Joseph Roy, superintendent of Bethlehem Area School District, questions the need
for cyber charter schools.
Not exact matches
Using new powers granted under a trailblazing state law that took effect last July, the Pennsylvania Department of Education has rejected all five of its first batch of applications
for new «
cyber»
charter schools.
«In this day and age, every parent knows somebody who has a kid taking their classes through a
cyber charter school,» says Holly Brzycki, who oversees online learning
for CAOLA.
Its Education Week Research Center gathers authoritative data
for the news organization's Counts reports and works in tandem with the Education Week newsroom on «data journalism» projects around such issues as corporal punishment,
school policing, and
cyber charter schools.
Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner called last week
for a moratorium on new
charter and
cyber charter schools, pending an overhaul of a funding system that he said has resulted in serious inequities in how taxpayers finance those alternatives to regular public
schools.
House and Senate both commit to giving
for - profit
cyber charters the same funding as regular
schools;
In the Patriot News, Op - Ed columnist James Hanak assails the propensity to cut funding
for successful
cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania.
One concern is that districts receiving the minimum amount, such as KPS, which serves high - poverty neighborhoods, won't get the resources they need
for the challenges they face, and that smaller, lower - funded
charter and
cyber schools will receive more than they need.
The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), a
for - profit
cyber charter, is supposed to pay back $ 60 million to the state of Ohio because the
school was unable to verify the attendance of 40 percent of its students.
Thus, high - enrollment
cyber charter schools are inherently void of some of the interaction needed to enhance learning
for young children.
Again using Pennsylvania as an example, the funding formula
for charter schools in the Commonwealth dictates that a local district has to pay the per - pupil cost
for each one of its students that attends a
cyber charter school.
ECOT (the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow) is a
for - profit,
cyber charter school, that is underperforming on state report cards and costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
For example, an eight - year - old student in a
cyber charter program may get the knowledge of a math concept from afar, but he or she won't get a hug, high - five, or pat on the back from the
school's headquarters.
Whether it's
charter schools,
cyber schools or scholarship programs, empowering parents to choose the education that is best
for their child is an effective use of taxpayer dollars.
HB 97 improves ethics and transparency standards
for charters and temporarily makes very small reductions in
school district payments to
cyber charters.
In Pennsylvania,
for example, more than 36,000 students enrolled in
cyber charter schools during 2014 - 2015.
Penn State researchers who interviewed parents who enrolled their children into
cyber charter schools found that parents thought these
schools were better customized to their children's needs, carried little financial risk and were possibly the last hope
for their child to succeed in
school.
What Betsy DeVos, an advocate of
school - choice initiatives and President - elect Donald Trump's nominee
for education secretary, as well as the rest of us need to know about
cyber charter schools.
In their report they noted that improved academic outcomes
for a student in a
cyber charter school was «the exception rather than the rule.»
Despite the hope that many parents hold out
for this new educational option, the performance of
cyber charter schools has consistently, and often drastically, lagged behind the performance of their brick - and - mortar
school counterparts.
For a current list of
cyber charter schools and to visit the PA Department of Education website, please click here.