Cyber excess: Taxpayers should not over-fund charter schools
There is something very wrong with an education funding system that has public school districts chopping staff and ending programs while a publicly funded charter school is making so much money that it can pay millions to its spinoff companies.
The operators of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, the state's first and largest online charter with more than 11,300 students, channeled their innovation into two offshoot management entities, one a nonprofit and the other a for-profit firm.
Part of the reason that's been possible is the amount of taxpayer money the online school receives far exceeds what it costs to educate cyber students. Payments to all charters are based on school districts' costs of teaching their students but, while bricks-and-mortar charters spend an average of $13,411 per student per year, cyber charters spend an average of $10,145, according to a state auditor general's report.
The online schools get to keep that average $3,266 per student, and those dollars add up for a
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