Given the rapid expansion of cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania, it’s appropriate to bring more attention to the schools, including their academic and financial results.

Just this week, the state Department of Education rejected the applications for eight new cyber schools because of concerns over the ability of the applicants to “maintain a long-term, viable educational program for the benefit of Pennsylvania students.”

That appropriately cautious view should be the basis for a comprehensive study of cyber schools across the state. Today’s digital technologies have raised the potential of online learning to enhance education around the country and world. Some believe that cyber learning could revolutionize education.

In Pennsylvania, cyber schools are for-profit enterprises, and the current funding formula that requires local school districts to pay the cyber schools the estimated costs of educating a student in the district’s own school buildings deserves to be examined. Why should cyber schools be paid much more than their actual per-student operating costs?

In a front-page Butler Eagle article last week, Butler County school officials, including Mike Strutt, Butler School District superintendent, pointed to what they believe is a flawed formula for funding cyber schools. The issue is particularly sensitive today, when traditional public schools are facing very tight budgets, and the funding formula has districts paying more money than necessary for cyber students not attending regular classes.

As Strutt and others noted, cyber schools, in which students handle their studies using computers and Internet connections at home, have much lower operating costs than traditional schools, with buildings and campuses to maintain and bus transportation to provide.

Some criticism of cyber schools from traditional school officials might be seen as an objection to competition. But in this case, the public school officials have a valid point.

State Auditor General Jack Wagner echoed that point when he issued a report last year targeting what he says is a flawed funding formula for cyber schools. Wagner, who says he supports offering alternative forms of education, believes that Pennsylvania taxpayers are overpaying cyber schools to the tune of $365 million a year.

In his report made public last year, Wagner determined that the national average cost to educate a student in a cyber school is $10,145 per year, while the cyber schools in this state are paid an average per-student rate of $13,411 a year. Reducing payments to Pennsylvania cyber schools to the national average figure would save state taxpayers $315 million a year.

The cost to educate students in cyber schools varies from state to state. Ohio has an annual per-student cost of $10,652, while the figure is $9,480 for Michigan and $7,671 for Arizona.

Wagner is correct in calling for the state Department of Education, the General Assembly and Gov. Tom Corbett to examine cyber schools’ costs and adjust the current funding formula, which favors for-profit cyber schools at the expense of traditional bricks-and-mortar schools.

State officials should examine more than the per-student costs of operating cyber schools; they should look at the academic performance of cyber schools as well as other issues, like charges that many cyber students quit classes while the cyber schools continue to charge the student’s home district tuition money.

Competition in public education is a good thing, but the current cyber school policies in Pennsylvania appear biased toward for-profit cyber schools through higher-than-necessary funding from local school districts. Online, at-home education suits the needs of many students, but Pennsylvania’s cyber schools should be expected to meet academic standards and should have their operations and finances opened up to greater scrutiny.