The following editorial appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tribune- Democrat.
Education is a touchy subject in Pennsylvania.
There is the question of funding for state- related universities. There are the concerns about tuition – Penn State just opted to increase the cost of attending its main campus yet again. There are school vouchers. The tug of war over them is behind the state’s ongoing budget impasse.
And let’s not forget cyber charters.
These online institutions exist in an educational middle ground. They are public in the sense that any Pennsylvania child can enroll. They are operated by nonprofit organizations who come up with a plan and apply to a school district for approval. A student’s home district pays the school the cost of the education.
For parents who want different styles or focuses for education than they can get in their local district, but can’t afford private schools, charters offer an affordable and sometimes innovative option.
Cyber charters provide the added option of the flexibility and control of homeschooling with the structure of other teachers and supervision.
For those people who want school choice and vouchers, it’s a start. Others see dollars heading into non-district coffers as a loss to overall education in the state. Districts bristle at paying the bill; the 14 Pennsylvania cyber charters took about $1 billion in 2020-21, according to Spotlight PA.
A bill in the House is pushing to reform some of the ways cyber charters operate, including fund-ing.
Instead of a varying rate paid by each district, the proposed change would set a flat rate of $8,000 per student without special education needs.
This makes sense as it shouldn’t cost the same cyber charter any more to provide an online education for a student from Franklin Regional than it does for one from New Kensington-Arnold.
The bill also addresses another sticking point: accountability. Where school boards are obligated to be open books with requirements for public meetings and transparency, cyber charters can be less straightforward. Cyber charters have recently come under fire for the amount of money spent not on teaching but on marketing and advertising.
It’s been 20 years since the rules that govern these schools were sketched out by the Legislature. Evaluating how the system works and what needs to be tweaked is smart.
But, like all those other education issues that are dividing Harrisburg, they need to be addressed with the best interests of the students and taxpayers in mind rather than the politics.
There is too much of that in schools already.
