In an April 18 profile of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), The Washington Post glossed over a controversy concerning Santorum's reportedly enrolling five of his children in a “cyber charter school” in Pennsylvania at local taxpayers' expense while his family was living in Virginia. The Post provided almost no information about the controversy, mentioning it only because a student raised the issue with Santorum during a “town hall” meeting at Bucknell University.

Here's what reporter Mark Leibovich wrote:

At the town meeting, a Bucknell student asked Santorum about the public “cyber-school” in which his children used to be enrolled. The cyber-school is open to Pennsylvania residents, though Santorum's main residence is in Virginia. The Santorums removed their kids from the program last November when a school board member in Pennsylvania questioned the arrangement.

Santorum explains that he wanted his children to study online with other kids from Pennsylvania while they lived in Virginia. He has heard, and answered, this question before.

But after the meeting, there's an unusual tone of surrender in his voice: “You know, if I could do it all again ...” Santorum is referring to his children's enrollment in the cyber-school and how difficult it was to quit mid-year. “I look back and I think, maybe I shouldn't have done that.” A yawn fills the SUV.

Here's what Leibovich didn't write: The arrangement by which five of Santorum's children living in Herndon, Virginia, participated in a Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, “cyber charter school” reportedly cost local taxpayers more than $100,000. While Santorum and his wife, Karen, own a house in Penn Hills, “records at the Allegheny County Election Office also show that the couple are not the only people claiming the home as their residence” and “Bart and Alyssa DeLuca, both 25, are registered voters listed for the same address” [Woodland Progress, 11/17/04]. Alyssa DeLuca is Karen Santorum's niece.

While the Post reporter apparently did not believe that apparent inconsistencies in a congressman's residency claims merits examination, Santorum himself might disagree. During his 1990 congressional campaign, Santorum “unseated Democratic Rep. Doug Walgren after running attack ads criticizing Walgren for buying a house and raising his three children in McLean, Va.” [Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/19/04]. A local Pennsylvania paper noted that Santorum called Walgren a “carpetbagger” for living outside his district [Woodland Progress, 11/17/04].

In response to the Santorum controversy and similar cases of families with questionable residency statuses enrolling children in the “cyber-school,” the Penn Hills school board passed a resolution asking the Pennsylvania Department of Education to consider changes to the state's school code intended to “provide a clearer definition of residency for all school districts in the commonwealth” [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/19/05].

The Los Angeles Times reported on November 19, 2004, that Santorum “said he would pull his five children out of an Internet-based school paid for by Pennsylvania taxpayers after coming under criticism because the family lives much of the time in Virginia.” A Nexis search showed that, aside from the Post's cursory treatment on April 18, the Times article was the only mention of the issue by any major newspaper outside of Pennsylvania.