From Public Citizens for Children and Youth (http://www.pccy.org):
Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools are sitting on millions of dollars in resources, according to a new report by the PA Charter Performance Center, raising new questions about charter school spending and their commitment to improving student performance.
- Pennsylvania’s cyber charters did VERY well financially in School Year (SY) 2019-2020 and now have $74 million in excessive fund balances.
- The injection of over $200 million in federal COVID relief in 2021 will further strengthen their finances in SY2020-2021.
- If we applied the same state standard in place for public school districts, more than half of cyber charters have held fund balances well over the limit throughout the last five years.
“Just as school districts can’t stockpile excessive reserves, Pennsylvania’s cyber charters should be required to spend their surplus balances on student improvement or give the money back to contributing school districts,” said ML Wernecke, Director of the PA Charter Performance Center.
While cyber charters’ financial positions have improved, there is no recent data to show if their academic performance has. Cyber student performance is among the lowest in the state and every single one of PA’s cyber charters needs improvement according to the government accountability system.
The Center recommends that lawmakers:
- Enact limits on cyber charter fund balances just like public schools have.
- Audit every cyber charter every three years, an achievable task since there are only 14 cyber charters operating in the commonwealth.
- Direct the PA Department of Education to use the charter school renewal process to hold cyber charters accountable and improve performance.
- Pass cyber charter funding reform that would standardize cyber tuition.
Read the full report here.
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