Lindsay Wagner of NC Policy Watch reports that the virtual charter corporation K12 is hoping to open an online school in North Carolina.
K12 was founded by Michael and Lloyd Milken and has turned out to be a highly profitable corporation that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
It academic results are unimpressive, to say the least. Its students have a high dropout rate, low graduation rates, and low test scores. A study by the Walton-funded group at Stanford found that virtual charter schools in Pennsylvania, including K12, get worse results than either public schools or brick-and-mortar charter schools. A study by the National Education Policy Center criticized K12’s poor academic results and high administration costs; students at K12 actually fall behind real public schools. Stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post showed K12 to be one of the worst of all possible choices.
K12 makes a lot of money for investors. The schools it creates are not good schools, as judged by results.
Why would North Carolina want to siphon money away from its community public schools to pay off investors in a for-profit corporation?
Must be campaign contributions. Or ideology. Or stupidity.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
North Carolina has been working hard to wipe out public education. This just seems like one more logical step.
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Yes, well. . .we probably wouldn’t have even entertained the idea had the cap on charters not been lifted due to Race to the Top money. Now we are ripe for the poaching and fraud.
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Was lifting caps on charters another requirement for RttT funds? I didn’t realize that!
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Yes indeed.
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Education carpetbaggers.
http://insiders.morningstar.com/trading/executive-compensation.action?t=LRN
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In the U. S. now it seems that that is the modus operandi: money supplants people in importance.
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I see that this company is now running TV ads in the Chicago area.
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Don’t forget the Mountain Moral Monday tomorrow at 5:00. Pack’s Square. Asheville.
And don’t forget the long history our public schools have had and that we must continue to work to maintain them.
I just typed a really long answer to Diane’s question about campaign contributions, ideology, or stupidity. And then somehow I deleted the whole thing, darnit. But I will say I think it’s a combination of those forces, but instead of stupidity I would call it naivety.
Music teachers tie things into music:
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It appears that the Dallas Cowboys owner/General Manager Jerry Jones may be selling franchises on how to make a ton of money while delivering mediocre outcomes.
If you look at Michael Milkin’s illustrious background you will find that he is no stranger to the concept that there are millions to be made even if customers are left holding the bag.
It appears that his years as a guest of the federal government in the Greybar Hotel did little to abate his appetite for other peoples’ money.
Messrs. Jones and Milkin do keep the purveyors of toupees in yachts.
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Morally bankrupt and conscienceless human beings (corporations, too) will continue to operate in this manner as long as we don’t stop them. Vote with your brain.
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And with your feet and hands, heck, every way you can!
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just like the sub prime mortgage movement
and the marketing that went along with dozens of golf communities and so forth that never actually got built, but people took out mortgages on the promise of them being built
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It seems that in order for Wall Street to function, conscience must be thrown out the window. The fact that profits must be shown, no matter how they are obtained, are the only bottom line.
When education became a “business” it was on track to have no conscience. So, here we are today.
What began in the 1990s as a so-called pursuit of better management and accountability of tax dollars dispensed for education has become a business designed to make money from those tax dollars.
Most teachers that I know went into education as a calling…a calling of the heart. The desire to make a difference in the lives of children drove people with caring hearts, a willingness to sacrifice time and income, and a live for children to enter the profession.
Quite possibly, some of the people who entered/enter the profession were/are not necessarily from the top 5% of their high school classes. Some might even be from the top 25%. But they have dedicated their lives to building children, not to building climbed widgets, not to creating a workforce of people willing to be used by the owners.
Some have been blinded by the fast pace of technological advances. Just as dedicated teachers, who have worked hard to become the best representatives of society and community cohesiveness, have reached a time in their lives where retirement becomes a needed rest in their overly busy lives, they find that their work is simply disrespected and not desired. Their input is not needed. They are shoved out the door.
Others, who were drawn to the “teacher shortage” of the early 2000s are finding that they, too, are in danger of losing any the prospect of any retirement at all.
Coming full circle, retirement is tied to Wall Street. Retirees are dependent on Wall Street which is without conscience to take into their final years.
Do we have to be complicit in this conscienceless endeavor? If it is a matter of life and death, where must we stand?
We get bombarded with messages from people of all sorts of ideological opinions. Even here, we have strong ideological differences and approaches.
I don’t really care, at this juncture, if you are from the Tea Party or the far Left. I don’t care what religion you represent or in what part of the country you live. I don’t care if you are teaching in a rural, suburban, or urban area. I don’t care what economic, ethnic, social or academic demographic you support. I don’t care if you do or don’t support science or evidence.
All this is essentially irrelevant, but it dictates our thoughts about politics, religion, education, and economic policies.
ALL that matters in order for this country to move forward together is establishing a common purpose. How clever to use the term Common Core to disguise itself as a Common Purpose.
If we are going to fend off the inappropriate application of standards that were not developed with a contribution from representatives with a common purpose, we must seek to find that common purpose and provide a reasonable alternative that states ARE willing to adopt. It is hard or impossible to please all people, but to have had certain business academics and people who don’t even work with children make these broad demands is without conscience on their part.
I, for one, am tired of arguing. We are at a turning point in the US. If all we does is go back and forth with extremist blog and article references, failing to deal with the fact that money is controlling what we read or hear, we will tread water and make little change.
People are making strides in dealing with these changes in education. Let’s deal with that within the greater mess that our country is in. We can’t fix politics. But we can work to build a better educational delivery system by standing up to forced decisions.
Dismantling the tests and their ties to teacher evaluations needs to be a first step. Standing up to these forces has to be done together.
Also, we need to stand up against governors and legislatures, like we have in Ohio and other states, who support privatization of schools, using public money. Vote these people out!
K-12 education in Ohio is not successful. It falls apart because of the fact that it isn’t required to live up to accountability standards. And, it falls apart if there isn’t parental supervision and support. Those are similar reasons as to why some public schools don’t work.
We must stop this monetization of education.
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This is a good phrase: “And, it falls apart if there isn’t parental supervision and support. Those are similar reasons as to why some public schools don’t work.”
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One thing that has really been swept out of discussions is : respect. The lack of respect for parents, teachers, administrators, governors, senators, legislators, judges, presidents, and government is a harsh reality in our current world. The internet and technology in general have undermined the ability to promote respect. The only thing Americans seem to respect is money…no matter how it is obtained. That leads to deceit. Therefore, we have no reason to respect those whose only goal is personal profit.
Tying public services to profits is the first step in dismantling efforts to provide educational services to all children.
The American Educational system has its delivery problems. It has never been perfect or equitable. But efforts to make it so have been sincere, if flawed. Human beings do make errors in judgment. It seems that when we are forced into a rigid set of demands, no one is claimng responsibility for the new errors in judgment.
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I see all your points, Deb. Some would say American life is so easy that everyone takes free education for granted and that’s why eventually we’ve come to the “no respect” problem. Maybe. Maybe it stems from building high rise and segregated public housing and then wondering why the schools within the vicinity of those projects were rough and not as productive academically as they should have been.
I think the reason that Obama has not paid much attention to how harmful RttT has been (charter caps being lifted being the subject in this post) is because his sister attended a corporate backed school (sort of. . .the Ford Foundation) and he doesn’t see them as hurtful to our society. And in limited numbers with good accountability they aren’t hurtful, I don’t think. . .but without accountability and control in numbers I think they probably are.
But anyway, this forced me to go to the Ford Foundation website to read their mission statement. And one of the goals is to “strengthen democratic values.” But you see this outreach is coming from the U.S., where we have democratic values. So to then assume that all outreach backed by corporations will be wonderful is presumptuous and forgets that if you aren’t starting from a standpoint of valuing democratic values (or, furthermore, from a PLACE where they are valued. . .like the United States), then you are likely not going to achieve the goal.
In fact, we are going to undermine our democratic values by following a model (corporate backed charters) that assumes it is perpetuating democratic values in places where there are none. But we already have them. . .so why do we need an outreach like this? It’s like medicating someone who is not sick, because that medication worked on someone who is sick. Or maybe we are sick, but, as Diane has said in interviews, poverty is our illness and not poor public schools across the board.
I would love to have a conversation about this subject with some of NC’s leadership. . .
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Up to Mike Barnett @ 3:25 PM–yes, Mike, K-12 is constantly running ads–especially on late night–I’m assuming they think they can locate “victims” (Parents who might be very tired, not thinking clearly, people w/insomnia, elderly grandparents who are raising their kids’ kids, & fooling them w/ ads that boast of “recommendations” from a seasoned “professional” principal, & that K-12 hires “qualified” teachers, etc., blah, blah,blah…) I strongly suggest that NC parents, school boards, anyone/groups whose children might be victimized by the scam claims of K-12 get a hold of the Naperville, IL
District 203 School Board Meeting video (does anyone out there have a link?) whereby both the Board & the administrators did their due diligence, ripping the K-12 representative TO SHREDS with comments/questions such as (from a school board member): “I understand that you had a (something) million budget last year. Since you have no brick-&-mortar buildings, no lunch or transportation programs, no (whatever else was mentioned) just WHAT did you spend it on?” The K-12 rep. proceeded to hem & haw &, clearly unable to answer the question said, “We do have a budget (in print). I’ll have to get back to you on that.” The rep. was asked when that would happen, rep. answered w/in a week–not only did he NOT get back w/in a week–try—never. The board member proceeded to answer her own question, stating, “I’LL tell you what you spent this (something) million on–you spent it all on ADVERTISING!”
Not only was this brought up by that board member, but that point (& the rep’s ignorance) was brought up yet again–for emphasis–by the district administration!
K-12 attempted to worm its way into EIGHTEEN Illinois suburban school districts, and was not approved by ANY one of them! K-12 originally announced it was going to appeal to the Illinois Charter Commission, but then withdrew its appeal. One of the lead managers here for K-12 resigned. Due to this obvious circus–courtesy K-12–a number of Illinois legislators brought up several bills to –1. Place a moratorium on virtual charters (passed both House & Senate); 2, Restrict the powers of the IL Charter Commission; as well as several others. A very strong group in Illinois–Northern IL Jobs w/Justice–& its leaders John Laesch & Mary Shesgren–worked in concert w/State Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia and Rep. Naomi Jakobssen to sponsor & to get these bills passed. Therefore, NC, I urge you to contact Illinois if you need to get some pointers on how to keep these carpetbaggers (K-12–started by Mike Millken–indicted, jailed “junk bond king”–barred from dealing in that financial world, but found a way to make $$$$$ through that cash-cow public education, aka–robbing America’s children of a good education, and ripping off taxpayers.
Yes, WE can–and, in 18 Illinois school districts, we DID!!!!
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Who should they contact?
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I am trying to get the direct link to the video but–in the meantime–try http://www.naperville203.org Also–a Chicago Tribune article covered the meeting/all info.–“D 203 Board Frustrated by Virtual Charter School Proposal” by Melissa Jenco, April 3, 2013. Finally, tyou may go to the Northern Illinois Jobs with Justice website–
nijwj.org and look up K-12 Virtual Schools Hearings at 18 Fox Valley School Districts (all 18 school districts are listed, with hearing dates starting March 18, 2013.
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Extreme ideology often appeals to ignorant, biased people who are easy to manipulate/fool, and such movements often bread stupidity.
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Yes indeed.
I think zealots of a certain variety (and I am not Christian bashing because I do go to church, but there is great variety among those who identify themselves as Christians) think if they stack up policies that seem to elevate their views (which they think are the only truth, for a myriad of deep seated reasons), that they are leading people to a righteous life. Now, nevermind they (read general assembly members who are in ALEC) get wined and dined and lobbied under the guise of not lobbying—they believe they are enabling the true narrow part that all should follow and it stinks for those who know that the very reason we are free to have faith lives of our choosing is that we give freedom to everyone, even those who would choose something else, and we still have the responsibility of taking care of the poor and of children for working towards productive lives as citizens through a collective effort in schools that welcome all children.
It’s frustrating. But identifying it as stupid won’t help. We have to talk calmly and respectfully in order to love things forward.
Trust me on that one. I live here. I grew up here. Kindness matters, even in the face of extreme ideology breeding naive decisions.
There is work to be done.
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I meant move things forward, not love things forward. But loving things forward makes sense (if you love NC, which I do).
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Joanna,
I agree that the first step should be to treat your enemy as you would want them to treat you, but having fought in Vietnam and read enough about the Middle East conflict and many other conflicts throughout history, I can assure you that if treating an enemy with kindness and respect doesn’t work, there are only two options left.
1. surrender and let them have their way
2. go to war
Throughout history, there have always been people and groups that are incapable of compromise, which explains why history is littered with conflict/wars. Reason doesn’t always work. If it did, there wouldn’t be this fighting in Gaza between Hamas and Israel.
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People who can’t compromise?? Take a look at Congress. Hmmm.
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Zealots are zealots. Hold up a mirror to a zealot and he/she sees a loyal, patriotic, sincere believer in their version of truth.
For some reason, finding what the other agrees with, is not an option for a zealot. And, the term zealot is met with resistance and considered to be grounds for verbal or physical attacks.
Compromise is seen as weakness and can’t be tolerated. Notice major religious groups. They have factions. The factions disagree and often go to war.
It doesn’t matter if it is religion, politics, morality, or education. Compromise is difficult to obtain. In some circles, zealotry leads to death. . . death of a person, a civilization, a way of life, a marriage, a family, or a system.
No one wins. Everybody loses. Why? The only way to move forward is to compromise. Otherwise there is too much collateral damage to clean up.
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Deb, never compromise with frauds, cheats, liars, thieves. A very bad idea.
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I indicated people are fighting.
I just don’t think the term “stupidity” is going to help in the fight. There are dozens of better words that will more likely get a persuadable person thinking. And there are plenty of persuadable folks in NC. I did not bring up compromise.
A zealot mindset is the starting point of some of the support for short term decisions in NC. After that I think the seduction by ALEC and the appeal of rubbing elbows with wealth and power are to blame. That’s not stupidity. That’s vanity.
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Vanity is also what makes the pretend feeling of a private school experience that is free (charters) appealing, sometimes.
Vanity leads to short sightedness and that is what we have going on in NC.
And it should come as no surprise because in my opinion many of the zealots here in NC use the Lord’s name in vain by using it as a qualifier in business and personal identity. You find the Christian fish on business signs all the time and it makes me mad. That is using the Lord’s name in vain, in my opinion. Such actions lead to shortsighted mindsets.
It shouldn’t be illegal, of course, but it should be recognized for what it is. And it is in poor taste, as are many of the policies our General Assembly is getting away with.
There is a fight. It doesn’t take a Viet Nam vet to encourage that. We are on it.
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How about “ignorant”?
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http://www.progressncaction.org/news/raleigh-news-observer-editorial-an-nc-budget-aimed-at-election-not-the-future
More on our state
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In reading through the comments following my answer to Detroiter (I wrote @ 11:16 PM), I’m quite surprised at the deterioration of this conversation. I don’t understand the talk about zealots, compromise, etc. My take on this post is that there is a serious threat to the education of NC children, and that is what needs to be addressed here! Just as Mike Millken (one of the founders of K-12) sold “junk bonds,” K-12 sells “junk education.” That’s why I posted information about K-12’s attempt to move into & disrupt EIGHTEEN–yes, EIGHTEEN!–school districts in suburban Illinois.
MANY of these schools were (& still are) named “Schools of Excellence.” ALL 18 REJECTED K-12’s charter request. In the one hearing video I saw (& it is thoroughly described in the Chicago Tribune article I cited above), a school board member & an administrator BOTH made the point that their schools were already deemed excellent–they had good students who scored above state averages on tests, as well
(of course, that is not the only standard used to measure excellence in those schools). AND the people questioning the K-12 rep. wanted to know–since their schools were excellent–WHY would K-12 take money AWAY from the public schools for their own use (as well as asking what they’d use that money for–but I already covered that above). Come on, people, stick to the point of the post–if you have any info. about K-12 experiences in your town, city, suburb or state that will help NC (& other states!) keep them away, please do so–be helpful! In fact, someone even came in from another state (I believe it was Tennessee) to testify against K-12 at at least one of the hearings, stating what harm K-12 did to the students/schools there. And–again–as I’d stated above, the EIGHTEEN school rejection of K-12 led to some terrific charter-watchdog legislation in Illinois. So please send comments/testimony that will help NC–& every other state–keep K-12 out!
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The NCAA will not accept credits from 24 of K12’s virtual schools. They are not credit worthy.
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Good to know.
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If the NCAA rejects the crendential of an entity, that is saying something.
So many are in money sports throughout the NCAA without ever once having cracked a book open.
If we are looking for examples of what makes education what it is in the US, the NCAA is one great place to begin due diligence.
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I think it went down that road when I suggested that “stupidity” is not a good word to use in trying to decide why K12 is being entertained. I took the host to be more about why we are letting this happen, in keeping with Diane’s last line in the post.
I think any for profit charter is not good. End of subject.
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Gist, not host
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Joanna,
I appreciate your thread about the use of the word, “stupid”.
With a loss of financial security, people became desperate to find a group that values them and makes them feel good about themselves. The conservative movement gives them a rallying point, with sequential issues like saving Christmas from commercialism, protecting sexual innocence… . And, it bolsters their self-esteem to gather together and join the fight. A patriarchal system makes them feel secure.
Protecting public schools from the attack by New York hedge funds could make people feel good but, the pulpits are filled with men whose intent is to regain the male entitlement that they think the 1% will bestow on them.
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Hmm. Never compromise with liars, etc. Who gets the final say as to the identity of the liars? Who owns the truth? Nothing gets accomplished without everyone admitting that they are aren’t right about everything. But, I am way out of my league here with all the “somebody”s who post. I just wish this mess would be resolved.
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Deb, if someone tells you that Hitler was a philanthropist and that the Holocaust never happened, would you compromise?
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Good grief. I forgot to qualify my comment. Of course, you can’t compromise with an insane dictator. We don’t quite have that here. We have misguided egotists with money.
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And, I was referring to reaching a compromise among those who do not like the CCSS within the ranks of objectors. We have progressives and Tea Partiers objecting to CC. The movement won’t go far if there is no consensus as to how to do so. That will require compromise.
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Tea Party is non issue in NC. We’ve moved on, thankfully. I aware of the concern of legislators writing standards, but we do still have a state board of Ed and a state superintendent and we will get it worked out.
The focus is elsewhere here.
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I didn’t mean to say Tea Party. I meant to say CCSS.
I need my coffee.
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The world would be a much better place if history had been rewritten so that Adolf Hitler had not been rejected from art school just as if Rick Perry had not been rejected from vet school.
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Unfortunately, public schools are contracting with online for-profits too. They’re simply running the for-profits out of districts rather than charters. They’re doing it because they’ve had their budget slashed under ed reform leadership at the federal and state level and they need the revenue retention but when this crashes (and it will) there won’t be exclusively ed reform fingerprints on it.
It’s easy to get around state law that bars for-profits. NJ supposedly bars for-profits. They contract with k12 in Newark. All one has to do is set up a sub-contractor relationship. “The school” as a legal entity can be public or non-profit, but it’s a shell. All essential services are contracted out.
When online learning crashes, it will simply be rolled into the “failed and failing public schools” narrative promoted by politicians and lobbyists. Public schools should resist ed reform schemes rather than adopting them. If they want to survive they’re going to have to offer something different than status quo ed reform privatization.
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While I mostly agree with the comments on your website (and I worked in both charter and cyber charter schools), I feel that you are “having it both ways” when you quote results from NCLB tests. It seem hypocritical when you say the tests should be abolished and the results have no meaning since they generally measure socio-economic status and then use same results to disparage cyber charters.
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Lots of politicians view virtual education as a cheap, easy way to teach the masses. The main problem is they don’t work on poor or young children. Here in Florida Jeb Bush is selling his virtual product everywhere; He even went to far as to start a “virtual” preschool. Those of us that understand child development know that young children and many older students as well benefit from a multi-modality approach. My son is currently finishing his college degree here in Florida, and he has successfully completed numerous on-line and face to face courses. His conclusion is that he learns more from regular courses since there is a much better level of engagement with higher level thinking, even though they have “chat rooms” for class discussions in the cyber courses. His on-line assessments are mostly rote. My old school view is that the level of thinking is repetition and maybe some application on Bloom’s Taxonomy. Analysis and Synthesis questions don’t translate well to bubble sheets so they are rare. Essays are too complex and expensive for them to score so they keep information on the literal level. My son, by the way, has never seen a “blue book,” the foundation of my higher education assessments.His research papers are cursory glances at a topic compared to what we had to research and write on our typewriters in the old days.
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I somehow was lead to beiieve that good judgement was universal among all in the Great State of North Carolina.
Then I saw that a bank holding company headquartered in your state donated some $9.6 million to that great humanitarian, John Edwards, champion of the $400 haircut, among other unforgetables.
Perhaps one can become a bank executive in North Carolina without good judgement.
Media reports readily available via Google indicate that the Bank of America Foundation did donate a mid six figure amount to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library just before a full and complete Presidential Pardon was granted to NASCAR team owner and owner of dozens of car dealerships Rick Hendrick, himself a proud citizen of your fair state, who media reports indicate had plead guilty of mail fraud in 1998.
As the US system of criminal justice takes pains to protect the 1% from the inconveniences that the common riff raff are subject to, North Carolina’s Rick Hendrick had home confinement instead of joining the other felons in the Greybar Hotel. I assume that there might have been some discernable variance in cuisine between those e two sites of incarceration. That is pure conjecture on my part, however.
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If North Carolina found a way to minimize the impact of the Tea Party, it would be a blessing to the rest of the world if you could share your process.
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Here’s the link to an important article about the (successful!) efforts to keep K-12
Virtual Charters out of 18 Fox Valley school districts in Illinois–
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20130317/new/073179832/
“Group Rallies Against Fox Valley Charter School” In this article, Tennessee State Representative Gloria Johnson came in to talk to the community about the damage done by K-12 in Tennessee. Additionally, there is much more valuable information/arguments against K-12 that can be used by NC parents, communities, school boards and administrators.
As aforementioned (in an earlier comment on this post), after all 18 school boards rejected K-12 & K-12 prepared to appeal to the IL Charter Commission, the regional director resigned, & the appeal was withdrawn. Legislators then moved forward and passed a one-year moratorium on virtual charters in Illinois. The new regional director of K-12 (& they attempt to fool the public by renaming the co.), Ted Dabrowski, a Wilmette (far NORTH suburb) resident (who acted as v.p. of the anti-public school, anti-teacher/anti-union IL Policy Institute), became the president of Virtual Learning Solutions after Shernell Jackson resigned (after the moratorium passed), intent on
once again meeting with the IL Charter Commission once the one-year moratorium ended (which would have been this past spring). However, no such meeting/new request for charter approvals, occurred. We would hope, then, that this was yet another victory for the 18 school districts, as well as for Illinois public schools!
Moral of this story? KEEP UP THE PUSHBACK! Tell truth to power (as did these school districts although, in this case, those in charge (the power, here) did the right thing for the students by ferreting out and telling the truth! NC, you can do it, too–
yes, WE can, yes we DID and you WILL!
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A little late, but here’s a link to the video about the K-12 school board hearing in Naperville, IL–it didn’t work for me, but others said it did, so try it!
“Virtual Charter School Hearing” by IPSD 204 http://vimeo.com/62128943
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