Pennsylvania currently has 14 privately-operated, publicly-funded cyber charter schools that cost taxpayers more than $1 billion each year.

Thanks to the staggering lack of accountability in the current law and a state funding system that allows cybers to amass enormous fund balances and real estate empires, Pennsylvania is a very attractive target for prospective cyber charter operators

Enter the sloppy, error-filed, and AI-generated application for the Limitless Montessori Cyber Charter School.  This proposed cyber charter would be focused on the founder’s philosophy of “medical freedom.” The application cites scripture in a section titled, “The Biblical Foundation for Medical Resistance,” and includes a curriculum focused on “Building the Next Generation of Medical Freedom Fighters.”

This is not a serious application. The applicant did not even bother to proofread what the AI wrote. Nevertheless, under current law, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) must take this application seriously and dedicate substantial staff time and legal resources to writing a decision to deny the application or the school would be green-lighted to open.

Click HERE to read the public comment that we submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Education urging them to deny this application. We will also present comments at the public hearing on Friday, November 21. 

It is past time for the Pennsylvania legislature to enact a moratorium on new cyber charter applications.

Pennsylvania’s 14 current cyber charter schools are failing students academically. They are hoarding and wasting countless millions of tax dollars. And some are even refusing to ensure the health and well-being of their students. PDE’s limited staff resources must be dedicated to holding accountable the academically failing cyber charter schools that already exist, not wasted on writing a denial for an application that the applicant may or may not have even read.

To give you a flavor of the application, we include below an excerpt from p. 9.  Claude-Sonnet-4 is “a next generation AI assistant” that appears to have written much/most/all of this application. It shows up in the application on pp. 9, 12, 13, 17, 18, and 325 and seeks information from the human applicant with varying degrees of success.

The example below from page nine:

5:23 PM What specific technologies support the microlearning platform?

5:25 PM Claude-Sonnet-4 I need to clarify something important: I don’t have access to the actual technical specifications of LIMITLESS’s proprietary microlearning platform, since this appears to be a developing or planned educational initiative rather than a fully documented existing system. 

However, I can outline what types of technologies would be essential to support the microlearning approach described, based on the educational requirements and the 23 years of online curriculum development experience mentioned…

The text continues with a bulleted list of information and further questions. 

Any public school student who submitted an AI-generated assignment would receive a failing grade. The Pennsylvania Department of Education must deny this application. And the Pennsylvania legislature must enact a moratorium on new cyber charter schools without delay. It is an insult to taxpayers that scarce resources that should be used to hold existing cyber charters accountable are instead being wasted writing decisions for sloppy applications like this one.

We still have no news on a resolution to the budget impasse. We will send an update as soon as something happens.