We know from studies and reports that online charter schools provide inferior education.
We know that they have lower graduation rates and lower test scores than brick-and-mortar schools.
We know that they have high attrition rates, as students enroll and leave within a year or two.
We know that children enrolled in virtual charter schools do not have the opportunity to interact on a regular basis with other children of their age or have face-to-face interaction with live teachers. We know that they will not develop the social skills that come from such interchange.
We know why they are a growing business: They make millions for their sponsors.
So why do parents continue to enroll their children in institutions with such a bad track record?
Here is the answer: The demand for virtual schools is a sure indicator of the dumbing down of the American public and the triumph of American capitalism at its greediest.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Physicist Geoffrey West’s analysis of cities and corporations may help to answer your question. Virtuals may be the latest ‘innovation’ need to keep our economy from collapsing. It certainly would explain the ‘urgency’ reformers always mention.
If anything, charters will cause not only economy to collapse but also our system of education and eventaully our way of life.
I agree 100% with you, Mark. West’s TED talk attempts to explain what keeps cities going despite seemingly impossible trajectories.
I also feel it cheapens the whole profession, erodes the importance of learning and is being sold to the lowest bidder.
A minor correction:
I would love an edit button or spell check.
If anything, charters (and the education they provide) will cause not only the economy to collapse, but also our system of education, and eventually our way of life.
There are a couple of reasons.
1. Free laptop. Don’t underestimate the appeal.
2. Homeschool alternative. Something isn’t working at the local school; an online home school sounds appealing. Could be scheduling issues, could be clash with administration or another student. Could be the student lives far from school.
3. Parents don’t know the stats. They assume that if it is offered and sanctioned by the state it will be a high quality experience.
I think there’s a place for them for certain kids even if they aren’t statistically coming out as high performing. I would be thrilled to have a high quality non-profit online school option for use within the traditional school for supplementation and for use for kids with other circumstances. I hope that just because they’re infested with low-quality for-profit offerings doesn’t mean that the whole idea will die.
The motive is profit, not good education. That says it all.
Motive does not equate with outcome. If the Virtual charters were not-for-profit entities and all the teachers and administrators took a vow of poverty and they still produced a inferior outcome, we should still rip them a new one.
What motivates the “physical schools”? Teacher and Administrator salaries. New school facilities. Athletic teams. There are many physical schools that seem to be motivated by something other than a good education. How else can we explain their outcomes?
Is their failure a lack of proper motive? If they had the proper motive would they succeed?
The outcome is what matters not the motive.
Virtual charter schools are freely chosen by the parents. The motives of the parents are the interesting topic. Why do they leave? Have they been sold a pig in a poke with slick advertizing? Did they feel helpless/unwanted in the physical school?
Appear to condemn for profits “we should rip them a new one” and then go on to attack public schools. Sick , sick, sick!
Duane,
What’s up buddy. You should read my post again. I am agnostic on profit. I feel school that fail students should fail. For-profit and Not-for-profit schools can fail students and do so all too frequently.
If feeling schools that fail to educate children makes me sick. Then call me sick, sick, sick. 🙂
lighten up and read.
What if the school enrolls a disproportionate share of children who are homeless; who are living in chaotic conditions; who are sick; who can’t read or speak English?
Is that a “failing” school? Would you close it down?
Would you then close down the one that takes its place?
And then what?
Excellent questions, Diane. Thank you for being respectful. I agree social issues/poverty/wealth are strong predictors of the educational performance of groups. The individual student can follow the mean of the group or be a tail in either direction.
“What if the school enrolls a disproportionate share of children who are homeless; who are living in chaotic conditions; who are sick; who can’t read or speak English?”
Are the students failing to be educated in this hypothetical school? If so, the school is failing those children and the parents should be able to move their children to a different school of their choosing. Education is not a group sport. Education is an individual endeavor. Students should not be compelled to attend a school that fails to educate them.
“Would you close it down?
Would you then close down the one that takes its place?”
I would not close it down. No, I would leave that to the local population. The loss of money to the district would eventually force bankruptcy of the local school unless they attracted more students to make up for the loss of students. The state would then act as a backstop and take over the defunct school. The “market”(parents) will close schools, will keep them open and cause the creation of new schools.
Schools will have to provide what the market wants to stay afloat.
Markets are more efficient than bureaucracy in facilitating change.
Then what? Answer: Detroit.
Mike, your answer suggests that moving a high poverty student to a new school is going to solve the problem, that it is the school that is at fault. It may be the case that moving one student will help that one student. It does not follow that it is possible to move all students and get a similar result.
In other words, if the fundamental problem is that the school has 90% free/reduced lunch, and the answer is to move the kids to schools with 10% free/reduced lunch, and the population as a whole is on order 40% free/reduced lunch, the math says our solution cannot be implemented for every child in the US.
I would suggest that in general that the problems are related to the concentration of poverty in schools, and that as long as this is so, turning over school management or moving kids will not solve the problem.
So that leaves a couple of alternatives, if your goal is to secure the future of every child:
1. End or lower child poverty. Right now we’re at 1 in 4 kids are living in homes with ridiculously low incomes. That’s deeply alarming.
2. Find some other ways to get dramatically more resources to high poverty schools and their communities and families for food, health care, after school care, clothing, and literacy
3. More adults in those schools would help too.
Online schools are going to be the least effective for these kids, kids who do not have family members fluent in their school curriculum or in the use of computers to help out. The online schools depend on having a strong parental backup to check work, enforce time, help with troubleshooting, etc.
Mike,
Your belief in “The “market”(parents) will close schools, will keep them open and cause the creation of new schools. Schools will have to provide what the market wants to stay afloat. Markets are more efficient than bureaucracy in facilitating change.” belies a certain common misperception about what a market is. And that is that the “market” can do things like allocate resources. The market doesn’t do anything it is just a descriptive term for the interactions that humans carry on. And, the market cannot be provided for by a school as the market, again, is just a description of human interaction and not an “actor/conscious being”.
Please cite some studies for your statement that “markets are more efficient than bureaucracy in facilitating change”. Let me give you an example of how these supposed markets fail to supply a common good. Rural electrification would not have occurred without government intervention as it was not profitable for private companies to do so. Those ventures became rural electric cooperatives in which the customers are the owners. I know, I’m a member of one. And my rates are quite a bit lower and my service way better than the private company that now services some of my neighbors. They’ve had outages that lasted days, the longest outages that I’ve had in seven years is four hours. Why, because the cooperative dedicated funding to properly trim the wooded areas around the lines preventing line interruptions due to broken power lines whereas the private company cut back, hey, it helped provide dividends to the investors and not the users. When at the end of the fiscal year there are any operating funds left over they are rebated on a pro-rated basis to each “owner”-the customer. Public schools are just like the rural electric coops in that they are a community oriented , democratically run-through the school boards-public good. Thank you but I’ll take the cooperative over the private for profit entity every time.
You were close in stating “market”(parents) but the parents would be only part of the market. The other part is the public school district. And again through democratically elected representatives the public school is more open than any privatized educational institution to scrutiny-you can go into your local district office and demand to see the financial records. What gives the parents or groups of parents of a particular time and place the right to close a public school, such as the ALEC endorsed parent trigger would do, when that entity, the public school, is an historical public good? And no the “market” is not doing the closing.
It also attracts parents who are at their wits end with children who struggle in a classroom. They’re ready to give anything a try and as the stats note, it’s usually a brief try. Unfortunately, the cyber charters make money on desperation.
Agreed.
Here is the answer: The demand for virtual schools is a sure indicator of the dumbing down of the American public and the triumph of American capitalism at its greediest.
I paraphrase H.L. Mencken: No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
Diane, do you not see any role for online learning in P-12 education? This post sounds like you don’t…
Yes, I see a role for virtual learning. I see no useful role for for-profit schools. I see a very limited role for home kind nonprofit virtual schools.
Diane Ravitch
Call me crazy! But I see the test crazed, virtual schools a key way to gain homeschooled children into the Marixst education system that has taken over America. Homeschoolers have been taught by parents, many who value education, creativity and innovation. However, in many states, homeschoolers don’t have a take a test. And, when parents read the local high-stakes testing reports in their local newspaper, they begin to worry “How would my child do in a public school setting; could they past the test?” Virtual schools allow parents to still provide the home taught morals, while teaching the academics. It’s another way for those in power to get every kid on board with their ways. In the U.S., we closer to a Hitler-style take over.
I will oblige you.
Well, this poster may seem to have given themselves an accurate name, but this kind of argument is not far off the mark – but from supporters of virtual charters. In hearings on a law that would remove restrictions on cyber charters in Michigan, many families came forward to talk about how much they loved the programs. Usually, they described issues with illness or disability. But under gentle questioning, it became clear that these families would not put their children in a public school under any circumstances. A common undertone was the desire not to expose their children to a public system they viewed as spiritually empty.
Naturally, our lawmakers took the high road and encouraged the use of public money to pay for-profit online charter companies to educate the children of families who had already rejected public education. At the same per-pupil funding level as physical schools, no less.
CMC,
“. . . the Marixst education system that has taken over America.” Can you please explain what exactly about public education is Marxist?
Thanks,
Duane