House Democrats are suddenly concerned about safety in our schools, now that it serves their primary education policy goal: eliminating public cyber charter schools and abandoning the 65,000 students they serve.
A new Democratic proposal, the Cyber Student Safety Act, would saddle Pennsylvania’s cyber charter schools with a host of costly, complex and burdensome mandates under the guise of protecting students. Yet cyber schools, by their very nature, operate in virtual environments that eliminate many of the most serious threats students face in traditional schools – bullying, fights, sexual assault, and physical abuse. In fact, student safety is one of the most cited reasons for leaving brick and mortar public school environments for many cyber enrollers and their parents.
Rather than cracking down on institutions that have scarce safety failures, lawmakers ought to confront the far more urgent and deeply documented crisis unfolding inside many of Pennsylvania’s brick-and-mortar public schools.
Recent news reports paint a harrowing picture.
In Philadelphia, The Inquirer recently highlighted disturbing scenes in public school buildings: bathrooms with no working water, broken stalls, and unsupervised spaces where students are vulnerable. In some schools, kids are allegedly told to take bathroom breaks in stairwells and are being sent to school in diapers.
In Central Bucks School District, the Delaware Valley Journal reported that the school board voted to fire five employees following what officials described as “heartbreaking” allegations of abuse, misconduct, and serious failures to report and respond. Superintendent Abram Lucabaugh stated the district was forced to act after a damning external investigation uncovered systemic wrongdoing.
And statewide, The Inquirer uncovered a growing number of teacher misconduct cases. In the last year alone, more than 300 Pennsylvania educators were disciplined for everything from inappropriate relationships with students to violent behavior. That’s a 30% increase over the previous year. Education officials admitted that these cases represent just a fraction of what occurs, due to delays and underreporting.
The problem isn’t just a few bad actors – it’s systemic. According to a new 24-year longitudinal study, more than 700,000 Pennsylvania public school students – nearly half the state’s total enrollment – attend persistently dangerous schools. That’s not hyperbole. That’s not a projection. That’s what the data show. Using publicly available incident records instead of arrest figures, researchers found that 37% of all public-school buildings in the state qualify as dangerous. In Philadelphia, the number rises to a shocking 71%; in Pittsburgh, nearly 90% of schools meet the criteria.
And, if we’re truly concerned about safety, why not protect the girl athletes in the commonwealth from competing against biological men? A recent report from the Daily Caller shone light on the House Democratic Education chairman’s neglect of girls and women, and interestingly enough, he’s spearheading the effort to improve “safety” in cyber schools.
Further, this new assault on public cyber schools, dressed up as a concern for safety, endeavors to drive home the same, tired Democrat-led point of view on education: parents and kids matter less than preserving their monopolistic money pit and bankrolling Democrat reelection campaigns.
Keeping students safe is a noble intention and should be a priority, but to neglect the worst actors and instead target the students and parents who fled their public-school districts, most times for good reason, is a shameful political ploy.
Pennsylvania’s education system has serious problems that deserve urgent solutions, like giving families real alternatives when their local school fails to provide a safe environment.
For the 700,000-plus students trapped in unsafe or mismanaged schools, we should be expanding access to educational options – not adding red tape to the very schools that offer them a safe environment to learn.
Parents don’t want politics. They want safe schools, and they want options. Let’s stop pretending that cyber charter regulation is the front line of student safety. It’s time to deal with the real crisis – the one affecting more than 700,000 Pennsylvania students every single day.
