Peter Greene teaches in a small town in Pennsylvania. He hasn’t studied the research on Cybercharters but he can tell you which students they attract and how they are affecting the public schools in his town.
If he read the research, he would find out that Pennsylvania is utopia for virtual charter schools, having 16 different companies advertising for students. Students drop out almost as fast as they drop in. These “schools” are very profitable. The founder of the first virtual charter in Pennsylvania was charged with the theft of millions of dollars; actually, so was another virtual charter founder.
And the research shows that students learn less in virtual charters in Pennsylvania.
Here is Greene’s take, from a teacher’s perspective.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This article mentions disengaged, bored students, some of whom have ‘trouble getting along with other students’ enrolling in cyber schools. If you take the time to speak to these students and their parents ( even the ones not paying ‘truancy bills’), you may discover the extent to which they have been ‘pushed out’ of their neighborhood schools. Do you not have responsibility to at least attempt efforts at engagement/ motivational strategies and other support before negatively labeling and casting them aside?
LikeLike
Ed Steinberg, ask that question of the cyber charters. Fifty percent of the kids drop out every year and are replaced by others who were lured by false advertising. And they will drop out too.
LikeLike
Diane, thanks for all you do. I’m not disagreeing about the drop-out data surrounding cyber schools. It seems to me that cybers are attractive to parents whose children, for various reasons, are disengaged, have some degree of social/ emotional difficulty (as depicted in the article), and, in any case, are not experiencing success in the brick and mortar school. I was reacting more to what I felt was an unnecessarily harsh depiction of the students and parents opting for cybers.
LikeLike
Ed,
Please show me a public school where those “supports” and “strategies” are not being tried.
As a teacher for twenty years I’ve seen everyone bend over backward to help some of these students and they absolutely refuse to be helped.
And as a parent whose oldest was one of those students, I can say that there is only so much that can be done and if the student decides to do otherwise there isn’t a damn thing everyone else can do about it. Other than to continue to encourage tha child that he/she will eventually “get it” and hopefully they do (mine finally did and is now a working as a chef.)
LikeLike
Ed, it’s a fair question, and a hard one to answer without getting into the kinds of specifics of students situations that I would not be comfortable doing.
Short answer is, at least in my area, somebody always talks to these students in parents. In fact, given the amount of extra trouble that comes with every failed cyber-student who returns to us, I think you’d find most schools are pretty aggressive about trying to find out what the problem is and trying to find solutions other than dropping out for cyber-school.
But it’s a tough sell. PA cybers have snazzy billboards, glossy ads, radio and tv spots, all highlighting features like how cyber school will be more fun, and cyber students are free to spend more of their time doing the non-school things they want to do. Students get a free computer!! They only have to hang out with their friends who come over and not the kids they don’t like, or the exes who broke their hearts last week.
I have never lost a student to cyber school that I didn’t fight and try to keep because I know that for most of them, it will be wasted time and put the students even further behind in life. It’s the at risk students who are most actively recruited and who can least afford one more set back. But at the end of the day, it’s the family’s choice.
LikeLike
Peter,
Thanks for your response- valid points well-taken.
Ed
LikeLike
Traditionally these students would go to alternative schools within the public system. I guess now they sit in front of a computer and try to learn. Typically these students need a lot of intervention so I don’t know how a cyber school would work for them.
LikeLike
Ed,
I’m from the Show Me State and you haven’t shown me anything at all of my request.
Show Me!
Duane
LikeLike