PA Taxpayers spend $100,000 for Santorum's kids in VA Cyber School

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.gatewaynewspapers.com/pennhillsprogress/news/36884/

Penn Hills School District records show bills paid with local taxpayers' money for U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's children to attend a cyber charter school total more than $100,000.

<snip>

This year, the school district has to pay $38,000 for Elizabeth, 13, Richard, 11, Daniel, 9, Sarah, 6, and Peter Santorum, 5, to attend Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, which is based in Beaver County.

<snip>

The only way for Santorum to not pay for his children's private education is enrolling them in Penn Hills.

Virginia state law only requires local school districts to pay for private school tuition when a student has disabilities and enrolls in a school that can satisfy his or her needs, according to Charles Pyle, Virginia Department of Education spokesman.

Otherwise, children in Virginia must attend their local public schools.

If I was a Penn Hills taxpayer I would be outraged. Note Sen. Sanctimoneous pays only about $2000 in school taxes each year - so he's living on the public dole with his kiddies. Also note his precious little kiddies can't attend a public school with the rest of the peon's kids - or even though he can well afford he's not sending them to a private school. BTW, Penn Hills is a neighborhood in transition. It is not a wealthy district.

[Bozita]

1. Welfare for the well-off

disgusting

[AmerDem]

2. well i'm a Pa. resident and i'm outraged

I'll be looking more into this and will be contacting everyone to see what this fascist prick did with our money. Damn, I hope this turns out to be a huge scandal. This guy has got to go!

[RamboLiberal]

5. I just saved this story and I'll be sure to forward to Dem who

runs in '06 against Santorum. Since Ricky's kids really live in Virginia the majority of the time - his kids should be ineligible under PA rules to be paid for by the struggling taxpayers of Penn Hills, PA.

[deadparrot]

3. The ultimate pork.

[LizW]

4. I don't understand

Why do his kids get their education paid for with tax dollars? Do they have disabilities? Where do they actually live? The article makes it pretty clear that the house he owns in the school district is a small house and they don't live there.

We don't have charter schools here, and I don't understand how this works.

[RamboLiberal]

6. Cyber schools are becoming an issue in PA

for the reason that they can send bills to the school district in which the student "supposedly" lives. It's become difficult for school districts predicting their budgets to know how much they are going to be asked to pay for a student in a cyber school.

The way I understand it is all a parent has to do is decide they'd rather their kid attend a cyber school instead of the district's public school. I personally know one kid who attends. She has no disabilities except she doesn't like her public school.

But IMHO Ricky Santorum is scamming the system here since his kids live in Virginia which has no cyber school charter like PA, so he conveniently says they really live in Penn Hills school district.

And BTW one of the issues Ricky used when he won his first senate term was to claim his opponent Doug Waldren lived out of PA.

Also I think these cyber schools are a way for home schoolers to get their kids tuitions paid w/o attending the local public school.

With 42 formerly home-schooled children now enrolled in cyber charter schools, the Boyertown Area School District is facing a potential loss of more than $325,000, according to school officials.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education, as of a Sept. 7 letter, is withholding approximately $23,000 monthly in state subsidies from the district as a result of alleged non-payment of students' fees for cyber charter schools, said District Solicitor Jeffrey T. Sultanik.

"Most of these students up to this time were home-schooled," Sultanik said. "Therefore the district may have $325,000 in unanticipated tuition to spend and maybe more."

Under a 1997 state law allowing charter schools, districts are required to pay a fee for every student who attends an alternative public school, including a cyber school -- a sort of Internet charter school. A handful of cyber charter schools have recently sprung up in Pennsylvania with the goal of educating students at home through the Internet.

Per Sultanik's request, the school board authorized him to file a protective appeal with the commonwealth court and to file an appeal with the state department of education.


http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=2431454&BRD=1674&PAG=461&dept_id=18041&rfi=6

[LizW]

7. I had no idea

such a system existed. I knew anti-public schoolers were always trying to find way to funnel taxpayer funds to private schools, but I didn't know it was being done under the guise of homeschooling. I had always thought that if people wanted to home school their kids that was fine, but now it seems some want to skim public money for that, too.

There people must never sleep. They are always finding ways to scam the taxpayer.

[enough]

8. Unbelievable.

Excellent issue for his next run for Senate. I would guess that a lot of his government-hating, tax-hating, RW supporters will not find this amusing.

[SoCalDem]

9. Lookie what I found.. (Tax "forgivenness" scam too )

http://www.palcs.org/html/news.html

I'm betting when we dig deeper, we'll find a Bush or a Bennett "providing" the educational software:grr:

Internet schooling is their "gig"..

Educational Improvement Tax Credit

www.inventpa.com

Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School is a cyber charter school chartered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education and offers online (cyber) education to any student (K-12) in Pennsylvania.

In order to reach out to students who do not function well in a traditional school setting, the school is seeking to partner with Pennsylvania businesses that could take advantage of the 90% PA tax forgiveness credit to make a donation to the school.

Under this program, a business may contribute to this innovative cyber charter school and receive back 90% of as much as a $200,000 donation through a PA tax credit. The business may also write off the donation (to the non-profit charter school) toward their federal tax liability. The total tax forgiveness could be as much as 96%!

snip

[Bozita]

10. IIRC, Neil Bush was owner of an educ. software firm

can't remember the name.

[PatriotGames]

11. Why does this not suprise me?

What a creep. I hate that guy.

[elehhhhna]

12. 12K per kid for internet "homeschool" lessons? Is that correct?

[w4rma]

13. I"M PAYING FOR THAT WHACKO'S KIDS TO GO TO **PRIVATE** SCHOOL???

He has stolen enough money to pay for it himself and he should pay for it himself. Or he should send his kids to a public school so maybe they'll meet some folks who aren't wealthy before they reach 18.

[RPM]

14. saw the douchebag yesterday

campaining for * on the street in Penn Hills - stuck my tounge out at him and his bratty kids

[StupidFOX]

15. FREAKING HATE SANTORUM

It just proves what they say about PA (my state), "Philly in the east, Pittsburg in the west, and West Virginia in between."