Nov 10, 2015 3 min read

Charter schools have been marketed as a free-market solution to public school problems – they’re privately run, some even on a for-profit basis, and can operate without the encumberances of teacher unions, administrators and some regulations, even as taxpayer money is funneled to them. This, we have been told, will lead to innovation and experimentation that will boost student performance.

Cyber charter schools are, in theory, supposed to take the charter-school promise a step further, offering students the opportunity to partake of the educational ingenuity provided by charters, with the added bonus that the students won’t even have to step out of their homes or away from their computer screens.

The jury is still out on whether students in charter schools actually do excel in comparison to their public school peers, with some studies suggesting they do no worse, but ultimately no better.

But a pretty definitive verdict has been delivered about cyber charter schools, and it’s damning.

A study released late last month by three research organizations, including Stanford University’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) found that cyber schools are falling behind – way behind – in comparison to students in public schools.

The study found that the cyber schools have an “overwhelming negative impact” and that the deficiencies in reading achievement would be the equivalent of losing 72 days of learning in a public school, and 180 days of math instruction. The latter is quite a feat, considering that a typical school year lasts 180 days.

The Center for Reinventing Public Education, one of the participants in the study, along with CREDO and Mathematica Policy Research, stated that “with such high enrollment in a limited number of schools … a program that is lacking in quality may affect many thousands of students within one school and even more nationwide, especially if it is permitted to operate year after year with no accountability.”

The report mentions Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in Beaver County, which once enrolled about 11,500 students but has lately seen that number drop, undoubtedly due in large part to the fact that its founder, Nick Trombetta, is awaiting trial on charges of fraud and theft. And, last week, state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale announced that he was going to launch an audit of spending at Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School.

According to a report on KDKA-TV, the audit is being undertaken after teachers with Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School complained that Lincoln Learning Solutions, a national company that provides online curricula to cyber charter schools, is not updating its offerings every year as it is supposed to do, and the curriculum it offers is so wanting that the teachers often end up improvising and creating their own. All told, Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School pays $36 million in taxpayer dollars to Lincoln Learning Solutions every year.

DePasaquale told KDKA, “If you’re spending that kind of money and the teachers are developing their own curriculum, it really leaves a big question as to what the taxpayers are getting for their $36 million.”

From all indications, it could be little more than snake oil.