Cyber charters in Pennsylvania are a money pit because they are not subject to the same rules as public schools. Charter lobbyists must have written the charter laws as they have in other states. And they protect their freedom from scrutiny despite the fact that the founder of the first and biggest cyber charter operator in the state was sentenced to prison in 2018 for his failure to pay taxes on $8 million that he skimmed from the school’s funds. (Note that he was not jailed for embezzling funds but for not paying taxes on the money.)
Peter Greene discovered another way that the state’s cyber charters get favored treatment. Public schools are not allowed to sit on millions of dollars of rainy day funds. Cyber charters are.
I remember what charter advocates promised back in the late 1980s when the idea of charters was first being sold. Charters would be more “accountable” than regular public schools.
But now we know:
Accountability is for public schools, not for charter schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“However, it is one more way in which cybers are not subject to the same kind of oversight and accountability that public schools are, and that there is no way to characterize this non-regulation as beneficial to students–it is, in fact, the exact opposite. It makes it really easy to take taxpayer dollars and NOt spend them on students.”
Charters, unlike public schools, don’t require regulation or oversight because the people who run, staff and manage charter schools are more ethical and less self-interested than the people who run, staff and manage public schools.
This is the ed reform governance theory. Public schools = bad people, charter schools = good people.
It’s the assumption behind the charter laws they write. It’s why they make a big public show of demanding “transparency!” from public schools while giving charters and publicly funded private schools a complete pass.
It’s why charter operators and charter lobbyists can never be “self interested” but public school operators and public school lobbyists always are.
Back in the days of the “Golden Fleece Award” some senator would give out yearly for wasted taxpayer money, few media outlets failed to publish these stories about the $750 hammers bought by the military or the ridiculous research someone got for a grant. Often the grant was for completely useful research and the journalists failed to do their homework. In any case, the so-called liberal media joined gleefully in the campaign to discredit any governmental activity.
So where are they now? Scandal after scandal has rocked the Charter School industry, and any journalist who is worth a dime could get a story sitting in their chair and reading this blog. They could even go confirm the truth or falsehood of the litany of privatization depredations taking place across the country. But the liberal media are as silent as a boy breaking wind in church.
How do you create the same backlash against privatization today as the privatizers created in the Golden Fleece days?
Sadly, The Golden Fleece is still fleecing, but we hear little about it. My husband has done taxes for military contractors that admit to keeping double books. Any system that sends large amounts of unaccountable tax dollars to private vendors without accountability will find an abundance of waste and fraud attached to it. BTW, Trump deliberately gutted the IRS so there would not be enough forensic accountants to go after the “big fish” that have tax accountants and lawyers on speed dial. Privatization without accountability is a gravy train of corporate welfare, and the wealthy get to ride for free.
William Proxmire, the creator of The Golden Fleece Awards, was one of the better senators. He had his failings but, overall, his positives outweighed his negatives, such as his opposition to the Vietnam war.
Question for the ed reform echo chamber:
If all public school advocates and lobbyists are “self interested” are all charter school advocates and lobbyists also “self interested”?
If not, why not? Charter/voucher advocates and lobbyists are just inherently morally superior people compared to public school advocates and lobbyists?
Pennsylvania has a very regressive school funding program in which the poorest schools receive less funding for their greater needs. Pennsylvania is 44th in the amount of state funding that schools receive. As a result, the remainder must be funded through local tax levees. All these disparities exist before more money is siphoned off by privatization. Useless cyber charters receive a disproportionately high rate of reimbursement for their failure, and they also received millions from the American Rescue Act. The state legislature has been unwilling to make changes as many key people in the legislature have ties to charter schools. Pennsylvania’s school funding system is seriously flawed. As a result, there is is ongoing court case on the issue.
This brief article in the ‘Phila. Inquirer’ explains how unfair the funding formula is for the schools of the poorest students. It is written by Laura Boyce, a former teacher and principal. The tiered system provides the most funding for the wealthiest districts and the least for the poorest districts that serve the neediest students. https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/school-funding-lawsuit-pennsylvania-gaps-20220110.html
In the wacky and completely incoherent world of ed reform, teacher union lobbyists are icky and dirty and must be banished, while for profit charter lobbyists are paragons of virtue and working only for “the children”.
Paid lobbyists for charters- good, paid lobbyists for public schools- bad.
Charter/voucher advocate(s) who are paid 6 figures, good. Randy Weingarten who is paid 6 figures, bad.
The only way this “movement” makes any sense is if one puts in a context of preferring privatized and private schools over public schools. Otherwise it just collapses in a heap of inconsistency.
This is not new. The charter movement was built on being opaque (secretive) and not accountable to anyone or any legislation.
In short, a kleptocrat’s perfect dream but a horrible toxic storm for everyone else.
If online learning is so great, why are parents so up in arms about having their own children learning from home instead of in the classroom? Isn’t it hypocritical to support in school learning on one side of the mouth and use the other side to extol the virtues of Virtual Charter Schools?