PA's Cyber Charter Funding: They're Playing Games with My Kids' Education
Digging into the numbers, exposing the state's deceptive tactics and the real cost of cyber education in Pennsylvania
Why I'm Fed Up With PA's School Funding Games
As a dad with two kids in cyber charter school, I'm angry. Really angry. The state is trying to cut money from my children's education, and they're using tricks to do it.
The Big Lie
During a recent House Appropriations hearing, Acting Secretary of Education Dr. Carrie Rowe couldn't explain where the proposed $8,000 flat rate for cyber charter schools came from when directly questioned by State Representative Josh Kail.
Rep. Kail asked clearly: "The $8,000.00. I'm curious, from where did that number come? How did you come up with, or how did the administration come up with $8,000.00?"
Dr. Rowe's response was telling: "All these other funding formulas for education are very complicated, there's all kinds of different variables and factors. This one, $8,000.00 flat line, that's it."
When pressed further about the actual cost of cyber education, Dr. Rowe admitted: "Well, I think that's what we're attempting to get at here with the $8,000.00."
Rep. Kail then asked directly: "That's the actual cost per student?"
Dr. Rowe responded: "Well, the lowest amount that a school district pays currently is $7,700.00. If that is an amount that is acceptable for a cyber school to receive to educate a regular education student. Then $8,000 which is slightly more than that should be sufficient to cover those costs."
This is not honest! They're making up numbers without any real research!
The Numbers Don't Add Up
The district Dr. Rowe talked about is Blairsville-Saltsburg/River Valley. Look at what they actually paid charter schools per student:
2013-14: $10,710.17
2016-17: $12,686.52
2017-18: $12,686.52
2020-21: $15,595.89
2021-22: $13,200.97
2023-24: $12,664.31
2024-25: $7,659.35
See that huge drop this year? That's super fishy! For SEVEN YEARS they paid over $10,000 per student, most years over $12,000, and suddenly it's $7,659.35. And that's the ONLY example they use to say $8,000 is fair!
A Double Standard That Hurts My Kids
That same district spends a ton more on their own students:
Total Budget:
2024-25: $36,834,783
Number of Students:
2024-25: 1,377
Cost Per Student:
2024-25: $26,749.30
So they spend almost $27,000 per kid in their regular schools but want to give cyber schools less than $8,000? That's a difference of almost $20,000 per student! How is that fair to my kids?
The Real Cost of Education
The facts about charter costs are simple and clear:
In 2021-2022, the average instructional cost per school district student was $13,748.06
Charter schools averaged $10,361.68 in the same year
For 2023-2024, the average non-special education expenditure for all charter schools was around $14,000
The cheapest district was Hazelton Area at $8,638.60, which is still higher than the proposed $8,000
You have to go back to 2019-2020 to find Forbes Road spending $7,408.65, while the average was still $12,554.06
You have to go all the way back to 2015-2016 to find 5 schools below $7,700
They're Using My Kids As Bargaining Chips
The state's basic education funding has gone up 32% since 2019-2020. School districts are building new buildings and complaining they can't build fast enough. Yet over 90% of schools still have lead in their drinking water!
But instead of fixing those real problems, they're trying to cut funding for my kids' education.
Dr. Rowe herself explained during the hearing: "Charter and then a cyber school doesn't choose how much they charge, rather it is derived from their expenditures, allowable expenditures, and they arrive at a number using the PDE 363 form."
So they know exactly how funding is supposed to be calculated based on actual costs, but they're throwing that whole system out for a made-up number!
This Isn't About Money – It's About My Kids
My children aren't budget items. They're real kids who deserve a good education. Cyber charter schools work for them. They're PUBLIC schools that should get fair funding.
When Dr. Rowe admits she doesn't know what it costs to educate a cyber student but still wants to cut funding, that shows this isn't about saving money. It's about hurting schools they don't like.
I'm tired of my kids being used as bargaining chips in budget battles. I'm tired of officials lying about numbers. And I'm definitely tired of my children's education being treated as less important than other public school students.
My kids deserve better. All public cyber charter kids deserve better. And we parents aren't going to sit quietly while they try to wreck our children's schools.
Cyber school is cyber. There’s no buildings maintenance and other things that a brick and mortar school provides and offers. Taking these enormous funds out of my local school district is killing it. It’s less expensive to school a child in cyber school so they need to use a different formula rather than here’s the budget divided by students and pulling random numbers out of the air well that needs to be based on what the cyber school actually costs not what public school cost plus there needs to be a limit. The 3 audits on these schools was quite revealing. There’s a lot of inappropriate expenditures not related to educating students.
There needs to be an audit of a school districts PDE 363 submission when when it has a significant drop in its charter school tuition rates. Then ask if there was a similar drop in what it reports to PDE when the school district submits their costs to educate special and non-special ed students.