NEWS

As Pennsylvania's 2026-2027 state budget continues to be finalized, discussions about education funding are once again taking center stage in Harrisburg. A few weeks ago, PA Schools Work released a new report highlighting what adequacy funding actually looks like...

What two months of records revealed about cyber charter schools..... Over the past several weeks, Education Voters of PA has reviewed and shared information from cyber charter board meetings. For many schools, these records can only be obtained through Pennsylvania's...

UPDATE: The PA House passed HB 2632 with a bipartisan vote of 105-97.  This is a big deal and an enormous step forward in ensuring transparency and accountability for $680 million allocated to education tax credit programs. The ball is now in the Senate's...

At the end of the day, I like to unwind with my guilty pleasure shows on Hulu. It's usually my chance to disconnect from the world of education advocacy for a few hours. A few weeks ago, though, education policy followed me to the couch. During nearly every commercial...

In 2019, Ed Voters filed our first Right-to-Know request focused on cyber charter expenditures for advertising and promotion. Since then, we have filed annual requests with all cyber charter schools; cataloged tens of thousands of receipts, invoices, and other...

Cyber charter schools receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars each year. Yet six of Pennsylvania's major cyber charter schools do not make their board materials publicly available online.  (A handful, including 21st Century Cyber Charter...

The 2025-2026 state budget that was enacted in November included modest adjustments to the tuition calculation for cyber charter schools that saved school districts $78 million. We commend state lawmakers for approving these tuition adjustments with strong...

Welcome to According to Their Records, our new weekly email series digging into what cyber charter schools’ own documents, public records, financial filings, and performance data reveal. Think of it as a fresh take on Waste of the Week, with a broader...

Some state lawmakers recently introduced and co-sponsored House Resolution 489, “Recognizing the 25th Anniversary of Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) Program.” The 2025-2026 state budget allocated $680 million to fund the Educational...

We're excited to announce that the brand new PA Schools Work 2026 School District Fact Sheets are ready to use! These fact sheets provide a district-specific snapshot that you can use to ground conversations about what fair, adequate school funding looks like in...

Join us to learn about the education landscape in Pennsylvania, with a special focus on how to advocate for  state funding increases for public schools in Schuylkill County in the 2026-2027 state budget. Saturday, April 11 from 11:00 am-1:00 pm ...

Five years ago, Education Voters of PA did a deep dive into the Race Horse Development Fund (RHDF) when Governor Wolf proposed reallocating this funding to support higher education. You can find our 2021 report HERE. Since 2004, a staggering $3.5 billion in slot...

Last week we hosted a webinar breaking down the in's and out's of Governor Shapiro's 2026/27 budget address and what it means for public education in Pennsylvania. Below you can find the presentation, link to the entire webinar, as well as helpful links we sent out...

If you've been following Ed Voters over the last few years, you know we've done extensive work advocating for real, meaningful cyber charter reform in Pennsylvania. We’ve spent countless hours digging through invoices, attending cyber charter board meetings, reviewing...

Six years of receipts. And now — real reform. On September 5, 2019, we set out with a simple goal—to find out how much a single cyber charter school in Pennsylvania was spending on advertising each year.  We filed a Right-to-Know request with Commonwealth Charter...

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...

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...

Yesterday, Democratic leaders brought a state budget totaling $50.25 billion to the floor in the Pennsylvania House and it passed with bipartisan support, 105-98. Click HERE to see how your state representative voted. This budget includes: A fully-funded second...

As the budget impasse drags on, the state has missed $1.75 billion in payments to school districts. Some school districts are drawing money out of their fund balances (savings accounts) to pay their bills. Districts that lack adequate fund balances must borrow from...

In Pennsylvania, our state law is supposed to protect children. Yet a loophole in Pennsylvania’s charter school law, combined with lax enforcement by the state agency responsible for overseeing cyber charters, leaves vulnerable children enrolled in these schools at...