Cheers, jeers for report calling for crackdown on cyber charter schools

The primary author of a national report that calls for a crackdown on low-performing cyber charter schools said Thursday that the goal was to spur conversation. It did.

Hours after the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released the report, critics of online charter schools said they welcomed its findings and recommendations.

Companies that manage online schools and some charter advocates dismissed the study and questioned the research on which it was based.

Susan DeJarnett, a Temple University law professor who has been researching and writing about problems with Pennsylvania's cyber charter schools for years, said she was intrigued by many points in the report.

"I certainly think it's interesting and kind of confirming a little bit," she said. "I think some of the suggestions they make are spot-on."

Jeanne Allen, founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform in Washington, said of the report, "It's nothing new."

She noted that most of the data cited in the report were released last fall as part of a large national study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University and others.

Allen called the report "well-intentioned" but said, "We have got to stop making policy prescriptives based on aggregated data and averages that ignore individual outcomes."

Todd Ziebarth, a senior vice president at the National Alliance and lead author of the report, said the findings on the poor performance of cyber charters were so stark that they prompted his group and others to issue "a call to action."

The 16-page document said that data from CREDO and other research organizations showed that the vast majority of the nation's 135 cyber charters perform worse than traditional public schools.

The report urges state education leaders to change policies and increase oversight to improve online charters and close chronically underperforming ones.

The National Association of Charter School Authorizers in Chicago and 50CAN, a nonprofit in Washington that advocates for high-quality education, endorsed the report.

"The hope is it will serve as a foundation for some difficult conversations that need to be had in a number of states about full-time virtual charter schools," Ziebarth said.

It marked the first time national charter groups had sounded such an alarm.

"It's one thing for researchers to say this, and another for charter-advocacy organizations," Ziebarth said. "At the end of the day, we want to see states create a better regulatory environment for these schools that will lead to better performance by the students in them."

Pennsylvania, which has 13 cyber charters that enroll 35,250 students who receive online instruction in their homes, is one of the nation's "big three" in cyber enrollment.

None of those schools met the state's most recent benchmark for academic performance.

State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, who has called for an overhaul of the state's 1997 charter law, said he was reviewing the report and thought some of its findings and recommendations - particularly around cyber funding - could be helpful.

As is the case in many states, Pennsylvania cyber charters receive the same funding as charter schools that have buildings.

Connections Education, a for-profit firm that manages 30 cyber charters across the country - including Commonwealth Connections Academy in Harrisburg - said it welcomed an informed conversation about virtual charter schools. However, Connections, which is based in Baltimore, said the report offered no new analysis and perpetuated "false stereotypes" that are at odds with what it sees in its schools.

Tim Eller, executive director of the Keystone Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said that although the state's cyber charters face academic challenges, parents have chosen to enroll their children in them for many reasons.

Eller, whose group does not represent cyber charters, added: "While academic accountability is critical for any public school, if parents are not satisfied with the education their child receives from a cyber charter school, they can remove their child and enroll him or her in another public school choice option."

martha.woodall@phillynews.com 215-854-2789 @marwooda