In response to the news story " Mandatory cyber learning expands " (Nov. 7 and TribLIVE.com): Public cyber school families are wondering how many more times we're going to have to read stories in which public school officials blame their failures on cyber schools.
Families don't send their children to these schools because they're "easier," as Ligonier Valley Superintendent Christine Oldham stated in the story. This is insulting to all cyber families. We have chosen this course because public schools have failed our children and cybers are actually more challenging.
The story also mentions that several of our schools have failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), but conveniently fails to mention that our schools are not judged the same as traditional schools for AYP.
While our schools have to meet each and every benchmark to gain AYP status, traditional schools have to make AYP only within one range of grades. So if elementary students are able to meet the standards but middle and high school students do not, the district as a whole is still able to claim it made AYP.
If traditional schools were held to the same standards as our public cyber schools, just how many of them would still be able to make AYP?
Cindy Strausburger
Wyomissing
The writer is president of Pennsylvania Families for Public Cyber Schools (pacyberfamilies.org).
