schools needs fixing and should be more equitable. But there is no one-size-fits-all "actual instruction expense" for every cyber school. Furthermore, questions such as "How much does it really cost to educate a child?" could equally be asked of a traditional public school.
In reality, having a competitive education marketplace in the form of charter, cyber, private and public schools is what keeps costs down and learning effective. Burdening cyber schools with needless regulation serves only to smother the innovation our public education system so desperately needs. In the end, public education funding should serve children, not a system.
posted by PRIYA ABRAHAM | 04:49 PM | 0 comment
