North Carolina has two virtual charter schools, one operated by Pearson, the other by Michael Milken’s K12 Inc. Both have high attrition rates and poor student performance, as reported in state data.

“Students at one of the state’s two brand new virtual charter schools are dropping out at a rate that exceeds the maximum allowed by state law, according to a report authored by the North Carolina Office of Charter Schools.

“North Carolina Connections Academy, a virtual charter school backed by education technology giant Pearson, reported a student dropout rate of 31.3 percent for the 2015-16 academic year. State law says virtual charters can’t exceed dropout rates of 25 percent.

“Both of the two virtual charter schools’ dropout rates exceeded the statutory maximum when not considering “finite enrollees” in their calculations. It’s up to the virtual charters to select who they believe those enrollees are in accordance with state law, which says finite enrollees are students who indicate in advance that they wish to enroll for just a portion of the school year.
When K12, Inc.-backed NC Virtual Academy excluded finite enrollees from their calculations as the law allows, they then met the statutory maximum dropout rate at exactly 25 percent.

“Both schools demonstrated poor academic outcomes for their students this past academic year, each receiving F school performance grades in math and Cs in reading. They were also categorized as low performing schools, a designation that requires them to submit a strategic improvement plan. Both schools also received the lowest possible score for student academic growth, a 50 on a scale of 50-100….

“Virtual charter schools have not performed well on the whole. A recent study conducted by Stanford’s CREDO found that students attending virtual schools didn’t learn anything in math for the entire academic year, and poor performance by these schools even prompted the NCAA to announce it will no longer accept coursework in its initial eligibility certification process from 24 virtual schools that are affiliated with K12, Inc. Tennessee has sought to close the K12, Inc.-backed virtual charter school there.”

Despite the dismal performance of the virtual charters, which drain money away from public schools, lawmakers have rigged the formula to protect them from sanctions for dropouts in the future.

“Beginning with this academic school year, 2016-17, lawmakers enacted four additional exclusions to the withdrawal rate calculations. They are the following, as outlined in statute and in the charter report:

(1) Students who regularly failed to participate in courses who are withdrawn under the procedures adopted by the school.

(2) Students no longer qualified under State law to attend a North Carolina public school, including relocation to another state.

(3) Students who: (i) withdraw from school because of a family, personal, or medical reason, and (ii) notify the school of the reason for withdrawal.

(4) Students who withdraw from school within the first 30 days following the date of enrollment.
These new exclusions provide the virtual charter schools exceptional latitude in allowing them to exclude nearly anyone who drops out of the online schools from actually being counted in the withdrawal rates going forward. That means it’s possible that the virtual charters will demonstrate a significant drop in withdrawal rates after this first year—even though those figures may not be truly capturing the full scope of who is leaving the programs.”

Bottom line, legislators don’t want to hold virtual charter schools accountable for attendees, attrition, or performance. Someone should check the state records and review campaign contributions from employees and associates of these companies.