HARRISBURG — A cyber charter school network that says it will use “AI-driven” technology to allow students to learn all the core academics they need in just two hours a day has applied to operate in Pennsylvania.
The state hasn’t weighed in on its application yet — the verdict is slated to come next week. But the fact that this school has a viable path toward approval shows that Pennsylvania needs to radically rethink its charter school law, critics both inside and outside the government say. They argue the state should shut down new applications while the legislature does so.
The applicant is Unbound Academy, and at the center of its pitch is Texas-based contractor 2 Hour Learning, which says it provides an “AI tutor” that “enables students to crush academics in just 2 hours a day and motivates them with the gift of time.”
In its application to Pennsylvania’s Department of Education, Unbound describes a system in which students would receive two hours of instruction on subjects like math and reading every day, provided primarily by the AI program, which the company says continuously adapts to students’ individual needs.
After that, the company says it would provide students with three hours of “life skills workshops.” These would focus on things like public speaking, goal setting, emotional intelligence, and financial literacy, including managing a simulated stock portfolio.
Unbound says it would also integrate other digital platforms into its offerings. Its state-required English Learning programming, for instance, would involve the app Duolingo.
It calls its human workers “guides,” describing their role as “mentors and coaches” who support students’ emotional needs. Guides are supposed to use “AI-generated data” to monitor students’ progress and offer feedback and, if necessary, interventions. Guides must have Pennsylvania teaching credentials, according to the application.
The AI program is already in use at a group of private schools in Texas, and Unbound was approved late last year to operate in Arizona.
Several of Unbound Academy’s founders are based in Texas and are described in the application as “key figures” in the design of the “2hr Learning system.” One of them, Andrew Price, is married to MacKenzie Price, the head of the AI company Unbound wants to work with. A quote provided with the application says Unbound would pay the company $2.75 million over the first year.
Andrew Price is chief financial officer of Trilogy Enterprises, according to his LinkedIn. The company would handle financial services for the school, according to the application, and receive up to $350,000.
The application says Unbound currently seeks trustees who do not have conflicts of interest with vendors.
Growing enrollment, growing concerns
All of this was a red flag for lawmakers and public school advocates who are skeptical of the growing use of alternative schooling models in Pennsylvania, particularly cyber charter schools.
In a recent bill memo, state Sen. Lindsey Williams (D., Allegheny) noted that Unbound exemplifies her most serious cyber charter concerns: that they don’t work, and that they “perceive our state as ripe for profiteering off of Pennsylvania’s children and taxpayers.”
Anna Davlantes, a spokesperson for Unbound, said in an email that the company sees evidence that its AI-driven model is different — and better — because it “adapts around each student’s needs, pace, level and produces outcomes we’re not seeing in any other traditional school model.”
It remains to be seen if the state will buy the argument.
But Williams, who is minority chair of the state Senate’s Education Committee and a longtime critic of the state’s oversight of charter schools, argues that the problem is also much bigger than Unbound alone.
Fourteen cyber charter schools operate in Pennsylvania, and the number of students attending them has ballooned since the pandemic.
Critics point to studies showing worse outcomes from cyber charters than both public schools and brick-and-mortar charters. A report prepared for the Pennsylvania Department of Education in 2019 found that compared with other schools, “cyber charter schools have a consistent negative effect across all outcomes except graduation.”
In the 2023-24 school year, data from all of Pennsylvania’s school districts show an average of 40% of students statewide who were taking Algebra 1 were assessed as proficient or advanced. But in the 13 cyber charters that were operating in the commonwealth that year, just under 10% of Algebra 1 students were proficient or advanced, on average.
Anne Clark, who runs a consulting firm for charter schools and previously headed the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, argued other factors can depress test scores. Pennsylvania allows parents to opt their kids out of standardized testing, she noted, and cyber charter students are more likely to skip them.
“We’re just not measuring student outcomes well enough,” she said. “What is beyond that grade? What is beyond that test score?”
Beyond the cost to public school districts, which topped $1 billion a few years ago, critics of cyber charters note that the current system lacks financial transparency. These schools can carry an unlimited financial surplus, acquire millions of dollars in assets, and spend big on marketing.
In its application, Unbound says it has budgeted $1,000 on marketing per student acquisition, up to $350,000 in a year.
“They have virtually zero financial accountability to the state, or any kind of accountability for how they operate,” said Susan Spicka, an advocate for traditional public schools with the group Education Voters PA who aligns closely with Williams on this issue.
Is legislative action coming?
There is a growing consensus among Pennsylvania Democrats — and some Republicans — that the state needs to better oversee cyber charters. They are currently governed under the same 20-year-old law as brick-and-mortar charter schools and get almost the same amount of money from the state, despite their vastly different structures.
Last year’s state budget made some tweaks, slightly reducing the amount of tuition that public schools send to cybers for students with disabilities, and creating some new oversight requirements, like mandating dismissal of administrators convicted of felonies, fraud, or theft — things that Williams called “the lowest of the low-hanging fruit.”
Bigger overhaul pitches have included setting a flat rate for the tuition dollars public schools have to send to cyber charters, which many lawmakers believe are currently inflated, and capping the massive reserves some of the schools have been able to stockpile.
Advocates for both cyber and brick-and-mortar charters have pushed back on those efforts. Clark said while the charter law may be outdated, the conversation shouldn’t revolve around reducing funding for any students.
Cyber charters spend good money in Harrisburg promoting that point of view. One cyber charter, Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Charter Academy, spent more than $200,000 on lobbying last year alone.
Even if those reforms were to succeed, Williams argues they don’t fix another issue she sees as fundamental to Pennsylvania’s cyber charter landscape: the way the state oversees the schools.
More than half of the 14 existing cyber charters, she said, operate under charters that have expired, and the state’s process for renewing them is old, slow, and not adequate for the number of students currently being served by these schools. And further, she said, the existing cyber charters have “unlimited seats,” so while the state figures out how to best oversee them, there’s no need to add more.
“Here in Pennsylvania there are plenty of options,” she said. “And they are all bad.”
The memo that Williams issued criticizing Unbound is her second attempt at a bill that would impose a moratorium on the state approving new cybers, a move she says is necessary to give the state time to rethink its policies.
She told Spotlight PA the issue is especially pressing right now: At the beginning of 2024, the state Department of Education, under Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration, approved a new cyber charter for the first time in eight years. Under his predecessor, fellow Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, the state approved none.
To get approved for operation, a cyber charter submits an application to the Department of Education, the agency holds a public hearing, and then it either accepts or rejects the application, after which the cyber charter can revise and resubmit it.
A spokesperson for the department told Spotlight PA that under law, there is “no limit as to the number of applications to operate a cyber charter school that may be submitted.” Applicants can also appeal rejections to the Charter School Appeal Board, a separate entity.
Applications include a long list of required information, such as descriptions of curricula and the ways they meet state standards; explanations of the way teachers will deliver instruction and assess progress; and a list of the standardized tests schools will use.
The state’s newest cyber charter, Pennwood, first applied in 2022 and the state rejected it twice, before accepting another amended application in early 2024.
In that acceptance letter, the state listed several things Pennwood had to fix, including providing more evidence that its courses align with state standards, demonstrating that it meets Safe Schools requirements, and adopting a professional development plan that meets state regulations.
Spicka, the advocate with Education Voters PA, said in general, if a charter operator can “write an application that crosses all the T’s and dots all the I’s and there is no legal reason within the confines of the charter law to deny the application, absolutely it can get approved.”
That’s the underlying fear for people like Williams and Spicka when they see an application for a school like Unbound.
They don’t necessarily expect the state to approve it right away. But they think with several years of patient finessing of its application, Unbound may get through, even if its model is flawed.
This isn't the first time lawmakers have revisited cyber charter policy in recent years.
State House Democrats, who control their chamber, held hearings that involved a discussion of revising the charter law last year. In his 2024 budget address, Shapiro included a call to update “antiquated state laws that cost our school districts too much money,” and specifically noted that cybers were getting too much.
Spokespeople for state House Democrats, Senate Republicans, and Shapiro did not comment on their plans for this session.
Williams is keeping her expectations modest.
“There's a lot of people who talk about the cyber charter stuff,” she said. “But then when push comes to shove, we've not been able to accomplish any reforms that make a meaningful impact.”
“There's still a lot of money to be had,” she said. “They still control a lot of power within the building.”