Pa. cyber charter schools have larger per student fund balances than local public school districts

Cyber school fund balances are more than twice as large as local school districts per student. But their fund balances are only about 50% larger when you take into account every savings account, including those accounts reserved for large capital projects and debt financing.

The first chart illustrates the per student difference in fund balances for the general fund in 2023-24. The second chart takes into account ALL fund balances, including capital project and debt service funds in 2024-25. The fund balance data in the second chart is courtesy of Michael Whisman, a charter school advocate, who gathered the data from PDE--PennLive wasn't able to immediately verify the amounts.
Chart: Oliver MorrisonSource: Pennsylvania Department of EducationGet the dataCreated with Datawrapper