Dear Families,

Rep. Karen Beyer's district newspaper has come out in favor of her anti-cyber school legislation.

The Sunday editorial in the Allentown Morning Call once again shows an almost willful ignorance of how cyber schools operate and how they are regulated. It seems the writers swallowed whole Beyer's bogus "accountability" argument.

To present her legislation as fair, as a way "to level the playing field" is appalling. The truth is school districts spend 40 percent less on cyber students -- not the other way around.  I have include the full text at the end of this alert.

If you live where the Morning Call is available, please let the newspaper know they are wrong!

Send your letters to:  Letters to the Editor, The Morning Call, Box 1260, Allentown, PA. 18105, or you can go to their website http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion and follow the "submit a letter" instructions.  Remember to include your address and phone number (for verification only).

Ten for the T

As you know, we are a non-profit parent organization. We can never match the resources of some of the powerful bureaucracies that oppose public cyber schools, but we can and have turned up the volume and educated our lawmaker and the public about the facts.

So, we created these wonderful T-shirts to continue to raise the level of awareness and offset some of the cost of our activities and the materials we produce.

Make a $10 contribution and get a white T-shirt with our logo on the front and "Many families ... One voice" on the back. You will look great and you will be helping to protect our schools!

You can find an order form on our website: http://www.pacyberfamilies.org

Keep your stories coming

Thanks to those who set in their stories in the past week. We are working to get them posted on the website. This is a critical part of our efforts to keep our schools open. It is hard to deny our children when they become more than just numbers for bureaucrats to manipulate. Please send your stories to info@pacyberfamilies.org.

Thank you for all your efforts. I believe we are going to need each and every one of you before this fight is over.

Stay Energized!

Jenny Bradmon, president

The Allentown Morning Call (PA)

Editorial:  House bill would set high standards for cyber charter school accountability

December 9, 2007

State Act 88 of 2002 established cyber charter schools, which provide students with computers, an Internet connection, on-line curriculum and teachers. But many questions have since surfaced, prompting state legislators to seek more oversight and put them on a level playing field with the traditional ''bricks and mortar'' public schools. It's all about accountability.

On Wednesday, the House Education Committee voted to send House Bill 446, proposed by Rep. Karen Beyer, R-Lehigh and Northampton, to the full House for debate. The proposed law would give the state Department of Education more control over 11 cyber charter schools, even though their funding would still come from the local school districts whose students use them.

A number of good aspects of House Bill 446 resulted from negotiations among Rep. Beyer and the Department of Education, the governor's office and the auditor general. For example, all cyber charter school employees who have Internet contact with students would be required to undergo background checks.

Tuition rates have varied between the cyber schools, so the bill would establish a single statewide rate. State education officials would use a formula that takes into account the average tuition rates of successful cyber schools -- those achieved adequate yearly progress on the state's standardized test in the 2006-07 school year.

The minimum hours that the state's 17,000 cyber students would be on-line must meet state compulsory attendance requirements, that is, 180 days per school year. Each cyber school would have to submit reports to state education officials to verify that this goal is being attained.

Though there would be no enrollment cap for cyber schools, they would have to request approval from state education officials before increasing enrollments. In addition, cyber schools in Pennsylvania would be prohibited from using state or school district funds for non-residents of the state. There also is a provision to prevent conflicts of interest within the schools' structure. Board members of a cyber school would be prohibited from doing business with the school or management of the school. Also, any person affiliated with the management of the school would be prohibited from sitting on the board of trustees.

Cyber charter school people have complained that they are being reined in too tightly. Some have gone so far as saying the bill's intent is to destroy the cyber schools or even that this would be a first step toward ''going after'' all charter schools. We don't buy that.

Cyber charter schools fall under the same education umbrella as the other public schools in this state. It is only reasonable that they must live up to the same standards as public schools, whose funding, after all, makes their existence possible. The House should pass this bill.