Needed are individuals who will call their Pennsylvania State Legislators and PA Senators to invite them to either visit their school or to visit their home to see how cyber charter schooling works.
Background:
Over the last year and 1/2 the PA House Legislature Education Committee hosted 6 public hearings throughout the state. These first five hearings allowed supporters and opponents of cyber charter schools to present their opinion(s) concerning the anti-cyber legislation sponsored by State Representative Karen Beyer (R). As long as both sides could be heard, her legislation went nowhere.
In December of 2007, she presented “amendments” to her bill at a hearing where only her side was allowed to speak. These “amendments” structurally changed the bill and added provisions that had not previously been discussed. The overall strategy of the bill was to confuse the issue by offering 31 provisions that were designed to hold Cyber Charter Schools more accountable. In fact, all but two of the provisions were already encoded in law, or were not necessary, or were counterproductive to the purpose proposed. These provisions were designed to mask the true intent of the new legislation – that is to dramatically reduce the funding for Cyber Charter Schools. This one objective has been the goal of the PA School Boards Association and the PA Teacher’s Union(s) from the beginning.
In anticipation of that hearing, the PA Coalition of Charter Schools asked supporters of Cyber Charter Schools to send faxes to their state legislators on the Education Committee. Over a period of 62+ hours over 13,000 (thirteen thousand) faxes were sent to the 33 members of this committee. This deluge caused the Committee to hold their meeting at a time and place that shut out the press and caused the Committee to limit debate from supportive state legislators.
The new anti-cyber Beyer bill passed the Education Committee with much browbeating from the Governor’s office who promoted this bill as a payback for the ½ million dollar contribution from the teacher’s union.
What will make a difference? There are plenty of reasons for the Appropriations Committee to allow this bill to die in Committee. We know from private meetings with state legislators on the House Appropriations Committee that they understand the underhanded way in which this bill was passed. We would like for every member of the House Appropriations Committee to have an opportunity to visit a Cyber Charter School or to visit the home of a Cyber Charter School family and to learn the truth about Cyber Charter Schools.
Will you join us in this effort?
You may discover which one is yours at the PA Coalition of Charter Schools CLICK HERE.
Use the address (vs. the zipcode) process for more accurate results.
You may learn more about your legislator at the PA Coalition of Charter Schools website or visit: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/ for a listing of all state legislators and senators with links to their personal websites.
After you make contact with your state representative(s), please contact us at ilovemycyberschool@yahoo.com to allow us to follow up with additional information and to keep track of what is happening.
Sincerely,
Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School CEO’s
