Current News
Defending cyber schools
Letter to the editor, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Rep. Karen Beyer's legislation on public cyber schools ("Cyber school reform bill pushed," June 4 and PghTrib.com) is a thinly veiled attempt to set limits on school choice and put at risk more than 21,000 Pennsylvania families who've found a solution to their children's educational challenges through cyber schools.
Rep. Beyer would have you think cyber schools are a massive drain on school budgets. They account for less than half of 1 percent of what we spend on education in Pennsylvania, and school districts spend less money per pupil on cyber students.
Beyer has simply refused to let the facts get in the way of her agenda.
This agenda apparently is protecting the status quo by stomping out innovation and competition to do the bidding of the same group of bureaucrats who spend millions on lavish buildings and Astroturf and whose debt service alone for these luxuries would dwarf what is spent to educate public cyber school students.
There is no other credible explanation for her actions, because public cyber schools are legitimate, thriving and successful.
Jenny Bradmon,Rices Landing
The writer is president of Pennsylvania Families for Public Cyber Schools.