Pennsylvania lawmakers should make clarifications in the commonwealth's 2002 "cyberschool" law regarding children of families who maintain a Pennsylvania residence but actually live outside the state.

The law currently requires school districts to pay for any resident students enrolled in a cyberschool, but it does not explicitly say that applies to children whose families own a home in Pennsylvania but the family resides elsewhere.

Pennsylvania taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the education bill for children whose parents cannot prove that the children actually live in this state.

It is the Penn Hills School District that has asked the state Department of Education to provide a clarification about the issue, although only state lawmakers can actually change the cyberschool law.

Penn Hills' interest in the issue came about when a member of its school board last fall questioned why the district was paying cyberschool tuition for the children of U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who owns a house in the district but whose family lives at the Santorum home in Leesburg, Va. In November, amid publicity about the school board member's criticism, Santorum agreed to withdraw his children from the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School headquartered in Midland, Beaver County, and resume home-schooling them.

Penn Hills taxpayers had paid more than $100,000 in cyberschool tuition for five Santorum school-age children since the 2001-02 school year.

State Rep. James Roebuck, the ranking Democrat on the House Education Committee, was right in observing that lawmakers need to clarify which students may enroll in a cyberschool at state taxpayers' expense. Rep. Jess Stairs, R-Westmoreland, who is chairman of the House Education Committee, agreed.

However, that opinion isn't shared by Senate Majority Leader David Brightbill of Lebanon County, who said he sees no urgency to revisit the law because it lays out a process for determining residency.

The issue and discussion about the Santorum children does suggest that the calls for a clarification are reasonable.

Meanwhile, neither the cyberschool nor Santorum has offered to reimburse Penn Hills for the tuition that was paid.

Santorum has said he did nothing wrong, and he is correct in that viewpoint. But Penn Hills has raised a reasonable question on which the state should rule, so no similar issues arise in the future.

Pennsylvania public school systems should not have to expend taxpayer resources to educate children who do not actually live within the commonwealth's boundaries.

- J.R.K.