WESTFALL, PA — Delaware Valley Schools Superintendent John Bell is hoping to convince state lawmakers to take a different tack in considering funding for the state’s cyber charter schools.

At a meeting on November 20, Bell said that he will testify before a hearing of a 15-member House-Senate Basic Education Funding Commission. The commission is tasked with developing and recommending to the Pennsylvania General Assembly a new formula for distributing state funding for basic education to state school districts.

A portion of that state funding package includes funding for 14 cyber-charter schools. According to a policy brief by a Philadelphia research group, Research for Action, the cyber schools enroll students from across the state who receive online instruction in their homes. Some 36,596 Pennsylvania students are registered in cyber schools. Because the students’ home districts pay tuition based on how much each spends to educate students, the cyber schools receive funding at 500 different rates.

Without building or transportation overhead, the cyber schools had revenues of $418 million in 2012-13. That is just short of $30 million each. The data appears on the Education Department’s website.

DV’s budget annually supports $1 million in cyber-charter funding, board member John Wroblewski said at the meeting. “Our taxpayers’ money is going to charters around the state while public schools are failing.”

Bell said the money is not providing a quality outcome. “Not a single charter has passing scores on the core curriculum,” he said.

With a state performance scale score of 70 indicating “movement toward progress,” the average cyber school scored 48.7. By comparison, statewide, the average public school scored 76.9; the average regular charter school scored 65.1.

DV scores at 85 on the 100-point scale, Bell said.

“They have no rules, they’re just sucking taxpayer money out of the system,” Bell charged.

In general, Delaware Valley shares the complaint that the Commonwealth currently has no standing formula for basic school aid, and the lack of it leaves DV and other school boards awaiting last-minute legislative funding decisions each spring as they finalize local budgets.

“The district cannot cut its way to high student achievement, nor can we cut our way to solvency,” Philadelphia superintendent William Hite said during hearings there earlier this month. He noted that many other districts in the state grapple with funding cuts and would benefit from a predictable formula. “Our students don’t get a do-over just because we lack sufficient resources.”

Hite is quoted on the PA Association of School Administrators (PASA) website.

The Basic Education Funding Commission was created with the passage of House Bill 1738, which was signed into law by Gov. Corbett in June, as Act 51 of 2014.

According to the commission website, the new formula will take into account relative wealth, local tax effort, geographic price differences, enrollment levels and local support as well as other factors.