Local school leaders are following the old adage of strength in numbers when it comes to the fight for equality in school choice.

Twenty-seven superintendents from Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton and Pike counties released a joint statement Friday highlighting their issues with control of funding, governance and performance of brick-and-mortar and cyber charter schools."A perfect storm of accelerating costs during difficult economic times, public dollars flowing to unelected boards and unfilled academic promise causes us to elicit the help of our legislators to address the major problems we face with Pennsylvania's failed charter school experiment before we continue to authorize more and more of these schools," the group said.Lehighton Area School District Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said all school districts in Carbon County were represented in the statement.The four-page document, titled "The Cost of School Choice: Time for a Change in Charter School Legislation," was released during a news conference at the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 20 in Easton.Of the five states with the highest number of students attending cyber/charter schools, Pennsylvania's spending is the highest with an average of $12,657 per student."Regionally, across the 27 school districts within the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 20 and 21 boundaries, the average tuition cost to taxpayers is around $9,700 per charter school student and $10,000 per cyber charter student, regardless of the actual cost required to educate those students in their brick-and-mortar or cyber charter school settings," according to the statement.Lehighton, for example, has 81 students in cyber/ charter schools. Over the past three years, the district has paid out $1.97 million in cyber charter school tuition."There are definitely issues that need to be addressed when it comes to cyber/charter schools and it isn't just funding," Cleaver said. "Brick-and-mortar public schools are held to a different standard. The playing field isn't fair right now."Lehighton gives its students an in-house cyber school option, but it has seen its own share of struggles."We've had students actually go back to outside cyber/charter schools because they said our program was too difficult," Cleaver said.The Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools released its own statement, claiming public school district leaders previously opposed measures that could have addressed the issues."The (coalition) has always supported charter reform that strengthens oversight and improves accountability and continues to actively work to configure a fair and adequate funding formula for public education," the group said.Funding andtransparencyAuditor General Eugene DePasquale has held meetings seeking testimony on the Pennsylvania Charter School Law and has urged legislators to revise it.The current funding formula is based on the sending school district tuition cost per student, which varies from district to district."These variations cause tuition payments to cyber/charter schools to vary from student to student for the same educational experience," according to the superintendents.House Bill 618 passed 133-62 on Sept. 25, 2013.The legislation would end what is referred to as a "pension double dip."Cyber/charter schools currently receive full reimbursement of pension costs from local school districts and 50 percent from the state.A matrix would measure and assess a charter's academic performance. The legislation would also require all initial and renewal charter applicants to develop a teacher evaluation system.Senate Bill 1085 also includes measures to increase transparency and accountability in cyber/charter schools.Both bills remain in opposing chambers.Testimony wantedPennsylvania's Basic Education Funding Commission is holding meetings across the state taking testimony on the cyber/charter school issue.A meeting will be held at 10 a.m. Dec. 4 in East Stroudsburg.According to statistics provided by the group, the Bethlehem Area School District paid out $15 million, or 7 percent of its budget, for cyber/charter school tuition.If every child returned to the district, it would save a minimum of $10 million to $15 million.Governance and performance were two other focus points of Friday's news conference.Charter school board members are privately appointed and there is no requirement for board members to reside in the chartering school district.Using an average calculation, public schools in the five-county region received an average Pennsylvania School Performance Profile score of 80.8, while the average score for cyber/charter schools was 58.6."Charter schools are a viable option for the students of Pennsylvania," the superintendents said, "but the finance and accountability issues compel us to question the authorization of new charter schools and the expansion of existing ones until these problems are resolved."