Darcy Bedortha is a guest writer for Anthony Cody’s blog.
She tells her story as a Lead Teacher for a K12 virtual charter school.
She confirms all the worst fears of critics of virtual charters.
They make a lot of money. They are passionate about profits, not students.
Students need one-to-one contact with a human being. They don’t get it.
In a long and heartbreaking post, she writes:
I was an English teacher, so my students would write. They wrote of pain and fear and of not fitting in. They were the kinds of young people who desperately needed to have the protective circle of a community watching over them. They needed one healthy person to smile at them and recognize them by name every day, to say “I’m glad you’re here!” Many of my former students do not have that.
The last thing these young people needed, I came to realize during my time with K12 Inc., was to be isolated in front of a computer screen. A week or two or three would often go by without my getting a word from a student. They didn’t answer their email, they didn’t answer their phones. Often their phones were disconnected. Their families were disconnected. My students also moved a lot. During my first year at the school I spent days on the phone trying to track students down. This year I struggled to not simply give up under the weight of it all.
In the fall of 2013, 42 percent of our high school students were deemed “economically disadvantaged.” I had a number of students who were not native English speakers. I cannot wrap my head around how to serve a student who is unable to read or comprehend the language that the virtual curriculum is written in, let alone learn the technology (when it is functioning) without sitting beside them in the same space. Many of my non-native speakers had parents who did not speak English at all. These students often struggled for a very short time, and then I never saw their work again. They dropped out, moved on.
The school officials make millions of dollars. The virtual charter works for them.
Why are we allowing public dollars to flow to these non-educational institutions?
Silly question. They give campaign contributions. They lobby. They are strategic in advancing their goal: Profit.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
yes… and their ads are ALL OVER THE INTERNET!
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And television. It confirms my suspicion that everything on TV is a lie.
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But, but, but, but, but. . . . How can “REALITY” TV be a lie???
(because it’s not Rheeality tv! 😉 KTA!)
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TRAGIC indeed. This is probably a unique example but it exemplifies a problem which unless stopped will ultimately doom a democratic form of living as people are turned into widgets, uneducated and the extreme difference between rich and poor proliferates. Money supplants people in importance. What a myopic viewpoint.
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I agree with everything you wrote–except the idea that this is a unique example. I think the problems outlined by this online teacher are common to every online or virtual course, high school, college-level, or otherwise.
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Unfortunately this is too commonplace. Virtual Academy’s need to move to the best-practice of face to face contact weekly…..and now!
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Steve,
I see no reason to have virtual charters. K12 is a highly profitable business whose purpose is to make money. Why are they receiving public dollars?
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How about face to face contact minute by minute?
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What if all public school teachers applied for Charter School positions at the same time? How much money do you think might be placed back into public school if the very backbone of all public schools – we, the teachers – caretakers – were to jump into the business of profit education? Why aren’t we more organized? We are angry at the events that have developed over the past six of seven years, but are paralyzed by fear to take real action. Any thoughts? I feel I am at a loss.
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I’m going out on a limb here, but I suspect the reason more teachers aren’t “organized,” is that their unions have been weakened to the point of impotence. Fear of retribution… losing a job in this hideous economy is an effective silence-r.
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Teacher unions have failed us.
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“I believe K12 Inc. targets poor communities and economically struggling regions”
Ohio’s hugely profitable and politically-connected cybercharters definitely target poor kids here and have for nearly a decade, and yet not a peep from the civil rights defenders in the ed reform lobbying community. I guess “bravery” only appears when they’re going after labor unions. They never seem to go after monied interests, oddly enough.
The first place I saw “online learning” replace teachers was in a juvenile detention facility. They took the most vulnerable population, children who are quite literally prisoners, and sold this cheap garbage to them.
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Who would enroll their child in such a sterile program? While there might arguably be benefits for incorporating some online “classes” into the curriculum, a full school day, five days a week, forty or more weeks a year is just not education. And even if some students adapt to such a program, it isn’t natural. Adults who take on line courses for college do not spend full days on the computer. Why, then, would we subject our children to go beyond expectations for adults. It seems unhealthy and subhuman. Have we learned nothing from the results of the overcrowded, institutionalized orphanages in Romania where the brain patterns and behaviors of infants were altered through lack of human contact? What about the brain’s need for social development – a window of opportunity for growing children? I wasn’t aware we needed human robots in the workforce, without thought or emotion. If this is what being college ready means, just count me out.
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Chiara Duggan & Ellen T Klock: I know you understand this, but I felt the need to write it after reading your excellent comments—
Anyone who has been doing their job properly in a classroom knows those moments when a young person, profoundly alienated from family and peers and everyone else, makes a connection with you. When they feel they have someone who will truly listen to them, speak as honestly as possible with them, and show them some modicum of kindness and respect. When you know that you have given them that little lift that may help them deal with so many things that are out of the control of school staff.
You don’t get that from a computer screen. You don’t get that from an iPad.
I know some will consider using this as an occasion for blasting me as a Luddite and worse.
I take my cue from some of the HS students I worked with. “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, haters gotta hate…”
Thank you both so much for your comments.
😎
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Krazy – that was the point left unsaid. And it’s the main reason that we can’t tie a child to a computer. The personal touch is a human need which cannot be ignored. It’s why many of us became teachers. Thank you for the reminder.
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Ellen T Klock
“Who would enroll their child in such a sterile program?”
For starters; parents or caregivers of students who are unable to stay in school because of severe discipline problems. This probably looks like the ideal solution to them – it’s sad but understandable.
My personal thinking is that classrooms full of computers should be very limited, especially in elementary schools. The computers create a barrier in many cases and students are often seated in very close proximity to each other (think “scrunched up”) all day. The environment does little to foster personal growth in social skills and a great deal to foster animosity. Just sayin’.
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South of Buffalo, there was a home for wayward boys called Father Bakers, and if our children were naughty we’d say -“If you don’t shape up, I will ship you out to Father Bakers.”, the next generation of Moms will say – “one more call from your teacher, and I am enrolling you in Virtual Academy.”
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I fear that we have learned very well how the deprivation of social contact permanently impaired many Romanian orphans and that the intent is not far from creating such children on purpose. I keep wondering when the tide will finally turn and children will be freed from economic bondage to the corporate education crew. Yet I can’t shake the suspicion that they still might win and we will all exist to feed the machine.
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“Yet I can’t shake the suspicion that they still might win and we will all exist to feed the machine.”
Yes, my friend.
We seem to share a nightmare.
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I am very concerned about the “back story” as to why recent immigrants would choose a virtual charter. Are these children being asked to work beyond what is legal for their age group? The whole scheme seems conducive for child abuse in all of its forms.
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From anecdotal evidence (but someone should study this issue), I think it is mainly students, and not parents, who are choosing virtual charters.
Many students love the idea of sitting at home in front of a computer, rather than going to school. High school can be very stressful and difficult. Many students (of all backgrounds) face bullying, peer pressure, academic problems, etc. Some online schools give cash incentives or free computers as incentives to new enrollees.
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I can see that for high school. I don’t have a HS student yet but I checked out the K12 curriculum as a possible alternative to homeschooling on a whim. I was thinking about how one might open up time for adolescents to explore their own interests, travel, volunteer/work, and take college courses. Getting up at 6:30, changing classes every 45 minutes and having the same classes every day damn near killed me in high school. I had a foreign exchange student one semester and she hated it as well. She was so glad to go back home where she had some free time to hang out in cafes and go out dancing with her friends! I did much better when I petitioned the principal to do a 1/2 day and take the rest of my courses at the local college. Between that and AP classes, I had enough credits to graduate college in 3 years but I chose not to because I wanted to do an ambitious senior thesis. The pacing of college was just perfect for me. I wish high school had been structured that way.
So, yeah, I can see how online programs might be a great fit for the right student. However, I am very against them for K-8 and there should be face time with mandated reporters.
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Emmy, I agree with the idea that high schools should be more flexible, not more rigid as per the CCSS. In fact, if they were operated more like college, especially for the upper class men, then that would help the students become more college ready. The key is some freedom in course selection and not the rigid requirements being forced on individuals by government graduation requirements – from the state, but influenced by the federal government through funding requirements.
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You’re last point undermines everything that came before: if students are so eager to escape the purported horrors of a real, live school environment (not minimizing the realities of of bullying and peer pressure) then why are the companies finding it necessary to provide material incentives to attend?
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Probably because they have to bring it to scale in order to pay for the technological investments. And, they want to make money. 🙂
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Interesting idea – so they are using virtual schools like home schooling. But I always thought of home schooling as a more hands on approach with one on one instruction and field trips. Also memorizing spelling words. Perhaps a type of home instruction for individuals with severe anxiety or other health issues. However, not for the average child.
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I should probably add that I had a great high school experience. I went to a top high school in a top school district with lots of resources. Looking back, I am not exactly sure how I was able to get that 1/2 day schedule or how I even figured out – on my own – that is what I needed. It is to the credit of my school that they allowed me to do this.
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Many high schools have flexible scheduling, especially for seniors who have completed the majority of their coursework. Some even go to school half a day and go to work the other half. Or they participate in internships.
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Well, this is what happens when you open the doors to a unrepentant,convicted felon…
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My middle son took a K12 virtual class in high school (K12 contracts with another public school district in the state, so it essentially transferred in). He thought it a reasonable class.
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TE, there’s a difference between taking A class and taking ALL your classes online.
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Indeed there is. Except for the rural areas of states, I suspect that future classes will be a mix of traditional and virtual classes, especially in high school where there may not be enough students to justify a wide set if classes.
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That’s still way different than sitting in cubbyholes all day focused on a computer monitor. There is all kinds of technology to offer online classes – including Skype. The computer should be just one aspect of the curriculum.
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I am including all the ways to communicate on the net as appropriate.
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I’m glad the experience worked with your son. It didn’t with mine.
We each have our own toils to bear and I won’t argue with individual success. However, this is definitely not a one size fits all mode of learning. And I question its usefulness for the majority of kids who did not complete the program.
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K12 needs to seriously address the fact that it has one of the worst graduation rates in the nation for full-time students (last estimate was less than 40%). This is worse than most inner-city schools.
My guess is that those who oversee this virtual charter overlook K12’s major deficiencies with full time students because they offer another avenue for credit recovery (although by all accounts it even has terrible data here and the curriculum is not up to rigor for these basic core classes [but most credit recovery courses are a joke anyway]); they offer core and elective classes for homeschoolers; and they allow advanced students to take higher elective classes.
While I do not exactly have problems with these other “elective” and credit areas, K12 needs to get out of the business of teaching full-time students. It isn’t working for them and students would be served better elsewhere.
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Wonder how much public education money they spend on this:
Manager, Campaign Execution (CRM)
City Herndon
State VA
Description The Manager, Campaign Execution is responsible for the design, quality assurance (QA), execution, maintenance for automated marketing programs and email distribution within the marketing automation platform. This position is the primary contacts for the Acquisition and Retention Marketing Strategy teams providing operational support in the development and execution of multi-channel, multi-touch, and nurturing campaigns to enable significant demand generation pipeline expansion and accelerated revenue growth.
• Support the Acquisition and Retention Marketing Team throughout the planning and execution of marketing efforts using the CRM application’s Multi-channel Campaign Management capabilities;
• Builds and monitors integrated marketing campaigns and activities according to business priorities and go-to-market plans within CRM platform;
• Work with teams to translate marketing requirements into functional campaigns within marketing automation and customer relationships management (CRM) systems;
• Continuously analyzes operational process to find and recommends and implement new efficiencies and drive results.
• Maintains best practices in campaign execution and tracking
• Creates emails, forms, landing pages and reports within the marketing application, including templates for use by others within the marketing function;
• Works with web development team to create brand new landing pages;
• Optimize email deliverability using available toolset;
• Documents campaign execution processes, programs and processes.
“to enable significant demand generation pipeline expansion and accelerated revenue growth”
It’s ALL about the kids 🙂
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Markeing, marketing, marketing. Want to get rid of marketers.
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K12, Inc. is nothing more than online $tudent $uccess. KA-CHING!
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One person/teachers opinion does not tell whole story. (think if one opinion was all we used for judging public schools? Ignorant.)
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Still James, it does give us a point if reference and something to discuss. I’ve actually developed a few different viewpoints for this “blog-cussion”.
Do you have anything else constructive to add? We’d all be willing to listen to another point of view.
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I have taught in both environments and will stick to my guns on this. Teachers make or break the system in either place. I have seen students have miserable experience in my physical public school and than end up in my online class and excel. The challenge with the for profit bashing to me is there is lots of businesses who profit from education. Go to a conference and see all the displays and latest fix everything tool being sold to public and private schools. Why don’t we attack “smart” board makers or the numerous gadget makers that have very limited impact on educational growth. In the end a good online teacher makes a difference in kids lives and gives them options.
We have to be careful because there is almost as much money to be made from bashing charters as there is in the charter movement.
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Thank you for clarifying James. Once again, there is a difference between running a well monitored online class and institutionalizing an all day virtual school. I have participated in two online college classes with my son, and they have their place, but not to REplace all of education.
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James,
Please reveal how we can ” make money from bashing charters”!
Especially how we cam make all most as much the charters themselves.( did you mean the operators .?)
Also, BTW, many of us have spoken, written, and complained to anyone who would listen about the $ spent on gadgets ( smart boards, iPads etc.). One could possibly even use the word ” attack”.
Especially if one defines attack as any unflattering, critical examination or something.
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Uh oh. I love my SmartBoard.
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I think smart boards are safe. You really can’t compare using a tool to teach, such as a smart board, with a system which spurns physical human contact such as a virtual school.
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I am in a rural area and have zero school choice. Our 6-8 grade school is horrible. No one is allowed to fail so everything is dumbed down. Major bully problems and not just from the students. And a principal who believes 1984 is a training manual. After fighting through the system on my first children, I finally learned about K12 and the virtual charter school! Yay! An alternative. And it worked out great. We had great teachers who contacted my child frequently. They had live events including a ballet trip and several museum outings. Unlike the “normal” school, my child thrived. He was involved in several clubs, won awards at the state science fair, and learned so much more than the ones with regular teachers. He had weekly web meetings with his teachers where he could get help in real time. What I noticed at the events we attended, many parents sign their children up and then never have their child DO anything. “I didn’t like the curriculum so we just said he did it and skipped it.” When parents do that in a public school, the teacher then has to drag them kicking and screaming or just pass them so they graduate. Yes, shocking, but it happens. My husband is a public school teacher and every year at graduation he sits next to me saying “she didn’t have her credits, he failed too many classes to graduate, that one shouldn’t be walking” over and over and over. K12 may be making money, but so are the text book companies, the software companies, and so on. If your charter school isn’t doing their job, it is their fault. Just like any other school. Online it is may be easier to cheat but it was a life saver for my child.
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Troll for K12?
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I don’t think that one can necessarily draw that conclusion Diane.
Even a blind and anosmic squirrel gets an acorn every now and then.
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Does sound that way.
Doesn’t seem to have posted here before ( I could be wrong, but I turned up only this post using ” the google”.)
Talking points in order.
False equivalency with textbooks and software .
Moving story of how wonderful it is for her child ( hey, even TE when he tells us about his sons experience with virtual classes, avoids the tearjerker story of the horror and abuse endured only to be saved by the charter 😉 )….Waiting for Superman, anyone?
Bashing of public schools with all manner of examples.
I’ll go with troll
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Not a tearjerker story, but actual experience with a K12 class. Perhaps you could tell us about your actual experience with a K12 class, or actual experience teaching a virtual class?
The virtual class allowed my middle son to take the honors vector calculus and physical chemistry classes at the local university and still satisfy the state graduation requirements. Flexibility of scheduling is important. For my students that live in rural areas, having access to a wider curriculum is important. When there is one science teacher in the county, one math teacher in the county, there is little hope for students to find advanced classes to stretch their intellectual muscles.
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You want examples… There is a form that school requires students to fill out on what they want to do long term. I disagree with it and have requested my children not fill it out. One teacher told my daughter. “It’s okay, go ahead and do it and we just won’t tell your mom.” Excuse me! When I reported this to the principal, and that teacher was told, she proceeded to make that child and each additional child’s life miserable. Another time, my son was was hit in the knee by a student on crutches. Every day. When I complained I was told that there was nothing they could do because he had an IEP. My son ended up requiring knee surgery. The big one was when my son was asked to do a paper of homonyms in class. They got points for each one they listed. He worked really hard. One of his was You, Ewe, and Yew. The ENGLISH teacher said that YEW was not a word. He went to the dictionary to show her, and she threw it down and told him the dictionary was wrong. And things like this happened all the time. There were a few good teachers in the school but by and large the bad outweighed the good. No, I do not work for K12. In fact, my dealings with the corporate were not positive. However the charter school we went through was fantastic. And the material we received for him from K12 was challenging and thorough… more thorough than anything my other children received from face to face teaching.
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Diane, that sounds like one crappy school. No wonder ” yew” didn’t like it.
My middle daughter went to a wonderful elementary school, but when she was slammed into the wall in gym class and came home with a black eye, the principal declared it was her fault for tapping a child on the shoulder while he was tying his sneaker. I was furious that nobody called me, but when she went down to the nurse her eye hadn’t blackened yet. She was seven years old. But it was still a marvelous school.
“Stuff happens!”
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Hey, TE.
Catch a clue, I was trying to complement how you simply stated the facts from your perspective. No dramatics. ( close reading, much?)
But thank you for posting them again.
I have posted several times regarding my actual experience with virtual classes
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I must have missed your posts. What is your experience?
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Nope. Not at all. Just giving another side of the story. Feel free to contact me directly, and I’ll send my private info and the website where I work…. which is public school.
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Diane,
I am happy that you found a solution for your son!
However, when you state “My husband is. . . and over and over.” My question to him would be, well have you been addressing each issue? How is he so sure that his information is accurate? If he hasn’t been fighting it then he is a GAGAer as bad as the rest of em.
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Duane, fighting the system as a parent is very difficult, even if, as an educator, you know the ropes (and your rights). The clueless parents barely have a chance.
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My husband has taught for nearly 30 years. Because we are a rural school, he is the only one who teaches a required core class. He knows who has passed and who hasn’t even taken his class. He has addressed the problem and was told to sit down and shut up the admins are taking care of it. And if he didn’t like it, he change jobs.
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I understand. I teach in a rural district also. Many have petty tyrants in admin jobs.
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Diane, it sounds like your son’s experiences went beyond the average virtual school concept. Even then, the fact that students could basically opt out of the educational experience is scary enough to question the program. You seemed to be using it as an alternative to home schooling and were backing the program up with active participation.
And nobody here is disparaging online classes. We just question whether going online for 100% of the school day is a viable option to interacting with other children in a more traditional school setting.
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“And nobody here is disparaging online classes.”
Oh, yeah some do, Yo!
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Now Duane, pay nice! You and I might think they are “not an optimal choice”, but several people have made a valid point of where they might be effective. It’s our job to point out where to draw the line. ( obviously your line is right through the computer).
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Interesting, it seems that you’re hinting that perhaps this blog can be a teaching and learning process and to access it one needs a computer. Good one!
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I wish blogs had a like button.
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All middle schools are a zoo. If possible, I would leave all 7th graders on an island until they turned into eighth graders (who are a little more tolerable). Just saying.
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“The school officials make millions of dollars. The virtual charter works for them.” YES!! This is exactly how I feel about a national, for-profit Title I company I worked for. So much public money flowing up to pockets and not into a quality reading program and into the schools. It was unreal. Why is this even allowed?
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This is horrifying and so sad. These students need human contact. A computer will never be able to give them what they need–the human touch. No computer program, no matter how well it is written, can substitute for detailed instruction that can be delivered in more than one modality, This pursuit for the greatest profit must not be allowed to ruin children’s education.
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Thank you all for your thoughtful responses, and thank you Dianne for giving this story exposure.
It is true, for a few students this works. For those students, however, ANY system would work – because of devoted parents, because of learning style that matches with this mode, because of strong foundations that prepare him/her, because there is someone who can take them to the museum, the ballet, etc. Because they LIKE school… Yes, it can work, but so can brick and mortar… until that day we no longer fund them because all of our public education budget has been siphoned to Wall Street and Dubai…
Brick and mortar public schools work for more than just a few students – not perfectly, but we’re working on that…
For the vast majority of students in these virtual schools, and this is well documented by several independent and peer reviewed studies and reports (follow the links), this does not work. 39% of students, nationally, in full-time virtual schools graduate on time – half that of mainstream brick and mortar schools – 27% meet AYP – again, half of “regular” schools. 40-60% turnover rate in these virtual schools strongly suggests that it is not working – these are kids that buy the 26 million-dollar marketing genius, and realize once inside that it’s not what they thought….
It is for these kids – for the 80% in my school who were struggling, for the 92% of special needs kids in my school who were failing – it is for these that I fight… and for my colleagues who would work 7 days a week, for long hours, for little pay, who looked ragged and exhausted all of the time – for those who have 300 students, or 200 with a part-time paycheck… it is for these that I write, and will continue to fight. I am so grateful for the wide-sharing this story has seen. I’m amazed.
Yes, it can work when all the pieces come together – most things can – but – statistically speaking it does not work. My experience for a year and a half, in the trenches with my heart breaking because I could not reach my students and do the work I am trained to do, proved to me that it does not work. Beyond the reports and the statistics, I lived it.
I have had so many people contact me, in tears, saying “yes! that is my story too!”
Yes, some kids can make anything work. Most are at the mercy of whatever system we throw at them… I know we can do better.
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Thank you Darcy for your heartfelt words. You give us the personal story behind the name. By being better informed, we can make better decisions regarding our children.
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Ma’am, I hear you! I posted a small bit of my too recent experience as a k12, Inc. teacher below. How many of these teachers are coming out? I seriously thought about advocacy after I left Christmas Monday. What can we do? Sign me up!
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I am a middle and high school Spanish teacher. A few weeks ago one of my students, a young man who has generally performed pretty well in my class, began to “shut down.” He became disengaged in class and stopped turning in assignments. Finally, I took him out into the hall to have a talk about what was going on. I already knew that his mother had died a few years back and that he was still having a hard time getting beyond his grief. In our conversation he told me that his sister had recently run away from home and nobody knew what had happened to her. He began sobbing uncontrollably. I put my arm around him, told him not to worry about Spanish class, to take care of his emotional needs, and we would get him back on track in a few days. Long story short, things got worked out at home and he is now back to his old self, not only a good student, but a delightful young man, a pleasure to have in class.
I tell this story as a lead-in for a very simple(?) question I have as I see more and more reliance on computer technology to “teach” our students: What would a computer have done in a situation similar to what I just described? What would a Mac or a PC or an iPad have done to comfort this young man?
Computers are wonderful tools, but I am unaware of any computer or i-device that can hug a student or hand that student a tissue to wipe away the tears. Only a caring, compassionate human being can do that.
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Thank you Bob, you post says it all. School is more than teaching and tests, it’s supposed to be a nurturing environment for the children/young adults. They need that human/humane touch – some days more than others.
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For some virtual education 100% is a wonderful alternative to really bad public schools, or major medical problems, or social problems that need support. Or even those that travel a lot. It is really important the schools (like the one my son attended) make sure there is major home support. On the other hand, the same thing can be said for in person schools. There are just as many problems with useless work and uncaring teachers or — even worse — those teachers who belittle and mock because you don’t agree with their opinions. Like anything else, you cannot make blanket statements. Not in education, not in politics, not in life.
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Diane – we need all the stories – Yours and Bobs and Darcy’s and others – so we can gain a more accurate picture. While your son had a positive experience in this situation, way too many others did not. I, too, faced numerous issues with the school systems, both as a teacher and as a parent, but I still advocate for Public Schools. Nothing is perfect, there are unworthy teachers, principals, and Superintendents, but, for the most part, people drawn to be educators tend to be nurturing people who want what is best for the children in their care.
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I read this right after I “forcibly resigned” from a K12, Inc. Charter school as a HS English teacher at LAVCA. I was fired, oops resigned, the Monday of Christmas because I did not “improve passing rates” after being given only a week and exam week to “improve”. I was not given adequate ways to ethically do this other than call kids and hound them for their work. Behind closed doors I was told to use the exam grade as their semester grade if they hadn’t done the work in the class. I was told my job was to make them feel successful so adding revision writing to the curriculum was against that. We were told to move kids from honors to regular classes at exam week if they hadn’t done the honors projects. And my grade book is filled with EXC in almost every assignment. What Ms. Darcy says is very accurate and only slightly different from what I went through. I never had 30 sections at once and at some point the admin wised up and stopped making kids do a semester of work in short time (catch-up plans). Our Teacher of the Year was considered ineffective the same year because….the kids didn’t show up to testing, so her numbers looked bad. Can we start gathering teachers with these experiences and actually start the fight? We move on because the battle to cut these guys down is huge…but oh, the poor kids!
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