This announcement just arrived:
Contact: Brianna Carroll 650-219-6360 or Sheryl Carruth 562-818-1243
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
California Virtual Academies Teachers Authorize Strike
Educators at State’s Largest Online Charter Schools Network Hope to Move Stalled Contract Talks
Simi Valley[–- By over a 90% margin, educators at California Virtual Academies (CAVA) have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike after over a year trying to negotiate their first contract with CAVA administration. [California Virtual Educators United (CVEU) has been working to address teacher and student turnover by raising CAVA’s shockingly low, uncompetitive salaries and to ensure a manageable student to teacher ratio that supports quality instruction and learning. CAVA, which contracts with national online, for-profit charter giant K12, Inc., hires instructors at low pay to teach as many students as possible with low overhead, then funnels California tax-payer funding back to executives in Virginia and their investors to pay for management fees, technology, and other services. CVEU represents 450 CAVA teachers.
Ongoing sessions with a state mediator have so far failed to produce a settlement. While continuing to work and hope for a fair resolution, CAVA members see this week’s vote as a strong show of determination and unity. Additional mediation dates are scheduled for November 28 and 29th.
“Our members are deeply dedicated to the over 10,000 students we serve,” said CVEU president Brianna Carroll. “We believe in what we are doing and are working to negotiate changes that will benefit our students and stop the high turnover that is turning CAVA into a revolving door for teachers and enriching an out-of-state, for-profit company at the expense of better quality teaching and learning, and adequate resources for the kids best served by an online model.”
K12, Inc. and CAVA, who bitterly fought the unionization of CAVA teachers and their representation by the California Teachers Association, have been plagued by other issues reflecting poor management. Last year CAVA agreed to a $168.5 million settlement with the California Attorney General over concerns related to business practices, student performance, and use of public funds. Last month CAVA was required to pay back nearly $2 million to the State of California based on ongoing problems with the reporting of attendance, teacher to pupil ratios and student progress. CVEU believes its unionization and a strong contact settlement will help make kids, not profits, more of a priority for CAVA management.
Guess the teachers don’t realize that the K12 Inc. model relies on low-wage, non-union teachers with large classes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When are communities going to understand that paying some out of town company to handle your education is like paying a carpetbagger instead of investing in your own community? If you have a strong pubic school, it contributes to a stable community and enhances the value of your real estate. Communities should realize they are shipping their local tax dollars to the junk bond king, Michael Milken. They are paying for dismal results rather than investing in a better future for their young people. Sadly, the teachers signed on to work in a sweatshop. Nobody wins except the people at the top of the corporation.
LikeLike
I wonder how many CVA teachers are certified?
It’s kinda like pilots without a pilot’s license striking.
LikeLike
You have a point but everyone needs a decent wage even if they are pretenders.
LikeLike
Yes, everyone deserves a living wage, and if enough charters unionize, perhaps they’ll lose their reason-for-being among their Overclass supporters.
At that point, many charter schools will (deservedly) close, and those remaining will hopefully be re-integrated into the public system.
One can dream, at least…
LikeLike
This is huge news! I hope the teachers can strike long enough to shatter K12 Inc. into a million pieces, sending all those unfortunate kids back into real schools, and opening up jobs for all those unfortunate teachers in real, public schools. I hope my California unions support the strike, and would be happy to see my dues going to support the strike. Now this is a team I can really root for: Go teachers! Go teachers! Go teachers!
LikeLike
Woo Hoo! At least they have the courage to stand up and fight for what’s right!
Will the students still be able to take the online classes? Unclear.
Some of our students take the classes at home but some of our students are taking the classes at the high school and our district teachers are just using the contracting Fuel Education of K-12, Inc. for the curriculum.
Why would a CA teacher need a failed companies curriculum? Someones pocketing money in the backroom.
Certainly no benefit to our kids.
Only 14% of the students taking the classes in CA Los Angeles version of CAVA either met or exceeded the CA standards.
Who wants to sign up for a failed program?
Test results 2017:
https://caaspp.cde.ca.gov/sb2017/ViewReport?ps=true&lstTestYear=2017&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstCounty=19&lstDistrict=65094-0112706&lstSchool=0112706
LikeLike
The exact reason charter foes are against charters. Public money does not go to children or teachers or curriculum. It goes to greedy charter operators for their profit. Classic, when will AmericA see this? Maybe after all public monies have been drained and veteran educators are gone.
LikeLike
“K12, Inc.” in merely its own name says everything that is wrong with public education in America today.
Public education is not a business with market forces; it should remain a guaranteed array of excellent and flexible services that serve all children with all kinds of needs, and while money must be managed, it should never be done on the cheap, be done through inequitable taxations, be done through any kind of privatization, or be judged by a standardized test score.
If you work for an organization that should not be an “Inc.” in the first place, then did you think you were going to be able to negotiate fair and competitive living wages and excellent learning/teaching conditions?
“Inc” is the first three letters of “Incredible” and it stands fro K12.Inc’s message to its gullible teachers: “It’s Incredible to think that our profits are going to be second to your mission as educators to teach children well!”
LikeLike
You make a good point. Most well resourced public schools have many more options for young people than any charter ever could.
There are arts programs, sports and special needs programming with all offered by trained and certified teachers. Instead of solving the issue of funding disparities and segregation, many politicians believe that the magic market will solve everything. As you point out, education should never be a market. As a result of charter expansion, depleted, under resourced schools cannot do as effective a job. So we have more choices, but none of these are as effective as before. As for people like Milken, he is another Wharton con man like Trump.
LikeLike
“CAVA’s shockingly low, uncompetitive salaries and to ensure a manageable student to teacher ratio that supports quality instruction and learning. CAVA, which contracts with national online, for-profit charter giant K12, Inc., hires instructors at low pay to teach as many students as possible with low overhead, then funnels California tax-payer funding back to executives in Virginia and their investors to pay for management fees, technology, and other services. CVEU represents 450 CAVA teachers.”
The transfer of state funding out of state is an under-explored area of ed reform.
Privatization has a competitive advantage over school districts- school districts aren’t and can’t be national.
One would need much more information to explore it of course, and “the movement” is so opaque it’s impossible to get actual funding and spending numbers.
If K12 picks up higher public funding in a state like California can they take that “extra” public funding and apply it to expansion efforts in states that DON’T fund education at the same level? I don’t see why not. They could use California education funding to supplement funding in less generous states, thereby robbing California students to subsidize students in other states.
But, we’ll never know because this kind of real analysis simply doesn’t exist in ed reform.
LikeLike