Tag: Charters

Universal vouchers have public schools worried about market share

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by Laura Pappano, The Hechinger Report
November 6, 2025

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As principal of Hartsfield Elementary School in the Leon County School District, John Olson is not just the lead educator, but in this era of fast-expanding school choice, also its chief salesperson.

He works to drum up enrollment by speaking to parent and church groups, offering private tours and giving Hartsfield parents his cell phone number. He fields calls on nights, weekends and holidays. With the building at just 61 percent capacity, Olson is frank about the hustle required: “Customer service is key.”

It’s no secret that many public schools are in a battle for students. As school started in Florida this August, large districts, including Hillsborough, Miami-Dade and Orange, reported thousands fewer students, representing drops of more than 3 percent year over year. In Leon County, enrollment was down 8 percent from the end of last year.

Part of the issue is the decline in the number of school-age children, both here and across the country. But there’s also the growing popularity of school choice in Florida and elsewhere — and what that means for school budgets. Leon County’s leaders anticipate cutting about $6 million next year unless the state increases its budget, which could mean reduced services for students and even school closures.

Other Florida school districts are also trimming budgets, and some have closed schools. As districts scramble for students, some are hiring consulting firms to help recruit, and also trying to sell seats in existing classes to homeschoolers. There is also the instability of students frequently switching schools — and of new charter or voucher schools that open and then shut down, or never open at all as promised.

Two years after the Florida Legislature expanded eligibility for school vouchers to all students, regardless of family income, nearly 500,000 kids in the state now receive vouchers worth about $8,000 each to spend on private or home education, according to Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that administers the bulk of the scholarships. And Florida’s Tax Credit Scholarship, created in 2001 to allow corporations to make contributions to private school tuition, is the model for the new federal school voucher program, passed this summer as part of Republicans’ “one big, beautiful bill.” The program, which will go into effect in 2027, lets individuals in participating states contribute up to $1,700 per year to help qualifying families pay for private school in exchange for a 1:1 tax credit.

“We are in that next phase of public education,” said Keith Jacobs of Step Up For Students, who recruits public school districts to offer up their services and classes on its educational marketplace. “Gone are the days when a government institution or your zoned neighborhood school had the authority to assign a child to that school.”

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That’s a problem for Leon County Schools, which boasts a solid “B” rating from the state and five high schools in the top 20 percent of U.S. News’ national rankings. The district, located in the Florida panhandle, serves a population of around 30,000 students, 44 percent of whom are Black, 43 percent white and 6 percent Hispanic.

“There’s just not enough money to fund two parallel programs, one for public schools and one for private schools,” said Rocky Hanna, the Leon County Schools superintendent.

Over the past few years, the Legislature has increased state and local funding for charter schools and created new rules to encourage more to open. (Charter schools are public schools that are independently operated; the Trump administration recently announced a $60 million increase in charter school funding this year, along with additional competitive grants.)

But vouchers are the big disrupter. The nonprofit Florida Policy Institute projects annual voucher spending in Florida will hit $5 billion this year. In Leon County, money redirected from district school budgets to vouchers has ballooned from $3.2 million in 2020-21 to nearly $38 million this academic year, according to state and district figures. Enrollment in local charter schools has also ticked up, as has state per-pupil money directed to them, from $12 million to $15 million over that time.

As a mark of how the landscape is shifting, Step Up For Students is now helping districts market in-person classes to homeschoolers on the group’s Amazon-like marketplace to fill seats and capture some money. Jacobs said Osceola County put its entire K-12 course catalog on the site. A year of math at a Miami elementary school? It’s $1,028.16. And just $514.08 for science, writing or P.E.

“A student can come take a class for nine weeks, for a semester, for a year,” said Jacobs, adding that 30 districts have signed on. They are thinking, he said, “if we can’t have them full-time, we have them part-time.”

Leon County is considering signing on, said Hanna, “to basically offer our courses à la carte.” It could be a recruitment tool, said Marcus Nicolas, vice chair of the county’s school board. “If we give them an opportunity to sniff the culture of the school and they like it, it could potentially bring that kid back full-time.”

Related: Federal school vouchers: 10 things to know

Because of his shrinking budget, Hanna is looking at cuts to IT, athletics, arts, counselors, social workers and special tutors for struggling students, along with exploring school closings or consolidations.

Another challenge: With more school options, a growing number of students are leaving charters or private schools and enrolling in the district mid-year. Yet state allocations are based on October and February enrollment counts.

Last year, 2,513 students — about 8 percent of Leon County’s district enrollment — entered after February. “Those are 2,500 students we don’t receive any money for,” Hanna said at an August school board meeting.

Public schools do a lot well, but have been slow to share that, said Nicolas. “We got lazy, and we got complacent, and we took for granted that people would choose us because we’re the neighborhood school,” he said.

Even as more parents choose private voucher schools, it’s not necessarily easy for them to determine if those schools are performing well. Although Florida State University evaluates the state’s Tax Credit Scholarship program, its report lags by about two years. It includes an appendix with voucher schools’ test scores, but there is no consequence for low performance. And scores cannot be compared, because even though schools must test students in grades 3 to 10, the schools pick which test to give.

The result, said Carolyn Herrington, director of the Education Policy Center at Florida State University, who has written some of the evaluation reports, is that “the only real metric here is parent satisfaction,” which she said “is not sufficient.”

Yet many parents like the idea of school choice. According to a poll released last month by EdChoice, a school choice advocacy group, just over half of all Americans and 62 percent of parents broadly favor school vouchers.

Related: Florida just expanded school vouchers — again. What does that really mean?

Mother Carrie Gaudio, who attended the local charter school her parents helped to found, was surprised when her son Ross visited Hartsfield Elementary, a Title I school that serves a high percentage of low-income households — and loved it.

Before enrolling him, however, she and her husband, Ben Boyter, studied the enrollment situation. The school was under capacity, but they noticed more students coming each year.

“We felt like if they ended up having to close a school it wouldn’t be one that’s had continual increases in enrollment,” she said, and added, “it’s a real bummer that you have to consider that, that you can’t just consider, ‘Are these people kind? Is my kid comfortable here? Do we feel safe here?’”

Indeed, a school that a parent chooses one year may close the next.

That’s what happened last year to Kenia Martinez. Since fall 2022, her two sons had attended a charter school run by Charter Schools USA, among the largest for-profit charter operators in the state. Last spring, she learned from a teacher that the school, Renaissance Academy, was shutting down.

Previously named Governor’s Charter Academy, Renaissance recently received a “D” grade, and saw enrollment fall from 420 students in 2020-21 to 220 last year. It also ran deficits, with a negative net position of $1.9 million at the end of the 2023-24 school year, according to the most recent state audit report. It closed last May.

The school building was to re-open as Tallahassee Preparatory Academy — a private school — which was advertised on its website as a STEM school for “advanced learners” that would charge a fee, ranging from $1,500 to $3,200, in addition to the money paid through a voucher.

The school was to be run not by Charter Schools USA but by Discovery Science Schools, which operates several STEM charter schools in the state. The deal revealed a possible exit strategy for faltering charters: conversion to a private voucher school that gets state money, but without the requirement of state tests, grades or certified teachers — in other words, without accountability.

Yet as this school year began, the building remained dark. The parking lot was vacant. There was no response to the doorbell, or to emails or phone calls made to the contact information on the new school’s website. Discovery Science Schools’ phone number and email were not in service, and emails to founder Yalcin Akin and board president David Fortna went unanswered. A Charter Schools USA spokesperson, Colleen Reynolds, wrote in an email that “CUSA is not involved with the building located where the former Renaissance Academy Building stands” and did not provide additional clarification on why state audit reports indicate otherwise.

The Leon County School Board fiercely debated whether to sue Charter Schools USA for access to the building and its contents, which had been funded with taxpayer dollars. But school board members dropped the idea after learning that the building had a large lien, the result of how financing was crafted through Red Apple Development, the real estate arm of Charter Schools USA. Hanna was frustrated that for-profit companies benefited from taxpayer dollars — but still owned the assets.

Related: Inside Florida’s ‘underground lab’ for far-right education policies

When Renaissance announced it was closing, a friend of Martinez’s suggested her family apply for vouchers, which covered the full cost of attendance for her two sons at the Avant Schools of Excellence, a private Christian school with campuses in Tallahassee and Florida City.

The school takes vouchers (along with a school scholarship) as full payment, although its website lists tuition and fees at $22,775 per year. Martinez liked that the school is Christian, and small. None of their friends from Renaissance Academy are there. Martinez drives them 30 minutes each way, every day.

The Tallahassee building that houses Avant was previously home to at least two charter schools. (One lasted a month.) Since the campus opened three years ago, said Donald Ravenell, who co-founded Avant with his wife, enrollment has jumped from 55 to 175.

Ravenell, who on a recent weekday wore a red and blue tie (school colors are red, white and blue), attributed the school’s success to a focus on faith (“We talk about God all the time”) and the aim of preparing each student to be “a successful citizen and person.”

Like Olson at Hartsfield, he well understands this is a competitive marketplace. He wants his school to be known for offering a quality product, which he underscored by drawing a comparison to fried chicken.

“I have nothing against Chester’s Chicken,” said Ravenell, referring to the quick-service chain sold in gas stations and rest stops. But he expects Avant to reach for more: “We want to be Chick-fil-A.”

Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at preston@hechingerreport.org.

This story about school vouchers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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Laura Pappano

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November 5, 2025
HISD: Will Some of Its Schools Get to Go Their Own Way? – Houston Press

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Houston ISD Wednesday announced it was exploring a new “Level 5” of autonomy for the best of its high schools which would allow them to set up partnerships with other organizations and form their own management boards.

These partners – non-profits or charters — would manage the principal and the school. Partnerships would operate for a minimum of three years and no more than 10, prior to renewal.

There are asterisks. Only high schools can apply and the change must be approved by the state-appointed Board of Managers. An eligible school must have had an A rating from the Texas Education Agency for the past four years. Also, that the schools “have less than 25% Black-White and Hispanic-White achievement gaps on the ELA and Math STAAR exams.”

So why would HISD want to hand off its most successful schools containing some of its best and brightest, most accomplished students to some other entity?

In a press statement, Superintendent Mike Miles called this “a bold opportunity for Houston ISD’s most successful and innovative school leaders to enjoy a greater level of flexibility, increased resources, and the stability that comes from being managed by their own non-profit board. By enshrining student outcome targets, including achievement gap benchmarks in the performance management contract, HISD will ensure that these schools continue their track-record of serving all students well, while ushering in an era of increased innovation for these schools.”

And elsewhere in the press release: “HISD believes that with increased autonomy, these high schools can continue to innovate while preserving the unique characteristics and programs that make them beloved to their students, families, alumni, staff, and broader community.”

Frequent critics of the Miles administration like Ruth Kravetz of Community Voices for Education interpret the Level 5 offering in an entirely different way.

“They’re doing this to placate the parents.”

What she’s referring to is the increasing outcry from parents at some HISD schools afraid that the New Education System introduced by Miles with its timed instruction and daily testing will come to their schools. They see no need for it in their already successful schools. They don’t want it for their kids.

“This is the off-ramp from NES,” Kravetz says, pointing out that this is only open to a select group of schools and no matter how much other schools and their parents might want to do this, they don’t get a chance to do so.

The district already has seen a drop in enrollment. Parents and other community members continue to show up for the public comment section of board meetings to express their dismay with the changes in teaching methods that go beyond just the 130 schools officially falling under the NES umbrella.

Going farther, Kravetz refers to this as the coming “Balkanization of HISD,” breaking it down into smaller units, independent of the other, and as she sees it, leading to more charters in the district. To be clear, HISD already has in-district charters. The question as she sees it is how many more will there be?

Senate Bill 1882 set up the partnership legislation but the earliest this could happen would be for the 2026-27 school year. Schools that choose this path would receive some extra funding for students, but whether they could sustain themselves with operating costs, HVAC units breaking down, plumbing needs is another question, Kravetz says.

Other questions: would top level, veteran teachers want to make the move to the new charters the schools would become? Or would the schools be filled with even more novice and/or uncertified teachers? Would students and their parents want to move to a charter?

She points to the closure of the highly rated Mount Carmel Academy that was funded by HISD but because of declining enrollment closed in 2024 despite being open since 2009.

HISD makes an absolutely true statement when it says: “Before the state intervention, all of HISD’s 273 schools operated with a great deal of autonomy with very little accountability. This led to grave inequities and the failure to provide high-quality educational opportunities for the vast majority of HISD students.”

What many parents have objected to, however, is the level of centralization in the new HISD, the disappearance of librarians and what they see as an administration bent on securing for high test scores rather than providing a well-rounded education.

In 2022, then Board President Judith Cruz and board member Sue Deigaard unsuccessfully proposed letting any HISD school that wanted to become a charter, do so as long as 60 percent or more of parents agreed to the change. Opponents declared they didn’t want HISD to turn into a charter district and that this would undermine public schools in HISD.

New Orleans, which went all charter after Katrina, was frequently mentioned as a failed experiment.

The difference in this latest proposal is that gaining Level 5 autonomy would be restricted to just a few schools and it would still need to be approved by the Board of Managers.

HISD administrators have already met with principals about this initiative. “Earlier this school year, HISD staff met with the principals of those high schools that meet the high standard for Level 5 autonomy to share information about the initiative, discuss its benefits to the schools, and gauge the school leaders’ initial interest in exploring the process of gaining further autonomy. In turn, eligible school leaders have begun an informal process of engaging their teachers, staff, PTO/PTA leaders, and key stakeholders.”

It should be noted, this highest level of autonomy is far from a sure thing.As the press release noted: “While HISD is in the early stages of exploring increased autonomy with eligible schools, no final decisions have been made by either the District or schools, who we expect to deeply engage with their staff and key stakeholders before moving forward.”

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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Margaret Downing

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October 23, 2025
OPINION: I’d love to predict what a Kamala Harris presidency might mean for education, but we don’t have enough information – The Hechinger Report

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Predicting the future is often compared to reading tea leaves. In the case of forecasting what education policies Kamala Harris might pursue as president, though, a more apt analogy might be reading her mind. Frankly it’s anyone’s guess what her education policies would be given how few clues we have.

It wasn’t always this way. Previously, presidential candidates laid out detailed plans for schools. George H. W. Bush wanted to be the education president. Bill Clinton wanted to use stronger schools to build a bridge to the 21st century. George W. Bush wanted to leave no child behind, and move the Republican party in a more compassionate direction. Barack Obama wanted Democrats to break with teacher unions by embracing merit pay.

But in more recent cycles, education has dropped from the list of voters’ top-tier issues, and candidates have become increasingly cagey about their plans.

Donald Trump’s administration was known for its advocacy of school choice, but that wasn’t something he talked much about on the campaign trail in 2015 or 2016; it only came into focus with his selection of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education.

And Joe Biden’s unwillingness to challenge progressive orthodoxy on education would have been hard to predict, given his moderate persona in 2019 and 2020. What turned out to be the best guide to his education policies was his self-identity as the “most union-friendly president in history” — plus the membership of his wife, community college professor Jill Biden, in the National Education Association.

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So here we are with another election in which education issues are barely registering, trying to predict what Harris might do if elected. She has said even less than Trump or Biden, partly because of the truncated nature of her campaign, and partly because of her strategy of leaning into positive vibes and declining to offer policy specifics in the hope that doing so will better her chances of prevailing in November. Official statements — a Harris campaign policy document and the Democratic Party Platform — are thin on details.

Making things even harder is Harris’ well-known willingness to run away from previous positions. She did that in 2019 when the Black Lives Matter movement made it awkward for her to embrace her record in law enforcement — including her tough stance on prosecuting parents of truant children.

Expect a new era of isolation, separatism and a “politics of humiliation” in education

That’s why looking at Harris’ statements from the campaign trail five years ago or her record as a U.S. senator only goes so far.

What we do know is this: She’s sitting vice president. She has positioned herself in the middle of the Democratic Party, not wanting to break with progressives on the left or business-friendly centrists in the middle.

And while her image is not blue-collar like Biden’s, she’s been careful not to put any sunlight between herself and the unions, including teachers unions. One of her first speeches as the presumptive Democratic nominee was to the American Federation of Teachers.

For these reasons, it is likely that a Harris administration would bring significant continuity with Biden’s policies, including on schools.

Picture her appointing a former teacher as secretary of education, proposing healthy increases in school spending and speaking out against privatization, book bans and the like. Call it the Hippocratic Oath approach to Democratic policymaking on education: First, do no harm.

Can those of us involved in K-12 education hope for bolder strokes from a President Harris — including some that might move the needle on reform? Anything is possible.

Her selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate thrust the issue of universal free school meals onto the national radar, given Minnesota’s leadership on that policy. Perhaps she will throw her support behind a congressional effort to provide federal funding for such an initiative.

The most significant play we might anticipate, though, could be on teacher pay. Boosting teacher salaries by $13,500 per year (to close the gap with other professionals) was the centerpiece of her education agenda when she ran for president in 2019.

It’s a popular idea, especially since so many Americans underestimate what teachers are paid today.

She has a ready vehicle to pursue it thanks to the looming expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which makes new legislation around tax reform a must-pass item for Congress next year. The most straightforward way for the federal government to put more money into teachers’ pockets isn’t through a complicated grant program to states and districts, but via tax credits that would flow directly to educators.

The tax code already allows teachers to deduct up to $300 for classroom expenses. There are also several student loan forgiveness programs for teachers.

A major teacher tax credit could quickly get expensive, however, given the size of America’s teaching force (3 to 4 million depending on how you count it). At, say, $10,000 per teacher, that’s $30 to $40 billion a year — in the neighborhood of what we spend on Title I and IDEA combined.

A smarter, more affordable approach would be to target only teachers serving in high-need schools — as the student loan forgiveness programs already do. Studies from Dallas and elsewhere acknowledge that great teachers will move to high-poverty schools — but only if offered significantly higher pay, in the neighborhood of $10,000 more per year.

We also know that when we pay teachers the same regardless of where they teach — the policy of almost every school district in the country — the neediest schools end up with the least-experienced teachers.

A tax credit for teachers in Title 1 schools — which get government funding for having high numbers or high percentages of students from low-income families — could transform the profession overnight, significantly closing the teacher quality gap, school funding gap and, eventually, the achievement gap, too.

Related: OPINION: If Trump wins, count on continued culture wars, school vouchers and a fixation on ending the federal Department of Education

Given Democrats’ interest in boosting the “care economy,” perhaps such a tax credit could flow to instructors in high-poverty childcare and pre-K centers, as well. This would fit well with Harris’ promise to move America toward an “opportunity economy,” including by boosting the pay of childcare and preschool teachers.

Still, a big effort on “differential pay” for teachers might be just one wonk’s wish-casting. We’ve had two presidential administrations in a row with little action on K-12 education. It’s quite likely that a Harris administration would be a third.

But here’s hoping for a pleasant surprise after November.

Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He served in the George W. Bush administration.

Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.

This story about Kamala Harris’ education policies was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

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Michael J. Petrilli

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October 7, 2024
Why thousands of Philly families are switching to cyber charter school – The Hechinger Report

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This story was produced by Chalkbeat and reprinted with permission. Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter.

Sameerah Abdullah sends her three school-aged kids to a cyber charter school for some of the same familiar reasons that other families across the nation do, including the flexibility and personalization. For financial literacy class, they go to the bank to open an account. For science class, they head to a museum. On nice days, they try to get out of the city and into the woods.

But her motivations are also deeply personal, cultural, and, in some ways, unique to Philadelphia. Abdullah was an intern for a school guidance counselor in West Philly before having children and was struck by the exhausted teachers, the unappetizing cafeteria food, and the students’ cursing and bad behavior.

The city’s gun violence epidemic has only strengthened her resolve. Her nine-year-old son, Musa, was separated from his father during a mass shooting in a West Philly park during an Eid al-Fitr celebration in April and has struggled with loud sounds ever since.

Sameerah Abdullah holds her daughter Maimoonah Abdul Hakeem, 3, while her children Asiyah Jones (left), 6, Dawud Jones, 7, and Musa Moore, 9, do schoolwork in their home in Philadelphia. They are some of the nearly 15,000 Philly students enrolled in cyber charter schools. Credit: Caroline Gutman for Chalkbeat

Another reason, Abdullah thought, to keep her kids home.

“The shooter actually brushed through him when he was running,” said Abdullah, whose children attend Reach Cyber and Commonwealth Charter Academy. “At that moment, it made me realize, I had to teach my kids what to do in a crisis situation.”

Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.

Abdullah is part of a growing number of Black, brown, and low-income Philadelphians turning to cyber charters because they see them as a safe and flexible educational option for their families. Nearly 15,000 of Philadelphia’s more than 197,000 students attended a virtual cyber charter school last year — a 55 percent increase since the 2020-21 school year.

In fact, Pennsylvania has quietly become the “cyber charter capital of the nation” according to a report from the education advocacy group Children First PA. Nearly 60,000 students statewide were enrolled full time in cyber charters in 2023-24, according data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Children First researchers found Pennsylvania enrolled more full-time cyber students than any other state — including ones like California, Texas, and Florida with much larger K-12 student populations.

Like traditional charter schools, cyber charters are publicly funded but independently run schools approved by the state Department of Education. There are 13 cyber charter schools operating in Pennsylvania, as well as a smaller virtual academy run by the Philadelphia school district for the past decade. School districts across Pennsylvania collectively send those 13 schools an estimated $1 billion a year, including almost $270 million from the Philadelphia school district last fiscal year.

Asiyah Jones, 6, works on her laptop at her home in Philadelphia. Asiyah likes to draw, and her mom Sameerah said she can incorporate artistic opportunities into Asiyah’s English and math lessons. Credit: Caroline Gutman for Chalkbeat

Philadelphia families like Abdullah’s told Chalkbeat they are increasingly choosing virtual schools for the schedule flexibility, smaller class sizes, and safety and bullying concerns at their childrens’ traditional schools. Gun violence fears in particular have driven some of the demand for online options, according to families who spoke with Chalkbeat.

While gun violence overall is down in Philadelphia, 40 percent of gun violence victims this year were younger than 18, according to city data. Though the majority of Philadelphia’s gun violence does not take place on school property, as the Trace recently reported, five Philadelphia schools were among the top 10 nationwide in experiencing shootings near their buildings in the last decade.

But as more families in Philadelphia withdraw from the traditional district in favor of these cyber charter schools, the charter operators have come under fire from public education advocates for failing to improve student performance. The state has acknowledged in its decision letters renewing several cyber schools’ charters that some of the organizations are not performing up to their standards, but has stopped short of revoking their charters.

With cyber charter enrollment rising as traditional district enrollment shrinks, education advocates say the state should be taking a more hands-on approach to ensuring the operators are delivering a quality education – and holding accountable those that don’t.

“These schools are failing to ensure that the kids they bring in are learning and will be able to graduate, ready for a productive career or higher education,” said Susan Spicka, executive director of the public education advocacy group Education Voters PA. “That is a huge problem.”

Related: How for-profit charter schools are selling parents on staying virtual

Remote learning was thrust into the public eye during the pandemic, when school closures shuttered buildings and students across the country learned online. But parents like Shawna Hinnant enrolled their children in cyber charter schools long before COVID.

A resident of the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia — a community that has grappled with a thriving open-air drug market and concentrated gun violence – Hinnant said she didn’t feel comfortable having her kids walk to school on sidewalks littered with discarded needles and other drug paraphernalia.

Additionally, her two sons had experienced bullying at both traditional public schools as well as brick and mortar charter schools.

“That’s why I decided to go with the online school because I felt like it was safer,” said Hinnant.

Hinnant said she was also drawn in by the resources the cyber charter schools offered: Free printers, gift cards to Target for school supplies, and computers.

Musa and Dawud look at their schoolbooks. Credit: Caroline Gutman for Chalkbeat

Many Spanish-speaking Philadelphians are also choosing cyber charters run by Latino-led organizations because of gaps they say persist in the traditional district’s language and cultural services. And Muslim families like Abdullah’s likewise are moving online to incorporate more spiritual, cultural, and religious teachings alongside the traditional curriculum.

“Now that the whole COVID thing has dwindled down a little bit, it’s kind of like, ‘hey, you know what, my kids did really well,’ or ‘I liked having my student at home’ … or ‘I’m not home and I don’t want my child to walk to school.’ It’s a safety issue,” said Lisette Agosto Cintrón, principal at the district-run online school, the Philadelphia Virtual Academy, and a former principal at ASPIRA bilingual cyber charter school in the city.

Related: Communities hit hardest by the pandemic, already struggling, fear an enrollment cliff

Agosto Cintrón said she has also worked with families of students with chronic illnesses or are homebound. Her students also come from households that have been disrupted due to domestic violence, refugee situations, or threats of gun violence against families stemming from “neighborhood beefs.”

“Transiency doesn’t matter in my world,” Agosto Cintrón said. “The school travels with the child.”

Though families told Chalkbeat they’re mostly happy with the education their children are getting online, cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania have reported lower standardized test scores and graduation rates than all schools statewide. According to a Chalkbeat analysis of 2023 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) test score data, 36.8% of cyber charter school students scored proficient or better in English language arts, compared to 53.5% of students statewide, and 13.7% scored proficient or above in math, compared to 33.4% statewide. (Their results are mixed when compared to the Philadelphia school district’s scores — 34.2% proficient or better in English and 20.4% proficient or better in math.)

Dawud (left) and his brother Musa listen to their Muslim studies instructor. The ability to incorporate religious and cultural practices into their education was a major reason why their mom enrolled them in cyber charter school. Credit: Caroline Gutman for Chalkbeat

Sarah Cordes, an associate professor and education researcher at Temple University, has researched cyber charter high school students and found that they tend to have worse test scores and higher rates of chronic absenteeism than traditional public school students, even when controlling for the differences in student population. Students who enroll in a cyber charter school are 9.5 percentage points less likely to graduate in four years, Cordes found, and are 16.8 percentage points less likely to enroll in a postsecondary institution.

“What really stood out is just how consistently negative the results were, and that it was across populations,” Cordes said. “It didn’t seem to matter if you came from an urban district or a rural district or a suburban district, it seemed pretty equally bad.” Cordes said her results were consistent across race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, “which is unusual in education research.”

The state has considered cyber charters’ lagging test scores when authorizing or renewing the schools, but, in most cases, has stopped short of revoking their charters.

Take Reach Cyber, the school that Musa and his brother Dawud attend. In July, Pennsylvania Education Secretary Khalid Mumin wrote in a letter to the school that for the past few years “students in all grade levels and all subjects have significantly underperformed on the PSSA and Keystone Exams, specifically when compared with traditional public schools.”

Still, despite these concerns, the education department granted Reach a five-year charter renewal.

The state education department included identical language in the renewal decision letters for PA Distance Learning Charter School and Insight PA Cyber Charter School.

To be sure, test score data comes with complexities. Unstable home situations don’t often create ideal test taking environments, cyber charter operators have said. What’s more, many families who choose cyber charter schools because of their nontraditional outlook on education are more likely to opt-out of standardized testing.

And cyber charter operators argue that students perform better on state tests the longer that they attend the schools, but their student populations tend to move in and out of virtual learning. (Cordes’ analysis, though, didn’t back up that assertion at the high school level.)

Jane Swan, CEO of Reach Cyber, said in an email that “cyber charter school student scores can’t and shouldn’t be compared to brick-and-mortar school scores.” Swan said the school conveys the importance of state tests to families but “many families invoke their right to refuse testing due to philosophical, health, or logistical reasons.” She also noted that students arrive at the school “significantly below grade-level proficiency.”

Dawud spends some time on his laptop for class, but his family also makes sure to build in time for recess and playing outside. Credit: Caroline Gutman for Chalkbeat

Parents like Abdullah said they look beyond test scores and overall school performance when choosing cyber charters.

“I think that with my children, the testing is important, but at the end of the day, character building is important, being responsible is important, being a good neighbor. Community work, that’s important as well,” she said. Abdullah is also an experienced educator herself and is pursuing her doctorate in education online with a focus on student safety and mental health.

Beyond performance, critics of cyber charters accuse them of drawing vital funding away from struggling traditional public schools, since district schools send cyber charters the same per-student tuition it would spend educating a child in one of its classrooms, minus some costs for transportation and facilities. Districts must send this tuition payment for every student who lives in the city but is enrolled in a cyber charter, regardless of whether that child was ever educated by the district.

Advocates have called foul on the state’s four largest cyber charter schools for using those funds to amass nearly $500 million in real estate, such as office space and parking lots, and more than $20 million on advertising and gift cards. Cyber charter leaders have defended their spending, saying their schools retain physical assets to protect their finances from instability. Furthermore, the operators say they need buildings to house technology infrastructure like servers, office space for school staff, and “family service centers” where parents can get in-person assistance.

Related: Luring Covid-cautious parents back to school

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Harrisburg has put forth efforts to reform the way cyber schools are funded and monitored, but the boldest changes haven’t gained much traction.

The most recent state budget Gov. Josh Shapiro signed in July included $100 million to reimburse school districts for payments they make to cyber charter schools and some alterations to the way special education students are counted and funded. But the wholesale reforms some lawmakers had proposed did not make it into the final budget.

Calls by local school boards for more oversight cross party lines, according to Lawrence Feinberg, director of the Keystone Center for Charter Change, who has been following the growth of cyber charter schools.

“I know public education is far from perfect, but theoretically, there’s accountability built into it. It seems to me that for 20 some years, accountability has been missing from the cyber charter arena, both fiscally and performance-wise,” Feinberg said.

Despite the drawbacks, parents are still seeking online learning

While advocates fight for more oversight of cyber charters, some families in Philadelphia say they’re not happy with their traditional neighborhood schools and don’t have time to wait for the district to improve.

Still, for some students, the adjustment to online learning can be hard.

Starlynne Santiago, 18 and an engineering technology student at Drexel University, said making the switch to a cyber charter was “scary” at first for herself and her brother, Skyler Rodriguez, 12. But she forged close bonds, even over the computer screen.

“Overall, I think the education was the same, and I feel like the connections I had with the teachers were way closer than what I had in-person school,” she said.

Ultimately, Santiago was able to graduate a year early from Reach Cyber by taking summer classes and working with career coordinators to focus her studies on engineering.

Her brother said it’s been harder for him to make friends in online school, and while he wants to finish middle school virtually, he’s not sure it’s the right fit for him long term.

Related: How four middle schoolers are making it through the pandemic

Musa, active and gregarious, and his mom have different philosophies about his future as well.

Though he loves going to school with his siblings, “once I get to middle school, I would like to go to a real school,” Musa said. “I don’t want to be in middle school and have my whole life be on a laptop. … I like to talk and help others.”

Abdullah said she recognizes her children are outgoing and need friends, socialization, and time outdoors. She said she works hard to tailor their online school experience so that they can travel, meet up with other online families, take field trips, and play with their friends in the neighborhood.

Her goal, she said, is to one day create a space where families like hers can join up, and do online homeschooling together.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

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October 3, 2024
PARENT VOICE: They call it ‘school choice,’ but you may not end up with much of a choice at all – The Hechinger Report

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If you live in Arizona, school choice may be coming to your neighborhood soon. As someone who has had more school choice than I know what to do with, I can tell you what may feel like a shocking surprise: Private schools have the power to choose, not parents.

I live inPhoenix, where the nearby town of Paradise Valley is getting ready to offer the privatization movement’s brand of choice to families. The district has indicated that it will likely vote to close four public schools due to insufficient funds. If this happens, other districts will probably follow: The state’s recent universal voucher expansion has predictably accelerated the diversion of money from public to private schools.

Arizona approved use of school choice vouchers, called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, or ESAs, in 2011 on the promise that they were strictly for children with special needs who were not being adequately served in the public school system. The amount of funds awarded to qualified students was based on a tiered system, according to type of disability.

Related: Arizona gave families public money for private schools. Then private schools raised tuition

Over the years, the state incrementally made more students eligible, until full expansion was finally achieved in 2022. For some students, the amount of voucher money they qualify for is only a few thousand dollars, nowhere near enough to cover tuition at a private school. Often, their parents can’t afford to supplement the balance. However, my son, who is autistic, qualified for enough to cover full tuition.

I took him out of public school in 4th grade. Every school I applied to seemed to have the capability to accommodate his intellectual disability needs but lacked the willingness. Eventually, I found a special education school willing to accept him. It was over an hour from our home, but I hoped for the best. Unfortunately, it ultimately was not a good fit.

I then thought Catholic schools would welcome my son, but none of them did. One Catholic school principal who did admit him quickly rescinded the offer after a teacher objected to having him in her class.

The long list of general, special-ed, Catholic and charter schools that turned my son away indicate how little choice actually exists, despite the marketing of ESA proponents.

There was a two-year period where I gave up and he was home without social opportunities. I was not able to homeschool, so a reading tutor and his iPad became his only access to education.

I then tried to enroll him in private schools for students with disabilities.

These schools were almost always located in former office suites in strip malls with no outdoor access. My son’s current school shares space with a dialysis center in a medical building, while a former school was located in a small second-floor suite in a Target plaza.

Once a private school admits your child, they can rescind admission without cause. Private schools are at leisure to act as virtual dictatorships, and special-ed schools in particular are notorious for keeping parents at a distance.

My son’s current school grew tired of my requests for reasonable communication about his school day or even his general progress and made his continued enrollment subject to my acceptance of their decision not to speak to me at all.

With few other choices, I acquiesced to the school’s ultimatum and am keeping my son there while I search for a better option once again — even as he gets closer to aging out of K-12 education. As of now, he has nowhere else to go. There has never been a moment when I couldn’t accept my son for who he is; why can’t private schools do the same — especially those that market themselves to the special needs demographic?

Education is a human right, and public schools, open to all, are the guardians of this right. What privatizers call choice does not really exist.

As ESAs and private schools siphon off money and public schools start closing down, parents will be horrified to discover that nothing can defeat the closely held advantages of a private system designed to keep them out, and no amount of vouchers will make a difference.

When all the public schools are closed, and you can’t get a private school to accept your child, what will you do?

Related: School choice had a big moment in the pandemic. But is it what parents want for the long run?

Vouchers gave my son social opportunities that he wouldn’t have had otherwise, along with tutors to help mitigate private education deficits. But he would rather attend a local school, with kids in his neighborhood, or at least the kind of private school ESA marketing promised him.

I hope that as more families experience the exclusion and powerlessness that we have lived with, they’ll realize that a balance between public and private is necessary and an excess of either at the expense of the other is disastrous.

Every day on our way to my son’s special education school, we drive by an elegant, sprawling private school campus. He waves at the children and pretends they’re his friends. He still asks to go there.

Pam Lang is a writer and graduate student at ASU pursuing master’s degrees in comparative literature and social work, and an advocate for public education and healthcare equality.

This story about school choice was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

Join us today.

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February 13, 2024
UN to vote on resolution saying Russia must pay reparations

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UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly scheduled a vote for Monday on a resolution that would call for Russia to be held accountable for violating international law by invading Ukraine, including by paying reparations.

The draft resolution, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, would recognize the need to establish “an international mechanism for reparation for damage, loss or injury’” arising from Russia’s “wrongful acts” against Ukraine.

It would recommend that the assembly’s 193 member nations, in cooperation with Ukraine, create “an international register” to document claims and information on damage, loss or injury to Ukrainians and the government caused by Russia.

Russia’s veto power in the 15-member Security Council has blocked the U.N.’s most powerful body from taking any action since President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24. But there are no vetoes in the General Assembly, which already has adopted four resolutions criticizing Russia’s invasion.

Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, but they do reflect world opinion and have demonstrated widespread opposition to Russia’s military action.

The proposed resolution is co-sponsored by Canada, Guatemala, Netherlands and Ukraine. General Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said Tuesday that there will not be a debate on the draft resolution, but countries can give an explanation of their vote before or after the assembly takes action.

The resolution would reaffirm the General Assembly’s commitment to Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity” and reiterate its demand for Russia to immediately “cease its use of force against Ukraine” and withdraw all its forces from Ukrainian territory.

It also would express “grave concern at the loss of life, civilian displacement, destruction of infrastructure and natural resources, loss of public and private property, and economic calamity caused by the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine.”

The draft recalls that Article 14 of the U.N. Charter authorizes the General Assembly to “recommend measures for the peaceful adjustment of any situation … which it deems likely to impair the general welfare of friendly relations among nations including violations of the Charter.

It also refers to a General Assembly resolution adopted on Dec. 16, 2005, titled “Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law.”

Soon after Russia’s invasion, the General Assembly adopted its first resolution on March 2 demanding an immediate Russian cease-fire, withdrawal of all its troops and protection for all civilians by a vote of 141-5 with 35 abstentions.

On March 24, the assembly voted 140-5 with 38 abstentions on a resolution blaming Russia for Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis and urging an immediate cease-fire and protection for millions of civilians and the homes, schools and hospitals critical to their survival.

The assembly voted 93-24 with 58 abstentions on April 7 — significantly lower than on the first two resolutions — to suspend Russia from the world organization’s leading human rights body, the Human Rights Council, over allegations that Russian soldiers in Ukraine engaged in rights violations that the United States and Ukraine have called war crimes.

But on Oct. 12, the assembly voted overwhelmingly again — 143-5 with 35 abstentions — to condemn Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian regions and demand an immediate reversal,

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November 8, 2022
Today in History: October 24, the UN charter takes effect

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Today in History

Today is Monday, Oct. 24, the 297th day of 2022. There are 68 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On Oct. 24, 1945, the United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect.

On this date:

In 1537, Jane Seymour, the third wife of England’s King Henry VIII, died 12 days after giving birth to Prince Edward, later King Edward VI.

In 1861, the first transcontinental telegraph message was sent by Chief Justice Stephen J. Field of California from San Francisco to President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., over a line built by the Western Union Telegraph Co.

In 1940, the 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

In 1952, Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower declared in Detroit, “I shall go to Korea” as he promised to end the conflict. (He made the visit over a month later.)

In 1962, a naval quarantine of Cuba ordered by President John F. Kennedy went into effect during the missile crisis.

In 1972, Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, who’d broken Major League Baseball’s modern-era color barrier in 1947, died in Stamford, Connecticut, at age 53.

In 1991, “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry died in Santa Monica, California, at age 70.

In 1992, the Toronto Blue Jays became the first non-U.S. team to win the World Series as they defeated the Atlanta Braves, 4-3, in Game 6.

In 1996, TyRon Lewis, 18, a Black motorist, was shot to death by police during a traffic stop in St. Petersburg, Florida; the incident sparked rioting. (Officer James Knight, who said that Lewis had lurched his car at him several times, knocking him onto the hood, was cleared by a grand jury and the Justice Department.)

In 2002, authorities apprehended John Allen Muhammad and teenager Lee Boyd Malvo near Myersville, Maryland, in the Washington-area sniper attacks. (Malvo was later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, but Maryland’s highest court has agreed to reconsider that sentence in 2022; Muhammad was sentenced to death and executed in 2009.)

In 2005, civil rights icon Rosa Parks died in Detroit at age 92.

In 2020, heavily protected crews in Washington state worked to destroy the first nest of so-called murder hornets discovered in the United States.

Ten years ago: Less than two weeks before Election Day, President Barack Obama set out on a 40-hour campaign marathon through battleground states; Republican Mitt Romney looked to the Midwest for a breakthrough in a close race shadowed by a weak economy. Hurricane Sandy roared across Jamaica and headed toward Cuba, before taking aim at the eastern United States. The San Francisco Giants took the first game of the World Series, 8-3, over the Detroit Tigers, as Pablo Sandoval became the fourth player to hit three home runs in a World Series game.

Five years ago: Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona announced that he would not seek re-election in 2018; he’d been critical of the path the GOP had taken under President Donald Trump. Fats Domino, the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer whose hits included “Blueberry Hill” and “Ain’t That a Shame,” died in Louisiana at the age of 89. Actor Robert Guillaume, who won Emmy awards for his portrayal of the sharp-tongued butler in the sitcoms “Soap” and “Benson,” died in Los Angeles at 89. In a game that began in 103-degree heat, the Los Angeles Dodgers opened the World Series with a 3-1 victory over the Houston Astros in Los Angeles; Clayton Kershaw was the winning pitcher in his World Series debut.

One year ago: Pope Francis called for an end to the practice of returning migrants rescued at sea to Libya and other unsafe countries. Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” debuted with $40.1 million in ticket sales in its opening weekend in North America, drawing a large number of moviegoers to see the thundering sci-fi epic on the big screen despite it also being available to stream in homes. British pop star Ed Sheeran said he had tested positive for COVID-19 and would do interviews and performances from his house while he self-isolated. Tom Brady became the first player to throw 600 career touchdown passes and then tacked on two more in Tampa Bay’s 38-3 rout over the Chicago Bears.

Today’s Birthdays: Rock musician Bill Wyman is 86. Actor F. Murray Abraham is 83. Movie director-screenwriter David S. Ward is 77. Actor Kevin Kline is 75. Congressman and former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume (kwah-EE’-see oom-FOO’-may) is 74. Actor Doug Davidson is 68. Actor B.D. Wong is 62. Actor Zahn McClarnon is 56. Singer Michael Trent (Americana duo Shovels & Rope) is 45. Rock musician Ben Gillies (Silverchair) is 43. Singer-actor Monica Arnold is 42. Actor-comedian Casey Wilson is 42. R&B singer, actor and TV personality Adrienne Bailon Houghton is 39. Actor Tim Pocock is 37. R&B singer-rapper-actor Drake is 36. Actor Shenae Grimes is 33. Actor Eliza Taylor is 33. Actor Ashton Sanders (Film: “Moonlight”) is 27. Olympic gold medal gymnast Kyla Ross is 26. Actor Hudson Yang is 19.

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October 23, 2022