Gary Miron and Charisse Gulosino have prepared a guide and analysis of the growing online cyber schooling sector.
Nearly 300,000 students are enrolled in these schools. Their performance is unimpressive, decisively worse than public schools. Their graduation rates are abysmal. Yet they are profitable, which means their owners will continue to seek a greater market share.
The authors recognize that this secor produces inferior education.
What is to be done? I would say that these schools should not be allowed to operate for profit. They should not be allowed to advertise for customers. they should be closed if they are bad schools. That would be a start.
The authors recommend that policymakers should slow or stop
the growth of these schools. They should be closely monitored and sanctioned when they fail. They should be required to devote more resources to instruction and limit class sizes.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
VAM ratings for their instructional programs?
Then we post the ratings on Diane’s Facebook page.
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Eliminate the doctorates in Wii and choosing game characters, and the virtual Nobel prize for creating virtual curricula by slapping standards together.
Make Duncan and King personally watch over these programs a la A Clockwork Orange.
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Running for-profit schools is an oxymoron. Allowing stock holders or business owners to profit from a school is all wrong. The only ones who should profit from schools are students, parents, and the community.
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It frustrates me that these schools receive a large portion of per pupil funding from the state, even though they are not true brick and mortar schools.
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Perhaps a new fleet of backhoes could be put on the job! Get rid of two birds with one stone… HIGH STAKES TESTING and VIRTUAL “SCHOOLS”. A fleet of back hoes under the company name of Backhoe Router (as in Roto Rooter) could locate the IP addresses of virtual “schools” and do some fancy landscaping in the locales to put virtual “schooling” where it belongs … down the virtual drain. “Call Backhoe Rooter, that’s the name, and away go virtual schools down the drain.” 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Cross posted the report itself,
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/What-Should-Be-Done-About-in-Life_Arts-Charter-School-Failure_Education_Online_Students-160504-579.html
with this comment which has links back to this site.
The war on public education and the privatization of this INSTITUTION continues, as the corporations find ways to bamboozle the public with magic elixirs (no evidence required) that do not work, all the while siphoning off public funds that are crucial for public schools.
The frauds and failures are incredible, but there are 15,880 school systems and the war on our public schools is lost as the media — owned in full by the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX — looks the other way.
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