CYBER-CHARTER SCHOOLS
Pennsylvania steps into a new age
(from page A7 of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,
June 26, 2001)
By Howard Richman
Competition is coming to Pennsylvania’s public schools! The Senate bill promoted by the public
school monopolists to cut off funding to cyber-charter schools (Senate Bill
891) was sent back to committee on Thursday (June 21). Instead the legislature initiated a study to
be carried out by the PA Department of Education (Senate Bill 485) to see if
the taxpayer can save money through Internet education. As a result parents across the state of
Pennsylvania will have a distance education alternative to their local
brick-and-mortar public school this coming school year.
Cyber-charters are those charter schools set up for distance
education. Like other charter schools,
they are public schools approved by local school districts with 5 year
“charters” to compete with other public schools. For each student that they enroll, they are paid by the student’s
school district approximately 80% of what it would normally cost that school
district to educate the child. Unlike
most charter schools, cyber-charters are approved by one district but usually
enroll students in other districts as well.
Thus they are public schools that provide competition to local public
schools across the state.
NEW STARTUPS
Last year a cyber-charter school start-up, the Western
Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School (WPCCS), founded by the Midland School
District in Beaver County, enrolled 529 students from 105 school
districts. This coming school year
there will be several new startups::
·
Intermediate
Units in Allegheny County, Chester County, and Mercer County are each planning
to start up their own cyber-charter schools.
They will apply some of the expertise that they have gained through
Internet education courses for teachers.
·
Former U.S.
Secretary of Education Bill Bennett's K12 organization is planning to
make a Norristown cyber-charter (Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School) the test
bed for the innovative back-to-basics elementary school curriculum that it is
developing.
·
A former
homeschooling parent is planning to bring knowledge learned from homeschooling
to The Einstein Academy CHarter (TEACH) in Jenkintown.
·
A Lancaster
businessman who was involved in the computer hardware revolution is trying to
start the Commonwealth Cyber Charter School in order to build a small community
of on-line learners.
A NEEDED OPTION
For the parent, the cyber-charter school is a public home
education option giving a second home education option to parents in
Pennsylvania. The parent receives
educational help, including a computer, an Internet hook-up, and teachers with
whom they consult, but loses the flexibility that many private home
educators have come to treasure. They
must use a non-religious curriculum that is designed to teach the objectives
set by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and they are held accountable
by the staff of the cyber-charter school who monitor the student's work and
interact with the family on a regular basis.
Last year WPCCS asked several students to leave who were not doing the
work.
Cyber-charter schools especially attract those parents who are not
content with their local public schools, but who either cannot afford to buy
home education materials on their own or who lack confidence in their ability
to home educate without help. These
include parents whose children are either homebound because of illness or are
unable to attend a school because of difficulties in the traditional setting
due to poor behavior or poor attendance.
The cyber-charter schools are much less expensive to run than
brick and mortar schools: (1) their overhead for buildings is less, (2) they
don't have to pay staff to police undisciplined children, (3) the
student-teacher ratio can be higher with much of the teaching load being picked
up by involved parents, educational computer programs, and educational videos
distributed through the Internet.
If the cyber-charters continue to expand and provide a quality
education at 80% (or perhaps even less) of the cost of a brick-and-mortar
school education, both parents and taxpayers will reap the benefit that
competition and modern technology can bring to Pennsylvania education.
The writer is co-editor of the “PA Homeschoolers” newsletter. In
his chapter in “Educational Innovation: An Agenda to Frame the Future”
published by the Commonwealth Foundation in 1994 he called for a public home
education option in Pennsylvania.
Click
here to read this article on the Tribune Review’s Website
Click here to find links to
PA’s Cyber-Charter Schools
Click here to read Howard's
testimony about cyber-charter school bills
Click
here to return to the PA Homeschoolers Home Page