Jessica Calefati wrote a blistering series about Michael Milken’s K12 Inc. virtual charter school in California (called California Virtual Academy or CAVA) a few weeks ago. The series caused enough of a stir to persuade State Superintendent Tom Torklakson to order a state audit of CAVA.

Calefati reported that less than half the students at CAVA graduate, and none is qualified to attend a California public university.

The virtual charter industry is noted for high profits and poor performance. Student attrition is high, test scores and graduation rates are low. But profits are excellent, because the “school” receives full state tuition but has none of the expenses of a brick and mortar school. No grounds, no transportation, no custodian, no food services, no library, no support staff, no athletics. And classes that range from 40-more than 100 in number. As Calefati reported in the original series, students may get credit for attendance if they are online only one minute a day. The latest CREDO study found that for every 180 days enrolled in a virtual charter, students lose 180 days of instruction in math and 72 in reading. This is a lose-lose.

It is heartening to see state officials taking action to curb the fraud that runs rampant through its charter industry, unsupervised, unregulated, and unchecked.

Calefati writes:

In a rare move, California’s top education official has enlisted the state’s highest-ranking accountant to conduct a sweeping audit of California Virtual Academies, a profitable but low-performing network of online charter schools that enrolls about 15,000 students across the state.

The audit is the first that Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has asked the state controller’s Office to conduct since he took office in 2011. The request comes two months after this newspaper published an investigative series on K12 Inc., the publicly traded Virginia firm that operates the schools and reaps tens of millions of dollars annually in state funding.

In a statement Thursday, Torlakson said he has a duty to ensure that public money isn’t being squandered and sought the probe into the California Virtual Academies because of “serious questions raised about a number of their practices.” He said the audit would examine the relationship between the schools and the company and the “validity” of attendance, enrollment, dropout and graduation rates reported by the academies to the state.

This isn’t the first time the company has come under fire in recent weeks.

Torlakson’s request follows lawmakers’ calls last month for the state auditor to examine for-profit charter schools operations and Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla’s introduction earlier this month of legislation that would prohibit online charters from hiring for-profit companies like K12 for management or instructional services. The company is also being probed by Attorney General Kamala Harris, who launched an investigation of online charter schools last fall.

If Controller Betty Yee finds evidence of gross financial mismanagement, illegal or improper use of public money, a disregard for sound educational practices or repeated failure to improve student test scores the state Board of Education, may — based on a recommendation from Torlakson — vote to revoke the schools’ charters.