It’s time to get serious about cyber charter school reform
Rep. Joseph Ciresi February 21, 2025 | 1:47 PM
We’ve got to get serious about cyber charter school reform.
Don’t just take my word for it. This week, Republican Auditor General Timothy DeFoor released a blockbuster report that called for comprehensive charter school reform.
And you know what, the report says the same things I’ve said for YEARS about cyber charter schools and makes the same calls for reform that I’ve tried to enact through legislative initiatives:
- A single statewide tuition rate for cyber charter schools that’s more related to the actual cost of cyber education.
- Additional oversight of cyber charter schools by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
- Limits on excessive cyber charter school fund balances.
Despite all that I know about how cyber charter schools rip off Pennsylvania taxpayers, my blood still boiled when I read this audit of five PA cyber charter schools showing that from 2020 to 2023 the schools legally increased their revenues by $425 million and reserves by 144%.
And what did the schools do with this extra taxpayer money?
While our kids struggled in underfunded traditional public schools, these cyber charter schools legally used taxpayer dollars on staff bonuses, gift cards, vehicle payments and fuel stipends.
While our seniors fought to pay property taxes so they could stay in their homes, one of the audited schools, Commonwealth Charter Academy, spent $196 million to purchase and/or renovate 21 buildings. What does a public school based on online instruction need with all those buildings?
How did this gross situation come to pass? The answer is an out-of-date funding formula from 2002 (yes, 23 years ago!) that doesn’t use actual instructional costs to determine tuition, doesn’t set guidelines for spending, and doesn’t set limits for cyber charter school reserve funds.
Take for example tuition funding. Currently, the 2002 funding formula bases cyber charter tuition on what a school district budgets for each student’s education, not on what is actually spent on each student’s education. So, when recent enrollment surged at cyber charter schools, the flawed funding formula drove 1,000 different tuition rates, boosting the schools’ revenues.
The report found that “arbitrarily charging different tuition rates not aligned to the actual cost of that education puts school districts and taxpayers at risk of overpaying for a cyber charter school education and cyber charter schools at risk of potentially not receiving enough funding if their costs exceed tuition payments.”
Yeah, you could say the Pennsylvania taxpayer overpaid.
DeFoor is actually the THIRD auditor general that has examined this issue and the THIRD that has come to the same conclusion: we’ve got to adapt the cyber charter funding formula to reflect today’s realities.
We need an updated funding formula that would take into account how much money is being spent to educate students and would set reasonable limits to the amount of money cyber charters can keep in reserve.
We need the PA Department of Education to increase its oversight and guidance of cyber charters. Loopholes in the original law have limited PDE’s oversight when it has been badly needed.
I support the report’s recommendation that the governor appoint a task force to review the funding formula and issue a report in nine months with a new formula that is equitable, reasonable and sustainable.
I support the report’s call that the legislature then enact legislation that will fairly fund cyber charter schools and ensure their oversight.
Our job—as Pennsylvanians, as parents, as neighbors—is to ensure that all our children can get a quality education.
And my job, as your legislator, is to ensure that these cyber charter schools are fairly funded, that they operate with transparency and oversight, and are fully accountable with how they spend your tax dollars.
This term, I am going to reintroduce my charter school legislation, a comprehensive reform bill that would hole cyber charter schools to the same standards we expect of anyone who receives public funds, including transparency, ethical standards and greater oversight of spending. The legislation would hold them to the same standards as regular public schools. It would set a single statewide tuition rate for non-special education students at cyber charter schools that is better aligned to the actual cost of cyber education and would apply the existing three-tier special education funding formula currently used for school districts, which sets funding based on the student’s special education needs, to cyber charter schools.
My goal with this bill is to preserve school choice while ensuring cyber charter schools are held to the same rules and regulations as traditional public schools.
These reforms would make sure taxpayer dollars are being spent on educating students or returned to the taxpayers – and not spent on sponsoring professional sports teams, giving away Target gift cards, or growing fund balances. By making sure cyber charter schools operate openly and with proper oversight, we will help our students – regardless of what type of school they go to – and our taxpayers.
Both PA residents and the legislators that represent them -- on both sides of the aisle -- want cyber charter reform. You can see this in the fact that my cyber charter school reform bill passed the PA House last term with bipartisan support. And, it bears repeating, Republican Auditor General DeFoor and I are on the same page with our analysis of the problem and suggested solutions.
So, are you with me in my fight for cyber charter school reform?