NBC News has caught on to one of the biggest hoaxes of the corporate reform movement: the failure of virtual charter schools. About 200,000 students are currently enrolled in virtual charters. The attrition rates are high, but the industry spends taxpayer dollars constantly recruiting to increase their numbers. It is good to see the mainstream media catching on to what critics of virtual charters have known for a few years.
Some sharp eyed person in their news department learned about the CREDO study last fall that showed that students enrolled in these stay-at-home schools lose ground academically. In the case of math, they lose a full year of instruction for every year they are enrolled. In reading, they also lose ground, as much as 72 days.
The first set of analyses examines the academic growth of online charter students compared to the matched VCRs made up of students who attended brick-and-mortar district-run schools. These schools are typically referred to as traditional public schools (TPS). Compared to their VCRs in the TPS, online charter students have much weaker growth overall. Across all tested students in online charters, the typical academic gains for math are -0.25 standard deviations (equivalent to 180 fewer days of learning) and -0.10 (equivalent to 72 fewer days) for reading (see Figure 3). This means that compared to their twin attending TPS, the sizes of the coefficients leave little doubt attending an online charter school leads to lessened academic growth for the average student. (p. 23).
As the report from NBC shows, some “reformers” are growing disillusioned with virtual charters, but others keep making excuses and say that the bad guys in the industry are anomalies. This is an excuse we are getting used to.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think people should start watching if the virtual charters are importing their “blended learning” curriculum into public schools. That seems to be the next sales job on the horizon in Ohio, which is amazing, because we’re the national leader in garbage online charters. Why they would want to push this crap into public schools, the schools that do much better than any of the online charters NOW, is beyond me.
It makes sense, financially. There aren’t enough charters to make this a good business model as far as growth and scale. Public schools- the schools who educate the vast majority of children- would be a huge purchaser. If they crack that market they can grow enormously.
Ohio (sadly) is kind of the canary in the coalmine for lousy ed reform experiments. We seem to adopt every gimmick or fad that comes out of the national “movement” without any analysis or due diligence.
If it’s starting here it will spread and it isn’t just charters. Remember that ed reformers now direct all federal and state policy for public schools too.
http://www.jointhefuture.org/join-the-future/ecot-under-state-investigation
You are absolutely right! Ohio has become the darling of the Charter industry because of all the money made. And then the operators “donate” to the representatives that just look the other’ way, or continue to allow this pillaging of taxpayers with no oversight. Yes, Ohio is a charter operator’s dream and a nightmare for the citizens and children!!
.
I’m not defending charters, online or otherwise, but let’s also get past this ridiculous notion that students “lose” a “year of learning” for each year in an online school. How is that even possible? Do they forget how to read? How to add and subtract? Of course not. All it means is that their annual test scores go down and I think we’re all in agreement that test scores mean approximately a hill of beans. Again, I like hoisting the rephormers on their own petards as much as anyone, but test scores are not valid measures of learning and there is no such thing as “a year of learning”.
Actually, you may not say they lose, but they do fall behind. To make up that difference thanks a lot of time. I have seen this several times. They also tend to lack social skills, organizational skills, and understanding that each teacher wants things done in the class a little differently.
Kay,
The concept of “losing a year of learning” is relative to what’s expected in a year. So, a school that loses a year of learning per year basically means students learn next to nothing.
The vast majority of reformers that I know are vehemently against virtual charters. They have clearly proven to be ineffective. I think they, and for-profit operators, are a place where a dividing line can be drawn between those in it for profit and those in it for kids.
But, I think anyone who bases their support on what is in the best interests of kids should support building funds for charters. Lack of building funds takes money away from students and teachers and frequently causes not-for-profit charters to turn to for-profit investors to fund buildings, which is not in anyone’s interests except the lenders’. I think another dividing line can be drawn there between those who want what’s best for kids and those who want to starve charters (and therefore their students and teachers) because they disagree with them philosophically.
Charter management corporations and their real estate co-owners are one of the biggest shell game grifts ever seen in Florida.
For the past 3 years our tea party legislature has directed almost all school improvement and building funds exclusively to the charters they themselves own.
They are raking in millions and millions of dollars by renting property they own through a shell corporation and they are scaling it up nationally.
So, no, I will not support the poor beleaguered charters who take over school sites in NYC and elsewhere like a parasite while gobbling up the building and maintenance funding everywhere.
Nice spin though.
Chris in Florida,
Failure to support access to state funds for charter buildings is the reason that those shady deals exist. You are perpetuating the very thing you dislike.
We even seem to have an abundance of “ghost” schools: charters which pop up here or there with obvious funding going into the “fixing-up” stage, and then, just as suddenly, the school is closed down having never served any purpose at all — except to make somebody in the “fixing-up” department rich.
This real estate shell game is actively being played out in other major cities as well. In cities like Chicago and Philadelphia charters have been used as an arm of gentrification. After they destroy public schools and send poor students to the far corners of the city for school, developers swoop in and buy up property near the central business district. The charter schools enter the picture with their real estate shell game collecting over priced rents from a shell corporation while they offer stratified schools that will only “choose” the correct type of students for their reinvented neighborhood. Through cherry picking, the new charter mostly serves yuppies rather than poor minority students.
retired teacher,
My point is that all this would go away if charters didn’t have to fund real estate through their operating budgets and without access to the same funding mechanisms as traditional public schools. Those who fight this access for charters are perpetuating this very behavior, which I agree is a pox on all of us.
John, you completely ignored my statement of fact that ALL school construction money goes to charters in FL although they serve only about 13% of the states’ student population.
Blaming public schools and their supporters for not being funded is pretty darn low even for a charter grifter.
The legislators passed the ALEC laws that fund their charter and then they and their families cashed in. They ignore public school employees and families when they object and the reformers pay for their gerrymandered reelection.
And who said we have to have charters? We don’t. Your logic is deeply flawed.
John: The charter scams are not limited to questionable real estate manipulations. There is a lot of waste and fraud in other areas as well, and there are lots of other shady practices as well. When charter lobbyists buy influence from policymakers, they almost never put any decision to a vote. People are shut out from the process, and it circumvents democracy.
Here is how some charter schools in Florida get money to build. Hand out EB5 visas to Chinese investors investing $500K with a $60K management fee.
http://www.mandeville.com.hk/phase-22-mckinley-extension/
Also, in Florida, the for-profit owners of the property don’t have to pay property taxes, taking valuable real estate off the tax rolls.
They don’t really give a damn about VC. Period.
I am aware that some students returning to public school after realizing the virtual charter school wasn’t educating them had to repeat a year. This means the public school paid double for at least that year.
Ohio is a mess. The Columbus Dispatch has several major articles on the political payola that favors some contractors over others and the glitch-filled performance of the systems. The main article is here, but several others are headlined toward the end. The only good thing is that this is a long-delayed report on a long standing problems spanning Democratic and Republican administrations. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/02/25/ohios-troubled-online-education-project-investigated.html
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
This comparison between virtual charter schools and traditional public schools could not have been made without testing data. I am not against all testing.
montana teacher,
An extremely good point. Many here happily use test scores to talk about bad charters, poor voucher programs, etc., but won’t apply them to poor traditional schools. To be sure, no test data is useful without context (especially economic disadvantage and attrition), but it is still useful.
Virtual charters are even worse than ‘face-to-face’ charters. It’s like comparing apple to meat.
All a “virtual school” is, is a few online classes, a laptop, and a teacher for 60 or more students. They may meet once a week. Or they may not. Yet they will get from tax payers the full per-pupil funding that goes to a neighborhood public school. That brick and mortar school has a building to maintain, offers computers, library, gym, art, music, tutoring, and sometimes after-school homework program,
For the same amount of funding.
Our political leaders allowed this.
“60 or more”…!
When I was teaching online, I had over SIX HUNDRED STUDENTS one semester. I supervised eight other teachers, and was paid below Walmart wages for the privilege.