PENNSYLVANIA — If the governor’s budget passes unchanged—and as of press time, the PA budget hasn’t passed—local school districts could see hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual savings.

The cuts that free up that money come largely from cyber charter school funding. The use of cyber schools has spiked in the last couple of years; families have an alternative, but it uses school district funds. And there’s debate on their quality.

It makes a tremendous difference for school districts. Take, for example, Wayne Highlands, which spends $2.5 to $3 million on cyber students each year, said superintendent Gregory Frigoletto. In the height of the pandemic, there were 250 to 300 cyber students, although the number has come down as school reopened.

Charters: the pros, cons and regulation

Charter supporters say the schools are an important alternative for students who struggle in public schools. Fewer regulations mean specialized education is easier. Charters are built in poverty-stricken areas where there are fewer district schools. For families who believe in school choice or who want to control what their children are learning, a charter might be the answer.

Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Options (CREDO) found that brick-and-mortar charters performed about as well as district schools, and in some cases charters did better.

Dr. Anne Clark, CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, and manager of public affairs Jean Morrow highlighted other benefits in an email interview. “Public charter schools provide special education support, extracurricular activities, field trips, connections with lawmakers,” and more, they said. “The schools equip our students for success outside of K-12.”

Often parents chose charters for reasons of safety and location, rather than quality of education, wrote Zachary Jason in Ed, the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s magazine in 2017.

Opponents point out that fewer regulations can translate into poorer quality and more fraud. And when that is coupled with poor oversight, disaster could ensue.

“The top criticism of charters is that they rob funding from district schools,” Jason wrote. District schools’ fixed costs remain the same, while they lose money to the charters. And there aren’t enough charter students to warrant cutting costs in the district.

While some states reimburse the money to district schools, PA is not one of them.

And then there’s attrition. “Nationwide, charters lose 24 percent of their teachers each year, double the rate of traditional public schools,” Jason wrote. That’s because of long hours and lower pay. The average Success Academy teacher, he said, left after four years.

And “after 25 years and some 6,000 schools, charters still on average produce results roughly equal those of the public schools to which they set out to be better alternatives. Nationwide, low-income students, especially Black and Hispanic, tend to benefit from charters the most, studies show. But for white and Asian students, as Chester Finn notes, ‘the effects are generally neutral or negative.’”

In 2021, Gov. Tom Wolf introduced regulations and accountability for charter schools and cyber charters. More accountability, he said, would improve education quality, protect taxpayers by controlling charter school costs, and increase transparency, letting parents and watchdogs know when for-profit companies are managing nonprofit schools.

In spring of 2022, the Independent Regulatory Review Commission approved the new regulations. The House and Senate education committees narrowly approved the new rules, with GOP members opposing.

Wolf’s regulations will address the transparency and ethics issues. According to a statement, the new rules wil:

• Provide clear application requirements for entities seeking to open a charter school, regional charter school, and cyber charter school;
• Ensure that all Pennsylvania students are able to access charter schools;
• Clarify the ethics requirements for charter and cyber charter school trustees;
• Require school districts and charter schools to follow the same fiscal management and auditing standards;
• Streamline the process for charter schools to request tuition payments from school districts and the state; and
• Provide a consistent, common-sense method for charter schools to meet the employee health care requirements in state law.

What is a charter?

Charters are publicly funded schools—parents do not pay tuition—and the schools are bound by a charter, rather than the regulations and laws that traditional district schools follow. They don’t have to participate in the employees’ retirement system, either.

Many charters are brick-and-mortar schools, like district schools. Others—cyber charters—are online-only.

Charters are run by private groups, rather than a publicly elected school board.

An authorizer can shut down the schools if they fail to follow the charter. In PA, the authorizer is the local school district or, for cyber charters, the state Department of Education.

“Funding mainly comes from state and local taxes,” said Dr. Anne Clark, CEO of the PA Coalition of Public Charter Schools (PCPCS) and PCPCS manager of public affairs Jean Morrow, in an email interview. “Very little [comes] from the federal government. Funding in PA for a public charter school student goes through the school district, then to the public charter school.” For each student attending a charter in a district, the school pays a tuition based on an adjusted per-pupil cost, to the charter.

In regard to education, Clark and Morrow said, “Public charter schools provide special education support, extracurricular activities, field trips, connections with lawmakers,” and more, they said. “The schools equip our students for success outside of K-12.”

Almost 165,000 students in the state attend a charter school, in a building or online, according to PCPCS. There are 14 public cyber charter schools. The Philadelphia-based advocacy group Children First found that enrollment in online charters shot up from 38,000 in 2019 to 60,900 in the pandemic. That’s roughly 3.5 percent of the commonwealth’s 1.7 million students.

Some districts run their own online schools. Wayne Highlands has its Virtual Campus, providing “a connection with the home district, advocates and liasions here,” Frigoletto said.

Rural students are slightly more likely to be in a cyber charter. Black and Latino students are more likely than Whites to attend brick-and-mortar charters.

In 2021, Gov. Tom Wolf introduced regulations for charter schools and cyber charters. More accountability, he said, would improve education quality; protect taxpayers by controlling charter school costs; and increase transparency, letting parents and watchdogs know when for-profit companies are managing nonprofit schools.

In spring of 2022, the Independent Regulatory Review Commission approved the new regulations. The House and Senate education committees narrowly approved the new rules, with GOP members opposing.

Cyber charters: pros and cons

The schools, according to a fact sheet from the PCPCS, offer an individualized education, conducted at the student’s pace.

Students leave brick-and-mortar schools for many reasons, notes the Fordham Institute: the student is already struggling academically, is being bullied, the family moves frequently, the child or a family member has a health problem. If they’re poor, their families may want something better. And they might not have transportation to a better, more distant school.

Sometimes students attend a cyber charter because that is the only option. Locally, there are brick-and-mortar charter schools in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.

But if you Google “problems with charter schools,” a significant number relate to cyber charters.

One objection was summed up in a 2019 report from Stanford University’s Center for Research on Educational Options (CREDO) that “attending an online charter school leads to substantially negative learning gains in both reading and math.” CREDO found that brick-and-mortar charters do far better than online charters.

There’s the cost issue. Cyber charters take money away from district schools, and in PA (for now) they’re funded at the same rate as a brick-and-mortar charter; opponents say cyber charter costs are lower. The PCPCS responds that they still have administrative buildings to run, travel expenses for teachers, in-home therapies and more.

And then there’s fraud. Temple law professor Susan DeJarnatt in 2014 outlined the ways that, she said, the state’s lack of oversight and underfunded regulatory arm make fraud easy.

Wolf’s new rules are intended to solve those problems.

While pro-charter groups strongly oppose funding cuts, there has been little objection to the regulations. House and Senate Republicans on the education committees voted against accepting the new rules.

Cost-cutting

“Nobody is saying you can’t provide options, but it has to be fair,” Frigoletto said.

Wolf’s 2022-2023 budget includes changes to the way charter and cyber charter schools are funded, netting perhaps $373 million; in Wayne and Pike, much of the savings comes from a cap of $9,800 per student on cyber-charter tuition paid by the district to the charter. The rest comes from changes to special ed funding of charter schools.

It could mean an annual windfall for local districts, according to a spreadsheet from the Department of Education. The figures are estimates.

Delaware Valley would save $4,603 from special ed and $399,316 from the cap on cyber charter tuition, resulting in a total savings of $403,920.

Wallenpaupack would save $17,893, $702,671 and $720,563.

In Western Wayne, the numbers are $9,889, $720,002 and $729,891.

And in Wayne Highlands, the results are even more significant: $8,762, $821,417 and $830,179.

The money saved would be significant for the districts, but there is also the impact on the students. Choice is important, Frigoletto said, but districts provide something special. “Our district [and others in northeast PA] have a long history of academic achievement.” It also offers small classes and interpersonal connections with the staff. “I hope that when the dust clears, people will reconsider going to their community school.”