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Trombetta at Rutgers: charter schools pushing public education to ‘tipping point’
TRENTON, N.J. (Nov. 19, 2009) – Charter schools are pushing the public education system to a “tipping point” at which real reform and innovation can occur, Dr. Nick Trombetta said Wednesday (Nov. 18) in a keynote address at the New Jersey Charter Schools Business and Technology Conference.
“The pace of change in the next 10 years will make the last 10 years look slow in comparison,” predicted Dr. Trombetta, CEO of the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. PA Cyber – with nearly 9,000 students the largest cyber charter school in the commonwealth – celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2010.
“What charter schools and cyber charter schools are creating is a model of public education that is flexible, scaleable, portable and responsive,” he said. “Compared to the factory model of the 20th Century, this is an iPhone.”
He was invited to speak at the two-day conference at Rutgers University, sponsored by the Center for Effective School Practices at the Charter School Resource Center in the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
Dr. Trombetta said PA Cyber was created as an educational alternative for local students after the high school in the western Pennsylvania steel mill town of Midland closed and no acceptable tuition or merger agreements were reached with neighboring Pennsylvania school districts.
“PA Cyber began accepting students in the fall of 2000, operating in a borrowed room at Midland’s elementary school with a staff of seven and two telephones. We weren’t sure what we were doing and we didn’t know who, if anybody, would come,” he said.
Organizers expected a local enrollment of 50 students but got 500 from across the state.
Starting a statewide K-12 online public school from the ground up, organizers “stepped on every landmine possible” but built a successful school “by remaining nimble as an organization and responsive to the needs of each and every child.”
PA Cyber pioneered real-time “virtual classroom” courses in 2003, and divided into 10 self-contained academy units three years ago when enrollment surpassed 6,000. In 2009 statewide testing, PA Cyber reached 29 performance targets to make AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress).
“When I look back over the last 10 years and consider the remarkable things accomplished by our students and staff,” Dr. Trombetta said, “it’s clear our success is fundamentally based on one thing: choice.”