Pennsylvania lawmakers did pass cyber charter reforms in last year’s budget—but advocates say that changes addressed the symptoms, not the causes, of cyber charter issues.

At the core of most cyber charter reforms, is critiques of their budgets.

Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts take in money from local taxes, and state and federal funds. Alternatively, charter schools only get funds from school districts. If a district spends, on average, $10,000 on each student every year… then when a student attends a charter school, the district pays the charter $10,000.

Because cyber charter schools can accept any student in the state— sometimes they can get $8,900 for a student, and sometimes they get $23,000.

The tuition rate is not based on what it costs to operate a cyber charter school; which has led to cyber charters often having significant reserve funds. An auditor general’s report released in February described the reserves as excessive.

In addition to critiques of their reserves, reform advocates critique what cyber charters spend money on— from advertisements to extraordinary sign on bonuses for teachers.

In turn, cyber charter schools often critique school districts for their own reserves.

What Happened Last Year

In Act 55 updated last summer, there were three distinct reforms to cyber charter schools: transparency in administration and finances, wellness checks once a week, and a change to special education tuition payments.

Transparency changes required cyber charter school boards to post their meeting minutes, and set stricter guidelines on conflicts of interest for administrators and board members.

Wellness checks once a week require, at minimum, a cyber charter student to turn their computer camera on during a class so a teacher can see the student. Schools can, and several do, have more robust wellness check standards. 

Lastly, the special education changes were estimated to save the state $69 million. Its still early for published data to check if schools saved.

“I have not seen any marketable change at our district. Those costs continue to grow,” said Shane Murray, superintendent for Iroquois School District.

What Advocates Still Want

The Education Law Center, an advocacy group who supports cyber charter reform, laid out four broad goals they still have for the policy area.

The special education funding changes are part of the larger conversation on how cyber charters financially burden school districts.

“For Northern Tioga, it's about a $2 million expense for us. That continues to increase,” said Kris Kaufman, superintendent for Northern Tioga School District.

The top priority for many cyber charter reform advocates is to overhaul the cyber charter tuition system— which did not happen last year.

The current proposal from most Democratic lawmakers is a flat rate of $8,000 per student. Reform advocates say a statewide flat rate should reflect how much it costs to operate a cyber charter school. 

“They really have distinct costs. They don't have libraries, laboratories, they don't have cafeterias, etc,” said Maura McInerney, legal director for the advocacy group Education Law Center.

The second priority is wellness checks. Advocates say that once a week wellness checks are not sufficient.

“We really need a relationship with the students to ensure that they are not being abused, that they're not subject to neglect,” McInerney said. "It cannot just be turning on your camera for a period of time during synchronous learning."

Thirdly, advocates approve of the transparency and ethics measures passed last year; but many want guardrails for how cyber charters spend money.

“Whether its capping how much they put in reserves, or how much they spend on advertising, transportation,” McInerney said.

Lastly, cyber charters have notoriously low proficiency rates; reformers want consequences for poor educational outcomes.

Rep. Bryan Cutler, Republican education chair in the House, says low proficiency rates are not limited to cyber charter schools, noting that some district schools— including district cyber schools— are falling equally short.

“and I think we need to raise the bar on all the institutions and apply those standards evenly across the board,” Cutler said.

Cyber charter reform often gets swept into school choice ideological warfare in Harrisburg. Both sides can present narrow, rigid solutions; even when both agree there is an issue.

Rigid presentations dissuade innovation, which leaves the status quo in place.

“I've talked with some state senators who said ‘we need more time to study the problem’,” Murray said, "Well the problem’s been around for 20 years. How much more time do you need?"