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School districts across Pennsylvania are looking to the State General Assembly to pass legislation that would shift the burden of cyber school tuition from the student’s home school district to the State Department of Education. The districts argue that the tuitions they are required to pay under current state law far exceed the actual cost of a cyber school education. Payments are increasing each year as more students chose cyber schools.

Unlike traditional school districts, cyber schools are permitted to accumulate surpluses with no cap. Currently, five of Pennsylvania’s 12 cyber schools reported fund balances of over 30 percent for the 2005-2006 school year, according to legislative testimony before the House Education Committee.

Districts also argue that cyber schools escape the accountability checks and balances built into home schooling, the other educational alternative parents have to remove their children from a “bricks and mortar” school environment. For instance, there are no comparable requirements to keep attendance logs or other records of study that exempt a home school student from normal school attendance.

“I really believe we are doing a tremendous disservice to kids in Pennsylvania by allowing this option,” said David Price, superintendent of the East Lycoming School District in Lycoming County. East Lycoming is paying approximately $180,000 for 23 students who are enrolled in cyber schools, a cost that wiped out the district’s increase in state funding for the current school year.

The General Assembly is considering legislation (House Bill 446) that critics of the current and accountability systems for cyber schools maintain would help address these problems. The proposed legislation would, among other provisions:

• Transfer funding of cyber schools from school districts to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. 
• Place restrictions on cyber school tuition related to student enrollment. 
• Subject cyber schools to all current school district budgeting requirements, including placing caps on fund balances.

Cyber schools fall under the state’s 1997 charter school law that requires districts to pay tuition for each of its enrolled students. The tuition is equal to the district’s per pupil costs minus a pro rata share for programs that cyber schools do not provide. Tuition costs greatly exceed the amount of state subsidy a district would receive for the cyber school student since state subsidies generally are much lower than actual per pupil costs.

According to many district officials, many cyber school students are former home school students for which the districts receive no current state reimbursement. Price and other superintendents say they are blind-sided by cyber school tuition costs because they often do not know how many students will enroll in cyber schools until the start of the school year, after the district’s annual budget is approved.

Critics maintain the tuition funding formula allows cyber schools to rack up large surpluses because the funds they receive are disconnected from the actual cost of providing the education. The cost is much lower than traditional schools because cyber schools do not pay for things like maintenance or utilities.

Price’s school district, for instance, started its own cyber school where costs run $1,500 to $2,000 per student, compared to the district’s 2004 per pupil cost of $8,494 for “traditional schooling.” In comparison, the district must pay approximately $8,000 to outside cyber schools. The districts, meanwhile, see virtually no decrease in their operating costs when their students enroll in cyber schools because the number of students is spread out among all ages so that, there is little ability to reduce the number of teachers or other grade-level expenses.

Cyber school proponents tout the opportunities they provide for individualized learning and the option they offer for students who find it difficult to learn within a traditional school building. Others agree that cyber schools offer an important alternative, but argue against the flawed funding formula and the lack of accountability.

--Article contributed by the Pennsylvania Economy League, Central Division