BCT Editorial – 5/18/07

This page was last updated on May 19, 2007.

Right track; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 18, 2007.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Cyber charter schools have managed to unite two traditional foes - the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union.”

[RWC] This is the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” tactic in action. You see, the AFT, PSBA, and PSEA have always been united against the parents, students, and taxpayers of Pennsylvania.

“The Associated Press reports lobbying groups for the PSBA and the PSEA have come out in support of a bill that would require the state to fund cyberschools and limit the amount of tuition the schools can charge.

“The importance of their opposition should not be underestimated. They are among the most powerful special interest groups in Harrisburg.”

[RWC] Oops, the Times is in trouble. The editorial acknowledged labor unions are “special interest groups.”

“The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Karen Beyer, R-Lehigh, calls for the state Education Department to pay for cyberschools, but would limit the amount of tuition the schools can collect to a range of $3,000 to $5,000 per pupil, depending on a school’s enrollment.”

[RWC] If setting a limit on how much cyber charter schools get per student is a good idea, why is it not also a good idea for typical public schools, both charter and “regular?”

“The AP reports that under the state’s 1997 charter school law, school districts must pay tuition rates that are equivalent to roughly 75 percent of the state and local tax dollars they spend per pupil - an amount that varies widely from district to district. Those rates apply to children enrolled in cyberschools and more traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ charter schools.

“Naturally, cyber charter school officials oppose this legislation. They argue that Beyer’s proposed formula would put them out of business.

“That’s debatable.”

[RWC] Let’s put the recommended tuition range of $3,000 to $5,000 into context.

We constantly hear how the Aliquippa and Big Beaver Falls school districts are “poor” school districts. How much tuition do they charge taxpayers via taxes? When I wrote about this a couple of years ago, Aliquippa spent about $9,225 and Big Beaver Falls spent more than $8,500.

Why would it be OK for a school district to have a tuition in excess of $9,000, but cyber charter schools would be limited to 33% to 56% of that?

Is the true objective to provide an education or to build “bricks and mortar” monuments and cater to “Big Education?”

“Beyer is on the right track. As we have argued in previous editorials, cyber charter schools are creatures of the state and are unique because they can draw students from across the commonwealth.

“As such, the state, not local property owners, should be responsible for their chartering and their financing.”

[RWC] The reason the Times, AFT, PSBA, and PSEA are wound up about cyber charter schools is spelled v-o-u-c-h-e-r. You see, cyber charter schools are too much like what we’d see if Pennsylvania had a voucher program for K-12 education. A voucher program would transfer power from monopoly education vendors (school boards and teacher labor unions) to education consumers (parents and students.) As a result, the monopoly education vendors and their philosophical allies can’t afford for cyber charter schools to succeed.

One way to make cyber charter schools fail is to make them too expensive for taxpayers to swallow, just as our system has made most private schools too expensive for most families. Just as parents who want to send their kids to private schools must pay twice (school taxes plus private school tuition), opponents of cyber charter schools want to force taxpayers to pay twice (school taxes plus cyber charter school tuition) for each kid who attends a cyber charter school. These folks assume – probably correctly – taxpayers would not support the extra spending and that would kill cyber charter schools and thus any possibility of a voucher program.

Cyber charter schools represent the first “toe dipped in the water” of a free market for K-12 education, and Big Education simply can’t allow that “dip” to be successful.