While Elon Musk is dancing with chain saws in his zealous approach to ferreting out government “waste, fraud, and abuse,” PA has its own wasteful spending that is chopping away at our children’s success.

The state Auditor General, Timothy DeFoor, audited five of the 13 cyber charter schools in PA and found that overall revenue of JUST THESE FIVE collectively increased 90% from $473 million to $898 million from 2020 to 2023. In the same period, enrollment rose 60% so that accounts for some of the increased revenue.

The Auditor General “also found that each of the five cyber charter schools improved its financial position during the audit as evidenced by accruing fund balances that increased $365 million or 144%, from $254 million to $619 million from 2020 to 2023.” 

These are the same cyber charters that have the worst academic performance in the state. Clearly, they have the money to invest in student learning but choose not to.

Instead, cyber charters are spending their windfall on staff bonuses, gift cards, vehicle payments, and real estate. The corporations who sell learning from home are busy buying real estate. Commonwealth Charter Academy – one of the five companies audited – transferred $354.3 million to a Capital Projects Fund, using $196 million to purchase or renovate 21 buildings. Why do they need buildings if their students are learning from home? Could it be that they get to keep all these physical assets even if they stop running cyber charter programs in the state? 

It’s an abuse of public monies and blatantly wasteful for virtual learning corporations to have so much extra cash on hand that they’re becoming real estate moguls. Even the Auditor General agrees, “While it is essential that cyber charter schools maintain an adequate fund balance…those amounts should be reasonable from a public school entity that relies on taxpayer funds including local tax revenues derived in part from property taxes.”

To eliminate the waste and abuse perpetrated by the cyber charter sector, we must rein in the way they are paid. It’s time to change how cyber charter schools are paid and return the hoarded surplus to the schools who paid them. (All charter schools, including cybers, get paid by the local school district what the district spends per student, and cybers must get paid first even if the school has to make cuts elsewhere.)

Governor Shapiro laid out his plan to end the waste in his budget proposal. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed concerned about the overspending. Now it’s your turn. 

Join Children First and the PA Schools Work Coalition in Harrisburg on May 13th to tell lawmakers to eliminate waste and abuse in PA by reforming the way cyber charters are paid. We don’t need Musk’s chain saw, but we do need your support to chop down wasteful spending on programs that fail the grade for kids.