Dear Families,

The Pennsylvania School Board Association is pressing its members to push for anti-cyber school legislation before the Legislature takes its summer break at the end of June.

PSBA is telling it members it needs a "full-court press" in the newspapers and in Harrisburg to get the house to act on HB 446!

Our best response is a big turnout on May 13 for our Day on the Hill, where we fill the halls of the Capitol with cyber families meeting with their state representatives and letting them know how public cyber schooling has given their children the best chance at a quality education. Please go to this link http://www.pacyberfamilies.org/register08 and register now! We need you!

Chat Sessions 

If meeting with your representative seems a bit intimidating, we will be holding chat sessions to discuss how to talk with your representatives, how to get around the Capitol, and other issues and plans for May 13. We hope you are able to attend one of these sessions!

Just go to this link on the scheduled date and time which are below:

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=559&password=M.A451B8679389286466CB219FAE8249

Our chat sessions will be held on:

                        April 28 at 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm

                        May 1  at 2:00 pm  and 7:00 pm

                        May 5, 6 and 8 at 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm

If you have not used the Elluminate program, you will need to download the application which only takes a few minutes.  Please log into the session early.

Foundation tells the truth

Now that its school budget season, I am sure there you will be reading stories about how public cyber schools are draining local budgets even though they only account for less than one half of one percent of education funding across the state.

I have included a piece below from a Harrisburg public policy think tank that makes some great points you can incorporate in a letter to the editor of your hometown paper when these stories appear.  Most papers provide a way to send the letter via e-mail, just go to their websites and follow the instructions.

Thanks again for your dedication and keep those registrations coming!

See you in Harrisburg on May 13.

Stay energized!

Jenny Bradmon, president

Answers to Attacks on Cyber Schools

Nathan Benefield, Commonwealth Foundation

One of our loyal readers asked for some help responding to attacks on Cyber School Funding and a lobbying effort by Pennsylvania School Boards Association (PSBA) in support of HB 446 (sponsored by Rep. Beyer).

Essentially the claims of the critic were that cyber schools take money from school districts, don't need as much money because they have no buildings, have excessive fund surpluses, don't require students to take the state tests (PSSA), have no accountability, don't educate special needs students, only take formerly homeschooled students, and a number of other myths. The PSBA push is centered on the claim the HB 446 will save taxpayers $18 million.

We answered these claims in our report Edifice Complex and in our Cyber Schools FAQ as well as previously on this blog, but here is quick rundown of my response:

1.       Cyber schools get NO FUNDING for buildings and other expenses, no federal funds, and no funding for special education except for special education students (about 11% of all cyber students). In total this means that cyber schools get only about 73% of the funding per-pupil as public schools.

1. Total spending on cyber schools is 0.49% of total education spending. School Districts spend 22 times that amount on school construction alone. Beyer's bill would save homeowners (by her own estimates) about $4 per homeowner.
2. Public schools have large surpluses as well. The only limit on surpluses in when schools want to issue new debt. About 30% of districts had fund surpluses in excess of the limit they want to impose on cyber schools.
3. Cyber schools need to keep a surplus because (a) they are growing and (b) school districts often refuse to pay. Tim Allwein of the PSBA even attempted to justify this non-payment like school districts are Henry David Thoreau practicing civil disobedience.
4. Cyber schools reports to the state are readily available. When we testified on Beyer's bill, Bob Maranto took a picture of himself next to the bookshelf full of binders at one of the cyber schools.
5. Cyber schools students Do TAKE the PSSA, their results are posted online at PAAYP.com.
6. Cyber school students DO NOT come from primarily from previously homeschooled families. Cyber enrollment went from 0 to 20,000 in 7 years. The number of home schooled students went from 23,900 to 22,200 in that time. School district enrollment dropped 70,000.
7. Since cyber students cost so much less, and the school district gets reimbursed from the state, they keep about 50% of the per-pupil funding for children they no longer educate. This allows them to increase per-pupil spending, while reducing class size and the need for new construction.
8. Cyber schools can be shut down if not performing adequately. They only get funding when parents choose them-let's apply these same standards to school districts.