A judge in North Carolina turned down K12″s application to open a cyber charter in that state.
In doing so, the judge sided with the North Carolina Department of Education, which did want to approve the request.
As the story explains, there were many questions about the cyber charter, including the fact that its educational record is not impressive.
In fact, its educational record is downright unimpressive. As I said in an earlier blog, granting this charter would add to the coffers of the publicly-traded for-profit corporation that runs the cyber charters, but would have drained money from NC’s public schools and provided an inferior education. In short, it would have been a waste of taxpayers’ money. And a bad decision for children.
Happily, the court did the right thing. It’s nice to have some good news at the end of the school year, or any other time, for that matter.
The judge protected the children of North Carolina.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And check this out….good news in NYC, I hope!
http://gothamschools.org/2012/06/29/arbitrator-rules-for-unions-turnaround-firing-rehiring-reversed/
LikeLike
Good for NC.
Here, K12 is known as Oregon Virtual Academy – a charter school.
I wonder if there is any data on its effectiveness.
LikeLike
Great news! (There is a typo in paragraph 2; the word “not” is missing)
LikeLike
Congrats! Yahoo for NC education!!
LikeLike
Glad to hear about that. The high-performing Seminole County Schools outside of Orlando turned down a charter school because it didn’t perform at the high levels of existing district schools. The state overturned the district’s decision.
LikeLike
Great news from North Carolina and New York City!
I’ve long felt that deliverance from all this “reform” nonsense will come from the courts. It’s one thing to improve education for poor children and another thing to do it through fraud and teacher-bashing (“Oh, just say that Miss Jones, who makes $70,000 a year, is ‘ineffective’ and you can replace her with Miss Smith at $30,000”).
LikeLike
This is good news. One of the components of LA’s Act 2 will now allow students in C-, D- and F-rated public schools to pursue all but one class outside of a traditional school setting. This certainly is opening the door really wide for online companies to walk right in and take away money through vouchers from the public school systems.
http://theadvocate.com/news/3207705-123/significant-changes-in-public-school
LikeLike
If these for profit ventures are so great why do they need government money? Can’t they sell their “product” on its own merit?
LikeLike
I think it is because switching schools is an exhausting and frustrating and nerve wrecking thing for parents and the ONLY type of energy that will sustain the inconvenience and difficulty of getting your kids through the transition of leaving friends, having a new routine, going to a new place is the anger and righteousness that comes from the belief you are saving your child from the EVILS of public schools. I moved a bunch and the task of getting my kids enrolled in new schools each time, and dealing with their anxiety at home just about killed me. No one will do this without a seriously good reason even if the reason is the myth created by the dis-formers. Only strong emotions will generate the psychological energy necessary, these companies have done their research on human behavior. Probably with galvanized bracelets!
Very few people will make a change in their lives if they are going between two things they PERCEIVE as equal or where neither one is that much better then the other. The disformers had to make public schools and public school teachers so bad that the parents are willing to go through the draining process of change. One bad teacher? You tell your kid, “Well it can’t be that bad and besides, you only have a few months left and then you will have all new teachers!” However if parents feel that next year will bring a whole new set of bad teachers…….?
Educators are fighting not just the attacks against our profession but also the attacks against our students and there are few people outside of education who see the wolf in sheep’s clothing. The politicians working to take over the public schools knew we would try and alert the public so they began planting the seeds of doubt in parents minds by portraying educators as only concerned about our union benefits, pay and that bad teachers were protected from being fired. Much of the press joined in by constant stories of horrid teachers abusing and attacking children, ineffective teachers who were collecting big pay for sitting around and portrayed the union reps battles in such a way as to make them look like they were protecting these bad teachers. It is easy in a time of enormous unemployment to hate teachers who only work for 9 months and get paid for twelve! Have every summer and all holidays off.
When a kids behavior is too problematic and they get in so much trouble they get kicked out, the for-profits feel none of the moral and ethical anguish public teachers do. For-profits just go to the door and yell, “NEXT?”
LikeLike
Newark, NJ has a cyber charter school I am so saddened by this. When will this madness end?
LikeLike