I often receive questions, on and off the blog, about
virtual charter schools. This post will summarize the key things
that you need to know to be an informed consumer. Begin with the
politics and money promoting virtual charter schools. Colin Woodard
won the prestigious George Polk award last year
for this expose of the effort to bring virtual charter
schools to Maine. It is a stunning piece of investigative
reporting. Virtual charters have a terrible track record. They have
a high attrition rate, low test scores, and low graduation rates.
Their one positive feature is that they make a lot of money for
investors. This is
what the National Education Policy Center wrote about
virtual charters. This is what CREDO
found about the performance of virtual charters in
Pennsylvania, the state that has more of them than any other. This
is what the
New York Times wrote about K12, the biggest of the
virtual charter corporations. This is what
the Washington Post wrote about virtual charters. This is
the
post I wrote about a statement called “Digital Learning
Now!” written by a group led by Jeb Bush and Bob Wise to promote
the expansion of virtual charters without any regulation. The post
contains a link to the statement. Campaign contributions and
lobbying have allowed the cyber charters to expand without adequate
regulation and supervision of their quality or financing. The head
of the nation’s largest cyber charter school, Nicholas
Trombetta, was indicted only days ago by federal
prosecutors, charged on 11 tax and fraud violations and accused of
stealing nearly $1 million. In the future, if your state
superintendent or governor or legislators want to bring virtual
charters to your state, send them copies of these reviews. Be aware
that some may be pushing virtual charters because they want to cut
costs by replacing teachers with computers or because they received
campaign contributions from the individual corporations that stand
to benefit. And do not forget that the money that the virtual
charters receive is taken away from public schools across the
state. This money is then used for advertising, recruitment of new
students, and paying off investors.