Hearings in Harrisburg Show Pennsylvania Lawmakers Are Unable to Find Consensus Around Much-needed Cyber Charter School Reform
From Bucks County Beacon
The Pennsylvania House Education Committee has scheduled a series of hearings about cyber charter schools in the commonwealth. At the first two hearings, some folks brought receipts, and some brought excuses, while the cyber charters themselves declined to appear at all. The performance of our elected representatives was a very mixed bag. Is there actual cyber charter reform in Pennsylvania’s future?
Receipts
Dr. Sherri Smith, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, had the numbers underlying the concerns of public school administrators. Math and ELA proficiency rates are not only low, but declining. Among the nine largest cybers in Pennsylvania, the two best rates for math proficiency were 25.5 percent and 27.4 percent. The rest were 12.5 percent or less.
Part of this is driven by participation rates. These rates were also dropping, with Commonwealth Charter Academy dropping to around 25 percent participation rate for test taking. Smith expressed concern about the low rates, reminding everyone that taking the test is a state requirement. It also raises a question about CCA specifically; they’ve invested millions of dollars in field offices, so why are they having so much trouble getting students to a test-taking site?
Smith pointed out graduation rates for cybers are also way below the state rate for public schools.
Attendance rates for the cybers vary wildly, from a high of 94 percent down to 59 percent. Often “attendance” is simply logging in for the day. Smith questioned why schools with high attendance still have low results, and in cases of low attendance and results, questioned why they are being allowed to stay in the program.
And if you prefer anecdotes to data, Smith brought one alarming story from one of her districts. A CCA student’s official transcript showed failing grades and a GPA of 0.5, while it also lists his class rank as 501 out of 3,656. “Apparently there are 3,000 ninth graders at Commonwealth Charter Academy who have worse grades than that.”
Smith also pointed to an issue with cyber-school students who move out of their original district, yet that district keeps paying their cyber-tuition. Michael Dadey, Greater Johnstown School District’s Assistant to the Superintendent, would later testify to the same issue, saying he believes some families seem to think that once they are in cyber school, they can do that from anywhere and don’t realize there’s a financial impact for the district.
Susan Spicka, executive director of Education Voters of PA, pointed to the many financial excesses of cyber charters shown in both organization’s reports and the recent report from the auditor general.
Tens of millions of dollars for marketing. Target, Starbucks and other gift cards for students. A $400/month stipend for employees to drive to work. High salaries for executives along with platinum memberships at the Hill Society in Harrisburg, a fancy private club (as their website says, “Celebrate the good stuff. Wine. Food. Whiskey.”)
Spicka argues that cyber charters have lost their way, that increasing revenue and enrollment “appears to be a much higher priority than ensuring the students entrusted to their care are actually learning” and preparing for adult life.
Further critiques on the second day came from Dadey, who pointed out that increased cyber charter costs have become unsustainable. This is exacerbated by the number of transient students; Johnstown saw 741 new enrollees and 465 withdrawals in one year, many of them via cyber charters.