Geoffrey Baker
It’s budget season in Harrisburg — in extra innings. The “game” was supposed to end on June 30th. But for the third year in a row — to coin a phrase — it’s Groundhog Day, again.
We do not know when the budget will be finalized. We do not know how much taxpayer money will be spent — and how much of our emergency fund savings will be raised. But I’ll wager a Victory Beer that the final budget will increase spending, and include these Harrisburg classics: More money for SEPTA, More money for Harrisburg agency bureaucrats (even those working from home,) and a lot more money for public school districts (notwithstanding that about $24,000 is already spent for each student, on average.)
But not for everyone. Because politics needs someone to kick around: cyber charter school students are in danger of getting less, again. Probably the only group of Pennsylvanians that will get their funding cut — and for a second year in a row.
Cyber school students — the nearly 70,000 K-12 students across the state from Erie to South Philly, from the Poconos to the West Virginia border, attending one of the fourteen cyber schools (digital online schools), Harrisburg’s piñata — will likely be hit again.
Pennsylvania’s second-fastest growing type of education (second only to home schooling), digital online schools are overseen by the PA Department of Education, operating as public schools that are managed independently.
We all know that when the deal is made in Harrisburg, under pressure by Governor Shapiro, taxpayers will spend even more taxpayer money. And more will be thrown at public school districts, whether they’re succeeding or not, whether they’re safe or not. Why? Because more is better — for his allies and pet projects. More funding, even though Pennsylvania’s student population is falling. And despite the reality that more and more parents in Pennsylvania’s shrinking pool of students are looking for alternatives — Catholic and other faith-based schools, charter schools, home schooling, and yes, cyber charter schools.
Since cyber schools were created by bipartisan legislation in 2002, those students had been given about 68 percent of the funding that they’d have gotten if they had attended their local, neighborhood public school. Last year they were cut to about only 65 percent — because cyber school students get “too much money.”
So, in 2024-25, they got less money. And they’re scheduled to get less for this school year, 2025-26. Shapiro — and too many legislators, including every House Democrat — plan to cut them again for this school year — after classes are already in session. And cut them for 2026-27, too.
If you can’t beat ‘em, cut their funding.
Only in the upside-down, backwards world of government, do politicians keep pumping money into the system that’s losing customers (students), and pull money away from what is working. And when it comes to public education, that’s the approach on steroids. Despite the wishes of more and more parents.
Pennsylvania students are going elsewhere — to cybers, and home schooling. (And, the number on waiting lists hoping and praying for education scholarships to attend a Catholic, religious, independent or private school are on waiting listings as large as the Philadelphia School District!) Rather than investigate why — and, rather than funding the schools parents want, Shapiro and too many in Harrisburg are using our tax dollars — or withholding our tax dollars — to reward the schools losing students, and punish the students who found an alternative.
Why? Politics. Power. And money.
Rather than embracing school choice, too many want to limit parent choices.
Some critics hide behind the argument that cyber school test scores are “low.” Well, two thoughts: (1) they’re often comparable to, or higher than, the public schools the students come from; and (2) students often flee to cyber schools after their public school failed them — often other schools didn’t work either. They enroll in cybers because they aren’t learning — can’t read well and can’t do grade level math.
Then the education-industrial-complex comes in and yells at cybers for not immediately fixing the problems created by school district schools. Chutzpah!
Governor Shapiro, who campaigned as a school choice advocate, who told the nation on live TV that “every one of Pennsylvania’s children deserves a shot,” is sadly focused on rewarding the teachers union, not empowering parents. He vetoed the one chance at school choice — Lifeline Scholarships. And, he’s doubled down as he is lobbying for the third year in a row to cut the funding for cyber charter school students.
As a reminder, cyber school students receive only 65 percent of what their next door neighbors receive to go to a local public school. Guess where the other 35 percent goes? To the coffers of the public school district that the child left — for schools that are not providing an education!
And yet, Shapiro — and “Acting Governor” Matt Bradford (PA House Democrat Leader) — want to take away even more, to feed the teachers union, who hates any competition.
Politics. Power. Money.
It’s the opposite of school choice, the opposite of empowering parents. It’s penny wise and pound foolish — and the direct opposite of “every child of God deserves a shot.”
Shameful. Shortsighted. Cruel.
