On Wednesday, November 12, the General Assembly approved a budget that was signed by Governor Shapiro and ended the four-month budget impasse. This budget deal delivers substantial cyber charter funding and accountability reforms and more than $785 in new investments in public education. 

This budget is a clear demonstration that Governor Shapiro and state lawmakers made funding our public schools their top priority (we thank them!) and demonstrates that adequacy funding  is a non-negotiable priority until all schools are fully funded in compliance with the constitutional mandate.

Highlights from the 2025-2026 state budget

• A fully-funded second installment ($565 million increase) of adequacy and tax equity payments that take another step toward meeting the state’s constitutional obligation to public schools.  The state has now filled 22% of the adequacy gap lawmakers enshrined in law in 2024-2025.
• $105 million increase for Basic Education Funding
• $40 million increase for special education funding
• $125 million for school facilities
• $100 million for school safety and mental health grants
• $78 million in net savings as a result of cyber charter reforms
• Increases in early childhood funding

Click HERE for a spreadsheet that shows how much each district will receive. 

Click HERE for the Senate vote on the budget bill (Senate Bill 160 PN 1309).

Click HERE for the House vote on the budget bill (House Bill 160 PN 1309).

Cyber Charter Funding and Accountability Reforms

The School Code includes funding reforms and long-overdue, much-needed accountability reforms that will require cyber operators to focus their work on actually educating the students in their care.

Funding Reforms

School districts will see $175 million in reduced payments to cyber charters and an overall net savings of $75 million after the $100 million cyber charter transition line item in the state budget is eliminated. 

• These savings are achieved by allowing districts to make additional deductions for expenses that cyber charters do not have from their budgeted expenses before calculating the tuition they will pay to cyber charters.  
• Deductions include tuition paid to cyber charter schools for non-special education students, tax assessment and collection services, sixty percent of student activities, and sixty percent of operations and maintenance of plant services.

Accountability Reforms

Residency reforms will allow school districts to verify the residency of students who are attending cyber charter schools and ensure that taxpayers will no longer be forced to pay tuition for students who have moved outside of their district (or the state!). 

Truancy reforms will prevent students from avoiding accountability for their lack of attendance by prohibiting children who are habitually truant from transferring, during the school year, to a cyber charter school unless a judge determines the transfer is in the best interest of the child. 

A crystal clear legal mandate for cyber charters to conduct weekly wellness checks requires cyber charters to check on the health and well-being of their students. The law also lays  out penalties for cyber operators who refuse to comply. You may recall that Pennsylvania’s largest cyber charter was  refusing to conduct these checks, leaving their students at grave risk of abuse. 

A requirement that cybers create attendance policies for both synchronous and asynchronous instruction will help ensure that students are actually attending school and completing work.

• To be present for a synchronous instruction, the child must be present and visible to the teacher on camera during the instructional period for each course.
• To be present for asynchronous instruction, a child must complete the coursework and achieve weekly educational coursework completion benchmarks.

Click HERE for the Senate vote on the School Code (Senate Bill 315 PN 0249).

Click HERE for the House vote on the School Code (Senate Bill 315 PN 0249).

These hard-won cyber charter funding and accountability reforms are the result of decades of  work by advocates and school officials in every corner of the commonwealth. We are very proud of the work Ed Voters has done to contribute to the passage of this law.

We are grateful for Ed Voters supporters who have made countless phone calls and sent tens of thousands of emails to lawmakers over the years urging them to support cyber charter funding and accountability reforms.

We are grateful for superintendents and school board members who have been in the trenches for years dealing with the consequences of the charter school law and meeting with their lawmakers, year in and year out, to explain the urgent need for reforms.

And we are especially grateful for the lawmakers who dug their heels in and pushed substantial cyber charter funding and accountability reforms across the finish line. While there is still work to do, these reforms represent an important and significant step toward reining in wasteful spending by the cyber charter industry and creating accountability for cyber operators to ensure that students are supported, safe, and actually attending school. 

For anyone who is interested in the nitty gritty details of the cyber charter reforms, please find Senate Bill 315 HERE and a detailed summary of the cyber charter accountability reforms HERE. 

We thank you again for your support of public education and for all of the work that you have done to contribute to this substantial win for public school students in the commonwealth.