The Evening Bulletin (PA)

A number of variable characteristics of traditional public schools run by school districts (e.g. safety of the neighborhood, rigidity of the learning process, demands of the unions) entice many parents to send their children - over 16,000 of them this year - to schools like CCA across Pennsylvania.

"I'm still not used to all this being free," Nancy Devlin said after listening to a description of the curriculum and offered activities at Commonwealth Connections Academy (CCA).

She and her husband, Rob, came to the school on 63rd Street near City Line Avenue to hear a few of its teachers shed some light on what parents can expect if they choose to send their kids there. Students will learn in their homes across Pennsylvania through lessons transmitted via computer. The school rejects no students and it charges their parents no money, for it is a bona fide public school.

A number of variable characteristics of traditional public schools run by school districts (e.g. safety of the neighborhood, rigidity of the learning process, demands of the unions) entice many parents to send their children - over 16,000 of them this year - to schools like CCA across Pennsylvania.

What sets CCA apart from even many cyber schools is its flexible scheduling for students younger than high-school age. The school provides parents textbooks, online lessons and other learning materials as well as guidance for completion of the lessons, but parents may set their child's schooling schedule to suit whatever needs the family may have.

"The student is always at the center of learning," said Alicia Kalthoff, an elementary teacher with CCA.

The school requires students, parents and teachers to schedule fortnightly meetings to discuss the students' progress. The parameters of what children will do as students are determined in a goal-setting meeting between the parents and the teacher at the beginning of the school year.

"There is a constant communication between parents and teachers," Kalhoff said.

Scheduling becomes stricter as students enter their high school years. CCA has gradually been offering higher grades and will complete this process by adding 12th grade next year.

On top of its curriculum, the school offers a myriad of extracurricular activities that students coordinate with each other to work on, such as a chess clubs, a student newspaper, a literary magazine and several others.

While the students' experience may be singular, CCA faces the same educational progress requirements as all other accredited schools in the commonwealth. Students complete Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests, and the school must conform to the Adequate Yearly Progress standards set under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Furthermore, the state can choose to pull the plug on any cyber charter school not deemed to perform acceptably. Every three to five years, a cyber charter's renewal must be submitted for approval by the state.

"There's a higher level of accountability in cyber education," said CCA chief executive Dennis J. Tulli. "We don't get away without any mandates that public schools have," he continued, noting that he worked in the brick-and-mortar public school system for over three decades.

Tulli said the public's understanding of cyber school accountability has become particularly relevant since the introduction in the state House of Representatives of HB 446, a bill that would lift the burden of funding cyber charters from school districts and place it on the state. Funding for cyber schools is expected to drop considerably if the bill passes.

Much of the controversy surrounding schools like Tulli's concerns their funding levels. The Pennsylvania School Boards Association has sought to determine whether school districts should provide funding for cyber charter students to the tune of 75 percent of what they would have spent on a student had he or she remained in a district school. (Traditional public schools are also reimbursed for about 25 percent of the cost of each student leaving their institutions.)

Tulli stands by his school's use of the funding it receives from public coffers. "If you talk about trimming the fat, there is no fat in our budget," he averred.

State Rep. Karen Beyer, R-Lehigh and Northampton, who is sponsoring HB 446, points out that if her bill passes schools will still have the opportunity to make a case to the Pennsylvania Department of Education against cuts in their funding. The department would have final say on statewide per-student expenditures in these schools.

"I'm very confident [the bill will pass], because it's an accountability bill," she said.

Teachers who work for CCA and other charter schools, cyber and otherwise, are not unionized. The school's starting salary is $34,500, slightly less than in most districts in Pennsylvania. CCA's average salary is, furthermore, considerably lower than the average salary for teachers in the Philadelphia school system.

"We do get a lot of great teachers," Tulli said. "It's just that we can't pay what the school districts pay."

What will become of the school if HB 446 passes the General Assembly and gets the governor's signature?

"I would expect that you will find cyber schools that will have to close," Tulli said.

He suspects the schools that don't close will have to scale their operations back considerably. "That would be unfortunate for the parents and the students," he said.

He said that it is quite possible that if CCA's enrollment continues to climb steadily beyond the 1,500 students it educated last year, it might survive another year, even if the House measure is passed. Still, thousands of families watch keenly to see what educational choices will still be available to them in the years to come.