Despite the significant research demonstrating the failure of cyber charters, they continue to expand, according to a new study by the National Education Policy Center.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was an investor in the worst of the cyber charter chains, the for-profit K12 Inc. started by Michael and Lowell Milken and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It is not clear whether she divested. She has said she will encourage the growth of cybercharters, because any choice made by parents (she believes) is best for children.
Check out the NEPC report:
Find Documents:
Press Release: http://nepc.info/node/8564
NEPC Publication: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2017
Contact:
NEPC: William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Virtual School Performance: Gary Miron: (269) 599-7965, gary.miron@wmich.edu
Virtual School Research Base: Michael Barbour: (203) 997-6330, mkbarbour@gmail.com
Virtual School Policy: Luis Huerta: (212) 678-4199, huerta@tc.columbia.edu
Virtual School Policy: Jennifer King Rice: (301) 405-5580, jkr@umd.edu
More NEPC Resources on Virtual Education
BOULDER, CO (April 11, 2017) – Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2017, a three-part report released today by the National Education Policy Center, provides a detailed inventory of full-time virtual schools in the U.S. and their performance, an exhaustive review of the literature on virtual education and its implications for virtual school practices, and a detailed review and analysis of state-level policymaking related to virtual schools.
The growth of full-time virtual schools is fueled, in part, by policies that expand school choice and that provide market incentives attractive to for-profit companies. Indeed, large virtual schools operated by for-profit education management organizations (EMOs) now dominate this sector and are increasing their market share.
Although virtual schools benefit from the common but largely unsupported assumption that the approach is cost-effective and educationally superior to brick and mortar schools, there are numerous problems associated with virtual schools. School performance measures, for both full-time entirely virtual and full-time blended virtual schools, suggest that they are not as successful as traditional public schools.
The virtual education research base is not adequate to support many current virtual school practices. More than twenty years after the first virtual schools began, there continues to be a deficit of empirical, longitudinal research to guide the practice and policy of virtual schooling.
State policymaking in several key areas – such as accountability, teacher preparation, and school governance – continues to lag.
An analysis of state policies suggests that policymakers continue to struggle to reconcile traditional funding structures, governance and accountability systems, instructional quality, and staffing demands with the unique organizational models and instructional methods associated with virtual schooling. Accountability challenges linked to virtual schools include designing and implementing governance structures capable of accounting for expenditures and practices that directly benefit students.
The report’s policy recommendations include:
The specification and enforcement of sanctions for virtual schools and blended schools if they fail to improve student performance.
The creation of long-term programs to support independent research on and evaluation of virtual schooling, particularly full-time virtual schooling.
The development of new funding formulas based on the actual costs of operating virtual schools.
Find Virtual Schools Report 2017, Alex Molnar, Editor, on the web at:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2017
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Although virtual schools benefit from the common but largely unsupported assumption that the approach is cost-effective and educationally superior to brick and mortar schools, there are numerous problems associated with virtual schools. School performance measures, for both full-time entirely virtual and full-time blended virtual schools, suggest that they are not as successful as traditional public schools.”
A researcher should look at how students in and out of virtual charters affect traditional schools. This is common sense to me. If the student is going to a virtual charter and “losing” one or two years that student then returns to the public school, which acts as a “back-up” for the experiment. It’s never acknowleged that the public school is the back-up but that is the case where live. The students GO somewhere after they leave the virtual school.
If public schools are going to serve this role 1. are the students in public schools adversely affected? 2. should public schools receive some support to bring them back up (if that’s necessary)
I’m baffled why these experiments are considered IN ISOLATION. This is a system. It simply isn’t fair to consider only the narrow effects on the “choice” students.
I would think they would WANT to study systemic effects if they are indeed “agnostics” or is the point of this thing pure competition,with winners and losers? Don’t they have to decide – which is it? Improving a system of schools or winners and losers? Can this be a matter of opinion? DeVos is in the “pure competition” camp and some other ed reformers are in the “system” camp? Where does that leave the rest of us? Sometimes we get policy by the “compete” caucus and sometimes we get policy by the “systems” caucus? It’s just willy-nilly, whatever’s fashionable at the moment?
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Deregulation HURT the middle class and the poor.
A great article: Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?
And Howard Zinn’s book: A People History of the United States is FREE.
Please do a search on the above items. And LEST WE FORGET, suggest viewing film: INSIDE JOB. It’s worth it.
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Sorry, meant: Deregulation “HURTS” …
The deformers are forcibly throwing teachers and our young under the bus FOR PROFITS.
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a truly amazing resource, Howard Zinn
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I looked at the cyber schools in PA. Their results are horrible! Even the ones that have demographics similar to my rural school perform poorly.
Speaking of demographics, many of the cybers in PA have 20% or more of their population needing special education services. I absolutely cannot see how their needs can be met via cyber.
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The students need won’t be met. But the oligarchy will get rich and also make slaves of our young for their own ????
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Policymakers in education should have to consult research prior to announcing policies. There is no logical rationale for investing in overwhelming failure. Our policy has been captured by corporate vandals. Parents should pressure politicians to represent the best interests of students, not corporations.
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Even if policymakers were to only follow the final common sense recommendations, it would be an improvement over our irrational laissez-faire policies.
* The specification and enforcement of sanctions for virtual schools and blended schools if they fail to improve student performance.
*The creation of long-term programs to support independent research on and evaluation of virtual schooling, particularly full-time virtual schooling.
*The development of new funding formulas based on the actual costs of operating virtual schools.
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This is a pretty typical example of how hard ed reform is selling “blended learning”:
“Julia Freeland Fisher is the director of education research at the Clayton Christensen Institute. She leads a team that educates policymakers and community leaders on the power of disruptive innovation in the K-12 and higher education spheres through its research. Her team aims to transform monolithic, factory-model education systems into student-centered designs that educate every student successfully and enable each to realize his or her fullest potential.”
Got that?
Run right out and purchase a whole bunch of ed tech product or your child will be in a “monolithic factory model”
Good Lord. It reads exactly like advertising copy.
I can confidently predict that ed reform is WILDLY overselling the value of these products.
There are gonna be A LOT of school districts who get shamed into purchasing this stuff but it’s their own fault. Maybe they should stop being so gullible and falling for every shiny bauble these folks dangle in front of them.
https://www.the74million.org/article/fisher-making-equity-a-first-principle-of-the-personalized-learning-era
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Chiara,
I’m trying to imagine the life of someone who works at the Clayton Christensen Institute and sells the idea of disruption as a force for good.
Do they move every six months?
Do they wake their children in the middle of the night?
Do they change partners abruptly again and again?
Do they wear fright masks to work?
Do they suddenly leap on their desks and start shrieking to disrupt their colleagues?
Do they leave and work elsewhere in the spirit of disruption?
Or are they paid to disrupt other people’s lives?
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I am on the mailing list. This comment made my day.
They really are paid to disrupt other people’s lives.
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