Terrifying truths about cyber charter schools

Read on, if you dare, but be warned: The following is entirely true and should upset students, parents, educators, advocates, lawmakers, and beleaguered taxpayers.

For this spooky post-Halloween edition of The Point, we didn’t have to dig very deep to exhume the most disturbing creatures haunting the Commonwealth…CYBER SCHOOLS!

As always, we stand with parents doing their utmost to make the best possible choices for their students. While cyber charters may be working for some families, they just don’t for the vast majority who, understandably, end up feeling tricked. With desperately needed cyber charter reform, we hope we all get the treat we want: High-performing cyber charter schools for kids who learn best by them. And now… 

5 Terrifying Facts about PA’s Cyber Schools

1. They leech resources from other student bodies

Cyber charter schools are paid the same amount for students as brick and mortar charter schools are, despite having neither brick nor mortar.  School districts and ultimately taxpayers spend more than half a billion dollars on cyber charter schools with bloody poor results to show for it. Every year!

2. They are the Jekyll and Hyde of education

Mr. Hyde is a terrible teacher: only 15% of cyber charter students performed at grade level in 2016.  But Hyde presents himself as Dr. Jekyll selling cyber charters with millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded advertising. They can probably afford it because they’re free of the burden of overhead costs that physical schools must bare (like roofs). 

3. Bermuda Triangle of Education

The school year is 180 days long.  Cyber students in PA “lost” 106 days of reading and 118 days of math…as if either the cyber schools or the students weren’t even there at all.

4. Special education students left in the dark

100% of the cyber charter schools spend less on Special Education than they receive to educate students who have special needs.  This Halloween hoax gets worse when we consider that half of the schools spent less than 50% to give these students the resources they need to succeed.

5. Like the undead, they rise again to punish the living

According to the PA Department of Education’s measurement for rating school performance, none of the cyber charter schools have earned a “passing” grade… EVER!  Performance is based on student exam scores, graduation and promotion rates and attendance.

Read PCCY’s recent testimony at the Senate Education Policy Committee Hearing on Charter Schools from October 22, 2019.