News in Brief: A National Roundup

The board of the Morrisville, Pa., school district voted 8-0 last week to revoke the charter of the Einstein Academy Charter School, an online school that has been mired in a series of legal and political disputes since its opening last fall.

Despite the school's ongoing legal battle with the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and a bitter dispute over funding with the state education department, the president of Einstein's board of trustees vowed last week to fight the revocation. Under state law, the Oct. 23 decision by the district school board can be appealed first to the state's charter school appeals board, a five-member panel chaired by Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Charles B. Zogby, and then to the state courts. ( "Short on Funds, Cyber School Awaits Ruling," March 20, 2002.)

At its height last winter, Einstein Academy enrolled roughly 3,000 students from around the state, a figure that has shrunk to about 660, said Barry M. Delit, the president of the school's board of trustees...