Some of the school districts in Wisconsin are canceling their contracts with for-profit vendors of online schooling.
Last year, four out of the state’s five biggest online schools were run by for-profit corporations.
This year, the number is down to two, because school officials concluded the vendors had a conflict of interest: Their first obligation is to their shareholders, not the students.
The districts will run the virtual schools without the for-profit corporations.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m from Wisconsin and this amazes me. Our governor (Walker) is one of the biggest ALEC puppets around, and ALEC’s stated goal is to privatize education. These school districts are either brave or stupid, because Walker is going to come down on them hard.
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Today’s Portland Press Herald included a big expose of the conflicts of interest in Governor LePage’s push for for-profit virtual charters in Maine:
http://www.pressherald.com/news/virtual-schools-in-maine_2012-09-02.html
The “follow the money” graphic is excellent. We have to get the word out to parents and the public in general to stop this bald-faced graft of our public schools and state tax revenues. I hope to work with the Maine Education Association and my local Rep. to start drafting legislation that will at least for hearings to bring this out into the open.
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More from today’s Press Herald:
http://www.pressherald.com/news/studies-existing-full-time-virtual-schools-earn-poor-grades_2012-09-02.html
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Many fight back events began in Wisconsin. This maybe another!
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This is a positive step, but it is off set by the continued expansion of the voucher program in Milwaukee and Racine, to say nothing of the national charter chains that are invading the city. We are struggling to get the City Council to require any new school have a playground. The voucher/privatization folks are opposing this simple ordinance.
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