Advocacy

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How use your your position and platform to build support for your school district and the state funding and policies your students need and deserve.

Our Mission

Our mission is to ensure elected officials adopt and implement a pro-public education agenda. To that end, we advocate for sound education policy and build and mobilize the public will to ensure that support for quality public education and an opportunity to learn for all children is a top priority for key decision makers.

Our Work

• Ed Voters is Pennsylvania’s only statewide public education policy and advocacy organization.
• We educate individuals, organizations, and our statewide network about issues impacting public education.
• We train advocates through Zoom and in-person meetings and create opportunities for advocates to engage decision makers.
• We create resources such as blogs and one-pagers as well as write research briefs to support advocacy efforts.

• Be a resource for your state lawmakers to influence their priorities.
• Use your position as an expert to drive and frame the discussions in your district through the press, at board meetings, and in the community.
• Bring in others in your district and local community to join advocacy efforts

Strategies

Goals

Resources

Budget Review/Blogs, Toolkits, Fact Sheets

Building relationships with your state lawmakers

You can be a resource

• State lawmakers are very busy and need to know about many different issues.
• You can share information with them about what is happening in your district and be a “go to” person when they have questions. And explain how decisions in Harrisburg impact your schools and communities.

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State lawmakers care about public perception

• They pay attention to what is in their local papers.
• They pay attention and care about their interactions with

constituents.

• They want to be liked.

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Create balance in the system.

Your advocacy works!

• Senator Pittman is working on truancy reforms for cyber charter students.
• Senator Vogel questioned special ed funding for cybers during the Senate Approps hearing with PDE.
• Senator Schlegel Culver stated in a March 4 Spotlight PA article, referring to cyber charter reform, “I think over the next, say, two or three months, you'll see a lot more movement on this issue.”
• Residency issues.

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Preparing to meet with your state senator

• Decide who will go to the meeting–just you? With board members? A group of supers?
• Does it make sense for board members to have a separate meeting?
• Schedule a meeting in the district office-Zoom or in person.
• Prepare for the meeting.
• Plan to introduce yourself and share positive things happening in the district.
• Pick a few topics/talking points for “ask.” If you will be meeting with others, decide who will say what.
• Keep the meeting on topic - they will stray!

Additional Notes

• Materials: If you have a fact sheet or data points that you can provide during the meeting, this leave behind will serve as a reminder of the important points that you have shared and how to contact you after the meeting.
• Questions during the meeting: If you are not able to answer a question, please state that you will investigate and provide the answer when you return to your district. They will expect that you will not have all the answers. It also provides another opportunity to continue relationship building that is essential.
• Post-meeting tasks: After the meeting, thank you and responses to questions must be sent quickly. If you need time to research a question, state that you will be following up with information as soon as it is available.

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• Get to know your local reporter/newspaper editor.
• Small papers are often looking for content and will print photos and information you send them.
• No good news is too small to share, from a student winning an award to the upcoming musical, etc.
• People LOVE to feel proud of their local districts and students and this counteracts the noise they might be hearing from other

places about what happens in public schools.

• And they want to see the positive impact of their investments.

Use the Press to Shape the Public Narrative

Share information about good things in your district

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• At board meetings talk about budget issues and pressures in clear language and in the way that you want the community to think about them.
• If you are increasing taxes, explain what is driving the tax increase and what the new revenue will pay for.
• If you pass a cyber charter resolution, send it to the local paper.

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Use your platform to define and frame issues.

Your advocacy in action!!

Your advocacy in action!!

Your advocacy in action!!

Engage other leaders in your community

• Think about who your lawmakers care about and listen to.
• Connect the dots for these local leaders.
• Meet with your local organizations (United Way, Chamber, Economic Development Corporation, Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, etc.) and other leaders in your community to share information about how what happens in Harrisburg impacts the school district budget and property taxes.
• You want these people to be advocating for adequate, equitable and constitutional school funding and cyber charter reforms that will reduce wasteful spending of local tax dollars when they are in the room with lawmakers and you are not.

Send your advocates to us!

We can work with advocates now to get them up to speed on advocacy for the 2025-2026 state budget.

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We will be accepting applications for our fall cohort of Public Education Champions.

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Between September 2025 and May 2026, Public Education Champions will join a statewide network of passionate public education advocates ready to grow their skills, deepen their understanding of Pennsylvania’s education landscape, and take action for our public schools.

Cyber proposal we expect to move

State Rep. Mary Isaacson

Co sponsorship memo: Cyber charter school reform, transparency and accountability

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Cyber charter funding reform

• Setting a standardized state-wide regular education tuition rate for cyber charters.
• Placing caps on cyber charter fund balances.

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Cyber proposal we expect to move (con’t)

Transparency:

• Imposing restrictions and transparency measures on expenses that do not benefit the students’ education.
• Putting safeguards in place to ensure school districts and taxpayers are not left footing the bill for cyber tuition students who no longer live in the school district, let alone the state.
• Holding cyber charters accountable to the same reporting requirements for annual budgets, financial statements, construction costs and other expenses that school districts are required to report.

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Cyber proposal we expect to move (con’t)

Parity with school districts:

Setting a standardized statewide special education tuition rate for cyber charters, based on the amount school districts spend and the needs of each student. Currently, each school district has a different rate for special education students, causing adverse incentives for cyber charter schools.

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Our work: Keep up the pressure through the end of June!

Meet in district with state senators and/or get board members to meet with them. Senate is in session May 5, 6, 7, 12, and 13 and every day in June.

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May–Pass a resolution in support of cyber reform

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June–If a critical mass of districts in a county pass a resolution, put together a press release with statements from districts and copies of the resolution and send to your county paper. And this links with budget season.

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Other cyber-related topics for reporters?

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Resources

This performance audit covered the period July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2023.

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• The fund balances of the five cyber charter schools increased $365 million, or 144 percent, from $254 million as of July 1, 2020, to $619 million, as of June 30, 2023

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• PA Cyber’s unrestricted fund balance of $217.5 million as of June 30, 2023, was more than its expenditures for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

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• Also found $400/month fuel stipends, millions spent on gift cards, tens of millions spent on staff bonuses, a major league ballgame party and more.
• Click HERE for more details.

Auditor General Tim DeFoor’s Audit

Our Taxes, Their Slush Fund:

How a cyber charter schools spends Pennsylvanians’ tax dollars on dining, hotels, travel, entertainment, and more

Full Report: https://edvoterspa.org/cyber-check-registry-report/

Different Standards For Accountability & Transparency

Resources: School District Fact Sheets

Visit www.PASchoolsWork.org to find them all.

Register for a webinar about the fact sheets on May 8 HERE.

Resources: School District Fact Sheets

Click HERE for the PA Schools Work Basics School Funding Explainers.

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Click HERE for the Ed Voters Advocacy Toolkit.

Resources: WOW-Waste of the Week emails & website!

Sign up HERE for emails.

Visit www.EdVotersPA.org to find them all.

Questions?

Susan Spicka

717-331-4033

Sspicka@educationvoterspa.org

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Sandra Miller

610-248-4282

Sandra@educationvoterspa.org

Talking Points

• There is an urgent need for Harrisburg to enact cyber charter school funding reforms this year. Taxpayers and students in your community cannot afford another year of overpaying cyber charters.
• If cyber reform is not enacted this year, state lawmakers need to substantially increase BEF and SEF to ensure ALL districts at least keep up with inflation.
• The recent cyber charter audit by Republican Auditor General Tim DeFoor has made clear that cyber charters are being paid more than they need to educate students and are spending tax dollars ways that would be unacceptable for a district.

Proposed increase = $494 million

• This is equal to the amount invested in FY 2024/2025.
• This represents an additional 11% investment
• If identical installments are made annually, it will take 9 total years to fill the $4.5 billion adequacy gap.

Adequacy Supplement

Governor Shapiro’s 2025-2026 Budget Proposal

Tax Equity Supplement

Proposed increase: $32 million, equal to the amount invested

in FY 2024/2025.

Special Education Funding

• Proposed increase - $40 million (+2.7%).

Basic Education Funding increase for all 500 school districts

• Proposed increase - $75 million (+0.9%).
• Will not allow many districts to keep pace with inflation.

Governor Shapiro’s 2025-2026 Budget Proposal

Cyber Charter Funding Reform

• Proposed discontinuation of the cyber charter transition line item, which was funded at $100 million in FY 2024/2025.
• Recommendation to replace this line item with a new cyber reform proposal that would establish a statewide base cyber charter tuition rate of $8,000 per student per year.
• School districts would realize a net savings of $278 million annually if the $8000 per student regular education tuition rate is adopted.
• This proposal creates efficiencies and cuts wasteful education spending.

Budget must be adopted as a package

Statewide increase:

• No inflation, with cyber reforms: $916 million
• No inflation, no cyber reform: $538 million
• With inflation, with cyber reform: $508 million
• With inflation, no cyber reform: $129 million

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Source: Public Interest Law Center

Budget MUST be adopted as a package

Taking funding from the adequacy supplement to increase BEF and SEF is not an option.

• If lawmakers don’t want to support cyber reform, they need to find new state money for additional BEF and SEF so that all districts will receive state funding increases that will keep up with inflation.
• The adequacy formula treats all districts the same.
• Funding should not be taken away from students in districts that have been short changed for years.
• There are potential consequence with the school funding

lawsuit if the adequacy amount is reduced.

Talking Points–Cyber Accountability

Cyber charter schools are not held to the same level of accountability as the school districts that pay their tuition bills.

• Cyber charter academic performance is abysmal.
• Cybers allow students to avoid accountability for truancy.
• Verifying residency is difficult.
• Boards are not elected.
• There is no limit on fund balances.
• Other things you have noticed in terms of accountability.

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