I think so.
It is located in Mike Pence’s Indiana.
It operates for profit.
It has a high school graduation rate of less than 10%.
It recruits and markets heavily to lure students.
It has 5,000 students.
There is one teacher for every 222 students.
The owner pockets millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
It is an online charter, a cybercharter, a virtual charter.
It is called the Indiana Virtual School.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wants many more schools like this.
“Thomas Stoughton founded the school in 2011, taking advantage of a new law allowing Indiana charter schools to serve students exclusively over the internet, rather than in brick-and-mortar buildings.
“In recent years, students have signed up in droves, responding to social media advertising campaigns. The school they end up attending differs widely from other online charter schools emerging across the country, with far fewer teachers per student — 1 for every 222 students last school year, according to state data — and fewer students taking and passing state exams.
“As enrollment at Indiana Virtual School ballooned, so did the school’s state funding, which is distributed on a per-student basis. Some of that money has gone to AlphaCom Inc., a for-profit company also founded and led until 2016 by Stoughton. Since 2011, AlphaCom has held multiple contracts with Indiana Virtual School totaling about $6 million to provide management services and office space. A company run by Stoughton’s son also held a contract with the school.”
The school apparently has no oversight, no supervision.
Kudos to Shaina Cavazos of Chalkbeat for this terrific investigative reporting!
Free public money! Come and get it! Get rich quick on the taxpayer’s dimes and dollars!
NOTE: The Name of the institution is the Indiana Virtual School, a Charter School, NOT THE INDIANA VIRTUAL ACADEMY, which is run by public school superintendents as a nonprofit.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not trying to excuse these virtual “schools” in any way, but I am curious about the demographic they “serve”. Are these kids that would likely have dropped out and fallen through the cracks anyway? Is this “academy” a last-ditch chance for some kids to get a diploma they wouldn’t otherwise get (and thereby become at least marginally employable)? Or are these virtual “schools” pulling kids out of public schools who were doing okay there, but just wanted the easy path of least resistance and then then ended up dropping out when they wouldn’t have otherwise?
Either way, these “schools” obviously need much stricter oversight (or, more likely, need to not exist at all). But if it’s the former and these “schools” are addressing a need – however badly they’re doing so – then one of the cures is to find a better way to address that need.
If kids are falling through the cracks, I would bet it has a lot to do with the current testing regime. Get rid of the “for profit” opportunities and let schools be true “community” schools and more kids will have the chance to succeed. There is absolutely no way to please investor(s) AND do what is best for kids. A big reason for “government” is to do what is best for all. Not to make money on all.
When was the last time you heard someone say, “My kid needs to spend more time in front of a screen.”? Kids miss out on the most important part of an education by being educated “virtually”.
These are good questions. I live in a state that does not have online school, and I wish we did for some students who have real trouble going to school for health reasons. Many of these kids may have trouble graduating no matter the format.
But if online schools are done right, they are not much cheaper than bricks and mortar schools – something that universities are discovering. Over 200 kids per student is definitely a recipe for disaster.
There is a very small number of students who benefit by enrolling in an online school.
The purveyors of these schools do not want to be limited to those who need them. They market and recruit to draw students from district schools, just for the tuition money.
Study after study has demonstrated that they provide a very bad education.
Lots of times teachers can reach at-risk students by forging a relationship with them. There’s no relationship with a computer screen or connection with caring humans in virtual instruction. I find it hard to believe that 90% of those students are “unreachable.” I don’t care how poor these students are, a 90% loss of students is unacceptable and should sound alarm bells to the people in charge and the taxpayers that are footing the bill for this fiasco.
Sadly, the legislature and governor in Indiana love to lavish money on profiteers who cheat the public. If students “choose” a bad school, that is fine with them. DeVos has said the same thing many times. Choice is what matters, not accountability or quality.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
The Corporate, Third-Way Democrats Should Know That Screwing Public Schools Won’t Get Dems. Elected | Alternet
https://www.alternet.org/screwing-public-schools-wont-get-democrats-elected
It sounds like “The Third Way” is no way to win. The Democratic Party is ignoring its base, the working class. They continue to collect money from Silicon Valley and Wall St. and ignore the issues many people value like strong public schools. Democrats’ last three candidates have been neoliberals. While they won with two of them, both Bill Clinton and Obama had charming personalities. Many young voters in the party are moving more to the left. If they continue to be tone deaf to the needs of working people, they will likely continue to lose.
Good link Ed show it to your problem solver congressmen
They just finished the “blending and personalized learning conference”
https://www.christenseninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/From-maverick-to-mainstream_Christensen-Institute.pdf?platform=hootsuite
The Clayton Christian Institute hopes to bring this wildly profitable online model into every (middle and lower income) public school in the country- because it’s been such a big success, right?
HUGE market in public schools. MUCH bigger than charter schools They’re estimating it’ll be worth 10 billion dollars by the end of this year.
If your public school has been bamboozled into testing these products, get thee to a school board meeting and speak up. If you don’t, Facebook will be directing your child’s education. The same Facebook who spent the last 9 months misleading the public about Russian interference in the election- that’s the company ed reformers want running public schools.
I just heard on the news last night that Facebook has the largest collection of facial recognition data anywhere which has been obtained without anyone’s consent. The laws are way behind the technology.
This is what the ed reform-dominated Indiana state legislature spend all their time on- expanding and funding this cheap ed reform garbage rather than producing anything of value the kids in public schools.
This is much more exciting for them. Don’t bother these innovators with your boring “government schools” issues- they’re busy passing public funds to their buddies in the for-profit sector.
Ohio lawmakers spend about 10% of every legislative session on public schools- the schools who serve 90% of the students in the state. The bulk of their time is spent adopting and funding whatever the latest fad is out of ed reform think tanks.
You can’t pay these people to work on public schools. They refuse. They all imagine they’re “cage busting innovators” and good government is for suckers.
CROSS POSTED AT OPED NEWS :
with 2 comments that contain links to other posts here at Diane’s site, which I was able to find by putting VIRTUAL CHARTER SCHOOLS IN THE SEARCH FIELD:
https://dianeravitch.net/?s=virtual+charter+schools
COMMENT 1 ( has the EMBEDDED LINKS AT OPED):
Virtual Charter schools:a linkto the reality; Here are a few of the posts at that link, that show hoe widespread is the fraud.
1- Gary Miron and Charisse Gulosino have prepared a guide and analysis of the growing online cyber schooling sector.
2-The National Education Policy Center has released new research on virtual charter schoolsthat shows variation among those in different states, though all have poor academic results:Key Takeaway: Case studies from the Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute suggest that policymakers should prioritize understanding and improving virtual school performance before permitting further growth.
3- Consider this report in the “Post & Courier” in South Carolina: Legislators in South Carolina must have been following an ALEC script when they authorized Virtual charter schools to enroll students and take money away from their underfunded public schoools. Or maybe they were paid off by lobbyists. There is certainly massive evidence, even from charter advocates, that virtual charters get terrible results. Yet no matter how much they fail, they are never closed or held accountable.
California Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla,: writing a bill to ban for-profit operators of virtual schools.Our taxpayer dollars should be spent in the classroom to help our students, not used to enrich a company’s shareholders or drive up its profits,” Bonilla said in an interview.
COMMENT 2: SO IMPORTANT!
What You Need to Know about Virtual Charter Schools. In the future, if your state superintendent or governor or legislators want to bring virtual charters to your state, send them copies of these reviews. Be aware that some may be pushing virtual charters because they want to cut costs by replacing teachers with computers or because they received campaign contributions from the individual corporations that stand to benefit.
And do not forget that the money that the virtual charters receive is taken away from public schools across the state.
This money, is then used for advertising, recruitment of new students, and paying off investors….NOT FOR LEARNING!
Dr. Ravitch says: says: I often receive questions, on and off the blog, aboutvirtual charter schools. This post will summarize the key things that you need to know to be an informed consumer.
Begin with the politics and money promoting virtual charter schools. Colin Woodard won the prestigious George Polk award last year for this expose of the effort to bring virtual charter schools to Maine. It is a stunning piece of investigative reporting. Virtual charters have a terrible track record. They have a high attrition rate, low test scores, and low graduation rates.
Their one positive feature is that they make a lot of money for investors. This is what the National Education Policy Center wrote about virtual charters. This is what CREDO found about the performance of virtual charters in Pennsylvania, the state that has more of them than any other.
This is what the New York Times wrote about K12, the biggest of the virtual charter corporations. This is what the Washington Post wrote about virtual charters. This is the post I wrote about a statement called “Digital Learning Now!” written by a group led by Jeb Bush and Bob Wise to promote the expansion of virtual charters without any regulation. The post
contains a link to the statement. Campaign contributions and lobbying have allowed the cyber charters to expand without adequate regulation and supervision of their quality or financing. The head
of the nation’s largest cyber charter school, Nicholas
Trombetta, was indicted only days ago by federal
prosecutors, charged on 11 tax and fraud violations and accused of stealing nearly $1 million.
Diane,
You have the Indiana Virtual Academy http://www.indva.com/ confused with the Indiana Virtual School https://www.indianavirtual.com/
The Indiana Virtual Academy is:
A School’s Partner: We partner with high schools to complement existing curriculum without competing for enrollments, so students remain enrolled in their brick and mortar schools.
Anytime Parent Access: Parents can monitor their student’s progress and grades at anytime through the provided guardian account.
Standards Driven. Our courses meet Indiana state standards and are taught by Indiana licensed instructors which means all credits are applied seamlessly to your school.
Great Prices. Our courses are competitively priced so you can feel you are receiving a value for what you are investing in an online course.
Quick Start Up. Minimal to no additional materials are required for our courses, which means an easier and quicker start up for our students.
Credits Earned At Your School. We provide Indiana high school courses online, which means you take the classes you need to graduate, while staying enrolled at your school. All credits/diplomas are awarded by the student’s high school, not by virtue of transfer.
NCAA Approved. The IndVA is approved with the NCAA as a non-traditional course provider for courses listed in our standard course catalog. Please note that NCAA approval does not apply to courses in our credit recovery catalog. Please contact the IndVA office if you have any questions.
Public Education at Our Roots. We were born out of and are governed by Indiana public education educators, which means we are immersed in and fully understand Indiana Public Education.
A Program, Not a School. We are a program, not a school, therefore we are not financially supported by the DOE nor are we competition to a traditional Indiana high schools.
Non-Profit. As an Interlocal Cooperative, we are a non-profit Indiana entity recognized by the DOE.
Ms. Ravitch,
Please correct your article. You have slandered a very reputable institution by the name of The Indiana Virtual Academy that actually partners with public schools and has helped many students earn credits needed for HS graduation. The Indiana Virtual School and the Indiana Virtual Academy are two very different organizations. You owe a retraction and a sincere apology to the Indiana Virtual Academy.
The Indiana Virtual Academy is NOT a charter school at all. It is governed by a board of public school superintendents and works with public schools to help students graduate. Your article could do real damage to a very positive organization if you do not retract and print a correction publicly.
Thank you.
I corrected the article and added a note to clarify that there are two different online institutions.
Thank you for making the correction, but I fear the damage may already have been done to the reputation of the Indiana Virtual Academy by being called the worst school in America for several hours in your article.
It would be appropriate for you to write an additional story, also accompanied by a Tweet, to distinguish between the two entities and clear the name of the Indiana Virtual Academy.
Given that The Indiana Virtual Academy supports public schools it did not deserve the negative comments attributed to it that were initially put out to your large number of readers.
Thank you in advance for doing your part to reverse the damage done by your initial article.
Ms. Ravitch,
Your article falsely implicates the Indiana Virtual academy which is actually an entity that partners with schools to provide virtual courses taught by certified teachers to schools who have difficulty finding teachers and indidual students who have scheduling conflicts. The link in your article titled Indiana Virtual Academy connects to a Chalkbeat article on the Indiana Virtual School. These are two entirely different entities. Please retract and correct this error as to not further damage the positive reputation of the Indiana Virtual Academy.
Tim,
I corrected the article and added a note of clarification.
The Indiana Virtual School should be closed.
I am the Director of Indiana Virtual Academy which is a non-profit supplemental program. We are not a school. Please immediately print a retraction and correct your article. This information in this article is erroneous. Should you like factual information about the Indiana Virtual Academy (not the Indiana Virtual School which is the entity I believe you are referencing) please feel free to contact me, Ally Swensen at 812-689-0400.
Allyn,
Sorry for the error. I corrected the article.
If I ran an organization whose name was nearly the same as one with such a bad reputation I would urge my board to change our name.
Agreed!
Criminal in many ways. And outrageous. Only a wildly misguided person could support this. is there a word that is the polar opposite of wisdom?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: at my age the last thing I want is for time to pass quickly. But three years – hurry up!!
And as long as a school is for profit, their heart is just not in the right place.
You neglected to point out this school was authorized by a school corporation
Jamie, which school, what corporation?
The charter school Indiana Virtual School is authorized by Daleville Community Schools. The school district gets revenue from this, so that’s an important part of the story as well. Why are they letting this school stay open?
Also, if you look at the state testing participation rates for the school (not the passing rates) – the percentage of kids who actually take the state assessment… I think there’s evidence of fraud there. Why doesn’t our state hold a school accountable for not testing students? We’re paying for these kids to be educated. Apparently there are no consequence for not testing students, except that it lowers your grade. But if you’re already an F, what’s that matter? You can’t be an F-! There should be financial consequences
Daleville Community Schools, Daleville, IN. The superintendent is quoted in Shaina’s article as saying there is nothing he can do! Meaning nothing he wants to do as long as the $$$ is coming in. Shame on the Daleville school board.
Just making sure you listen to this podcast about “extraordinary school districts.” it’s not all bad news out there.