How could that happen? Very easily. The students were enrolling in a so-called "cyber charter school," an institution with no classroom facilities at all, whose pupils log on to the Internet to access materials and communicate with their teachers, usually without leaving home. As far as Mowery was concerned, badly needed money was leaking out to mysterious entrepreneurs with whom nobody in the district was even familiar. "When you're on the Internet," he says, "how do you know where people live? How do you know what age they are?"
Those are central questions in what is gradually becoming a nationwide debate over cyber charter schools--ones that, just like other charters, receive public money and are subject to relatively few regulations. It is a debate about funding, but also about the larger issue of what constitutes public education, and whether cyber pupils are really enrolled at all, or are merely receiving subsidies for what amounts to home schooling.
More than 30 cyber charter schools are currently operating in 12 states. They vary in format and size, but in nearly all of them, kids go online each day, using a school-provided computer and Internet service, for their lessons and assignments. In some cases, live teachers are available, but in most, students work whenever they want and however they want. Supervision, particularly at younger ages, is provided by parents, whose job it is to create interactive learning opportunities and make sure the students are doing their work.
Some cyber charters require the children to appear in person for exams to ensure that they have mastered the material. Others require very little face-to-face contact with school administrators. Most of the time, management and curriculum are not directed in-house; instead, corporations develop courses and run the school. Although some states limit charter enrollment on a geographical basis, many allow any student in the state to attend, making frequent personal meetings difficult.
Cyber charter proponents tout the diversifying field of parental choice, and say the schools benefit kids unable to attend regular public school classes, whether because of illness or time-consuming commitments such as athletics. School administrators are more likely to see the potential for abuse. "I don't know too many things that take the place of a good teacher," says Acting Deputy Superintendent Marvenia Bosley, of Columbus, Ohio, whose district lost $1.5 million last year in subsidies for about 300 students attending an online charter school. "A good teacher does more than present information. A good teacher helps students analyze thinking. Communicating with individuals is a critical component of student learning."
For other administrative officials, the primary issue isn't so much educational philosophy as regulation, or the lack thereof. Of the 25 states that permit cyber charter schools, just two, Pennsylvania and California, have laws specifically dealing with them. Both states implemented legislation as a result of funding and oversight nightmares.
LAWSUITS AND LAWS
In Pennsylvania, home to seven cyber charters, the most conspicuous case was that of The Einstein Academy Charter School (T.E.A.C.H.), the same one Mowery says tried to enroll a student from Texas with money that came out of his budget.When Einstein opened in the fall of 2001, it admitted more than 3,000 students, a number that quickly proved unmanageable. School district officials from different parts of the state began raising issues of accountability. Michael Woodall, superintendent of the Norristown Area School District, says that not only was he unable to verify the addresses of some students allegedly enrolled at Einstein but, in some cases, he could not even verify their existence. As a result, school districts withheld millions of dollars in payments to Einstein.
"There were a lot of different problems, and some ended up ballooning," concedes Tom Sweet, head of Einstein's cyber high school. "If the money was in place at the beginning, I wouldn't foresee at least 80 to 85 percent of the problems, and those that would pop up would have been easier to handle."
Faced with a cash-flow problem, Einstein did not pay teachers for a total of over four months. Students received their supplies late, and at one point, Einstein's Internet service provider pulled the plug for overdue bills. Complicating matters further was public suspicion about the school's ethics: Founder Mimi Rothschild had hired a company headed by her husband to manage the operations. By the end of the school year, about one-third of Einstein's enrolled students had left.
"It created some serious problems for local school districts," says John Gould, superintendent of the Morrisville District, which issued Einstein's charter and consequently bore oversight responsibility for the school. "Many of the assumptions ... of the ability of an individual school district to do the oversight were inappropriate."
It was concerns such as those that drove four districts and the Pennsylvania School Boards Association to sue the state's secretary of education. The plaintiffs, angered by the state's decision to withhold funds from districts that had refused to make payments to cyber charters, argued that cyber schools did not fall under Pennsylvania's 1997 charter law. But a district court and, subsequently, a state court ruled differently.
Instead, action came from the legislature, which voted to give cyber charter oversight responsibilities to the state, rather than the local districts. "Because of the power of the Internet, at least in the context of cyber charter schools, the state is much better- positioned," says Charles Zogby, the Pennsylvania education secretary.
The new law goes further than simply centralizing oversight responsibility. It also attempts to make cyber charters more accountable for their methods and performance. It subjects all online charter schools to a comprehensive application process, and requires the state Department of Education to review each school annually before renewing the charter.
One issue the Pennsylvania law does not address, however, is the issue of students who move from home schooling to a cyber charter, allowing them to remain at home while being subsidized at district expense. Although no comprehensive national study has been done, an overwhelming number of cyber charters report that they have many of these home-school students. "The legislature really didn't do a good job of defining what a cyber charter school is," argues Tim Allwein, of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. "Some of these programs basically send curriculum material to parents who can use it to teach their kids. In our opinion, that's home-schooling. It's not cyber school."
That issue became prominent enough in California for the legislature to enact a law last year that reduces funding for "non-classroom- based" charters over a period of three years. About half of those 90 or so schools were able to secure a waiver, however, and have continued to receive the same funding as other charter schools.
Charter proponents opposed the legislation, arguing that further state oversight of the schools would hamper innovation. They say most charter schools use all the money they get, and that those using their funds improperly will not survive market pressures. "We're concerned that the activities of a very few number of charter schools that didn't do their work carefully and did violate some laws... are causing significant new regulation to be placed on all schools," says David Patterson, of the California Network of Educational Charters. CANEC actively opposed the 2001 law and continues to lobby against further restrictions.
CLOSE SCRUTINY
Not every state has had a bad experience with cyber charters. Florida reports few problems with its Florida Virtual School, which was funded by the legislature in 1997 and now serves about 10,000 students. There is supervision by a seven-member board of trustees, appointed by the governor. But the most reassuring element to district officials is that the Virtual School presents itself as a supplement to regular schools, not an alternative to them. The school does not actively compete for students and does not offer diplomas. "We're not in the business of trying to take students from our schools," says director Julie Young. "We're in the business of trying to give our schools a higher quality of education."Florida's relatively good relations, however, may be more the exception than the rule. In Ohio, for example, a cyber charter known as "The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow" (eCOT) opened two years ago, enrolling more than 2,000 students in grades nine through 12. It took in about $15.5 million in state support and came out $3.8 million in debt. A state audit found that officials had inflated enrollment numbers and that $1.6 million of the school's subsidy may have been given out under false assumptions.
Bill Lager, CEO of the company that runs eCOT, says the enrollment dispute resulted from unclear rules, since cyber charters are a new concept. He attributes much of the school's trouble to unexpectedly high demand and predicts eCOT will make a profit this year. He says he does not believe state oversight is necessary.
