A majority of school boards in North Carolina are opposing the opening of a K12 online charter school. They understand that the North Carolina Virtual Academy will drain millions of dollars from the budgets of the state’s public schools. K12, the nation’s largest for-profit online charter corporation, persuaded one school board to sponsor its operation by promising them a 4% commission. As students sign up for K12, the home districts lose funding.
An administrative law judge granted the charter, but opposition is building among school boards across the state, including the host district.
It’s about time that school boards figured out that the online charter corporations drain revenues from the public schools, while providing an inferior quality of education. A study last year of charter schools in Pennsylvania found that cybercharters got worse results than either traditional public schools or brick-and-mortar charter schools.
It’s past time to stop wasting taxpayer dollars, wasting children’s time, and harming public schools while enriching investors. The point of education is not to make money for a few people but to educate the next generation.
Say no, North Carolina.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Well public schools have been draining and wasting taxpayer dollars for years. I see some of the Charters falling victim to many of the failed fads in the public schools but at least SOME competition is better than no competition.
Do you set your children to compete with one another to see which is the best child? Do you think churches should compete? Schools are not marketplace institutions. Schools are communities. They don’t compete. No competition is better than some competition. Don’t waste taxpayers dollars on demonstrably ineffectual profit-making schemes.
“Schools are not marketplace institutions”. Thank you for clearly and simply stating a profound concept and one that gets to the heart of the current mess of educational deforms in which we find ourselves.
Businesses and schools have fundamentally different purposes. One is make a profit in supplying goods and services. The other is to provide a service (hopefully as efficiently as possible since the public schools are using public monies-which is at the heart of much of the current battles) that has nothing to do with the profit motive. It’s motive is something to the effect of “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people” (MO constitution on purpose of public education).
Wittgenstein’s and later Lyotard’s elaborations on “language games” can be quite illustrative. The “language game” of business has to be in the realm of profitable/efficient vs. unprofitable/inefficient, a “yes/no” realm. Whereas, the “language game” of public education should be in the realm of good/just vs not good/unjust, a more grey area/nebulous discourse. These are two fundamentally different realms with very different discourses and “never the twain shall meet”
The monopoly has been a disaster. I have more faith in free market capitalism than I do in a centralized managed system.
As one who has capitalized on the free market private/parochial school system, I see the benefits.
While I would be the first to admit that no school is perfect, I do love how I have a voice that those in the public schools are denied.
@MOMwithAbrain, I’m confused by your statement that you have a voice unlike in the public schools. Have you used that voice in that arena? Have you heard of Parents Across America? Public schools do not deny parents a voice.
Public schools deny parents a voice all of the time. Have you heard about the math wars?? Good luck trying to get a fuzzy text book out of your district. See http://www.nychold.com
The school may take your concerns to a committee, but the outcome was predetermined before you ever got there. aka…Delphi Technique.
My voice is my tuition. If I don’t like what the private school is doing, I walk away and take my tuition with me.
My concern with Charters is this, no elected school board and I’m seeing many follow in the same failed paths as public schools who jump on every failed fad out there.
I’ve also seen some successful Charters (Core Knowledge) that can work.
Let the parents decide which ones will succeed and which ones will fail. I trust the parents FAR more than the Education Mafia
Unless I am mistaken, the math wars ended about 10 years ago.
“Schools are not marketplace institutions. Schools are communities.” Universities are marketplace institutions. Some Universities cost more to get into, they provide a better education and if you have them on your resume you have an advantage. So why is it ok for Universities to compete but not K-12 schools? Tax dollars go into our state universities but not all are created equal so I guess this is wasted tax money?
Schools are community institutions. Colleges and universities are not.
Public schools are funded by the public and open to all. Universities are not.
Do you think that universities should be funded by the public and free as they are in Finland?