Cyber charter is a magnet for money
State's largest online public school pays millions to companies run by its former executives.
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The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, which was searched by federal agents Thursday, pays tens of millions of dollars a year to a network of nonprofit and for-profit companies run by former executives of the state's largest online public school.
The relationships between the Beaver County-based school and those businesses were a concern to former Gov. Ed Rendell's administration, which late in its tenure asked PA Cyber for better accounting of its payments to spin-off entities. Gov. Corbett's Department of Education, though, opted early on to let the relationships continue without heightened accountability.
The amount of public money that flows to PA Cyber and then out through its spin-offs has grown dramatically as the school's enrollment has surged to around 11,300 students statewide.
During the 2010-11 school year, the last for which data are available, PA Cyber got $103 million