What It Is, Why It Matters, & How You Can Help

What It Is: Cyber charter schools are tuition-free, online-only public schools that operate independently but are funded by local school districts. When a student living in the Elk Lake School District enrolls in a cyber charter, our district is required to pay that school a tuition fee—even though we have no oversight of their spending or academic performance. Most of these dollars come from property taxes that are raised at the local level. 

The problem? Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools have been operating since 2002, but the way they’re funded is still based on a 1997 law designed for brick-and-mortar charter schools.

This outdated system means that…Cyber charters receive the same tuition payments as in-person charter schools, even though they don’t have the same expenses (like safety measures, school buildings and grounds, and on-site student services). Tuition rates vary widely because each school district calculates its own rate based on local expenses—not on the actual cost of educating a student in a cyber charter. This results in vastly different tuition payments for students receiving the same online education. Because of this broken funding model, Elk Lake SD and other districts are overpaying millions to cyber charters that are being spent on things unrelated to educating students. This drains local education budgets and shifts critical resources away from our students. It is important to note that this issue is not about limiting school choice. It's about pro-fiscal responsibility. The call for a reform is solely focused on ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly and that cyber charter schools are funded based on actual costs. Without reform, this outdated system will continue to place an unnecessary financial burden on taxpayers while failing to improve student outcomes. View the websites below to see how taxpayer dollars have been used by cyber charter schools.

View Ed Voters’ report on how one cyber charter school uses our tax dollars.
Cyber Charter Waste of the Week provides examples of how specific cyber charters waste tax dollars.