For the fifth year in a row, not one cybercharter in Pennsylvania achieved a passing school performance score of 70. When will these scams be held accountable for their poor performance? When will the State close down these failing schools? These “schools” drain hundreds of millions of dollars away from real schools and get poor results, year after year. Two different cybercharter operators were indicted for stealing millions from state taxpayers. One was convicted, the other was tried but the trial ended in a hung jury.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Every Charter School should be shut down. Once again, profit over people in this country. Having grown up in CA, in the fifties, when CA boasted the best public schools in the nation, I can testify that 1) it was true and 2) having been a substitute teacher in both Florida and North Carolina, I have observed just how far behind students here are..e.g., sophomore students in high school in NC not knowing basic math facts (4+7=?, 9×6=?). Additionally, every single student I have tutored in math (and there have been a lot) have not known their math facts and I am not exaggerating. I mastered math facts in 4th grade. We all did.
Are you going to shut down the 90% of Pittsburgh Public Schools that also failed to get a passing mark?
Pittsburgh public schools are real Schools.
Cyber charters are frauds. They should get $1,500 for each student they enroll, which is enough to pay for a computer and online instruction.
Once the profit motive is removed, watch them fold.
I wonder how much money comes out of the state, and local school budgets for the cyber charters. How much are we paying for these failing schools?
The cybers get as much tuition money as full-service schools even though they provide no services. Very profitable.
In PA we sign a form for the cyber school to get 33% of the school taxes so how is that the full amount? Also if my child is not using buses or the school facilities WHY should the local school district get any of the money?
Also any place we go my children are given rave comments about their manners and how they act in public stating they must be homeschooled, any response to that part???
The Pa Cyber Charter gets $10,000 per child but offers no services other than distance learning.
200 students per teacher? 500?
The owner of that cyber charter misappropriated millions of dollars and has been convicted. He awaits sentencing.
His company had 10,000 students and $100 Million in revenues. More money than they knew what to do with.
You pay taxes. Are you ok with that?
Disregard above message. Just read small print in report heading
Cross posted at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Every-Cybercharter-Fails-t-in-General_News-Diane-Ravitch_Dollar_Privatization-Of-Schools_Reform-171112-962.html#comment679023
We have a POTUS that has made all his money by scamming people so this is just another example of how the wealthy make their money in this country, NOT earning it, but by scamming it.
I brought this very fact up with the Head of the PA Education Committee, Sen,. Eichelberger, who is my PA Senator, at his town hall meeting (where you had to show proof that you were a member of his district in order to attend!!).
His response included :
1) He is in favor of school choice – parents know best
2) Kids enrolled in cyber come in behind so that is why the scores are so low. But of course PA uses growth scores so if you believe in those ,then that point does not matter
3) School choice!!!
4) He gets many many complaints from parents who cannot get in touch with their child’s teacher. Apparently a teacher with 1000 students ( that was the number tossed around by others, including local school board members) would be ever so much more reachable to discuss issues about their children
5) School choice- Good. Unions – Bad
6) School haven’t changed in 100 years and kids can learn anything online these days.
7) from a local school board member – teachers only join unions because they know nothing else and dislike cyber schools because are only protecting their jobs
I think my blood pressure was up for hours after that meeting. I wrote a letter to the editor about this and it is supposed to get published on Monday or Tuesday.
They don’t care. The lobbyists are deeply embedded in state legislatures and they’ve been given a blanket blessing by ed reformers as “innovative!”
The US Department of Education pushes these schools. They’re salespeople posing as public employees.
Ed reformers have know about this FOREVER in Ohio. They do nothing. In fact, if it weren’t for exposes in local city newspapers they would have happily shunted tens of millions of dollars more to these schools, taken directly out of public school budgets.
When the kids fail out of the online schools they come back to the public school where the public school has to struggle to bring them back up to grade level, and then the ed reformers in the statehouse strut around and pound their chests about how public schools are “failing” and should ALL be privatized.
Go back and read some of the nonsense that was promoted by the same ed reformers who are around today about “digital learners” 10 years ago. Read Jeb Bush. Bush pushed this cheap garbage more than anyone, and he’s REVERED in ed reform.
The sad thing about the lobbyists and politicians who push cyber charters is that the politicians sell themselves for very little. In Massachusetts, the legislator who introduced cyber charter legislation received a political contribution of $5,000. Maybe we could raise $10,000 to fund politicians to care about the majority of students.
We have a really solid vocational high school that has been educating people in skilled trades for 50 years.
Ed reformers are taking over the board. They’re pushing cheap online classes to replace instructors, to cut costs.
When your electrician or plumber shows up and has no idea how to wire a room or plumb a water system, you’ll know they were trained with some cheap garbage out of one of these online, for-profit contractors.
It’s SUCH a rip off for those kids. They’re held in such low regard by politicians they won’t even allocate sufficient funding for live instruction.
“Online learning” is ONLY promoted to low and working class kids. You would never see this crap shoved into a higher income area because the parents wouldn’t stand for it.
For the record, I have a Master’s Degree AND my daughter is enrolled in a cyber school. They are not marketing cyber education solely towards low income families, nor are only uneducated parents choosing the cyber option for their children. Many high-income, highly-educated parents choose nontraditional methods for their child’s education. Not quite sure what you mean by your post. Are you against all cyber education? Or are you simply downing online classes for vocational schools?
I oppose for profit cyber charters. I oppose cyber charters that are paid triple their actual costs. With rare exceptions, cyber charters are a theft of public money.
If the public schools that the cyber students fled from had been capable of meeting the students’ needs, the students would not have switched to cyber school. The reason cyber schools’ TEST RESULTS (and these standardized tests are another HOT topic, in my opinion) are poor is, in large part, due to the fact that the public schools already failed our students and now the cyber schools are working diligently to pick up the pieces. Not all cyber charter schools are created equal and I highly recommend parents do their research, visit schools, and speak with the students & parents before making judgments. I, for one, could not be happier with our choice to switch to Commonwealth Charter Academy and I would be happy to speak to anyone who has questions about it. My daughter is graduating a year early from CCA and she has already been accepted academically to a large competitive university. Bottom line- Test scores do NOT tell the whole story.
Graduation rates from cyber charters are dismal. At the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow in Ohio, only 20% of students graduate. The lowest grad rate in the nation.
Many studies of cyber charters have concluded that kids do not lear much, or anything, and no one knows if they do anything more than turn on the computer. They are a money-making sham.
Drop their reimbursement to actual costs, and most would fold. They are in it for the profit.
Fortunately, our experience with Commonwealth Charter Academy in PA has been phenomenal! My daughter said the work at CCA is much more difficult than the work she was doing in our local school. She also says that she gets much more individual attention from her CCA teachers than she ever did at the local school. I am extremely thankful to all the teachers and staff at Commonwealth Charter Academy!!!
My kids are enrolled in CCA. More than the computers come on. Textbooks are read, papers are written, math problems solved, history is studied, science experiments are conducted, field trips are attended, teachers teach, teachers tutor, learning is happening on the computer, in the home and outside the home.
Do your children meet with their teachers? How often?
Melissa
As a high school science teacher, I am interested in how science experiments are performed. Where is the chemistry lab with all of the equipment? How are physics experiments performed, especially when most good ones require several people not only to manipulate equipment but also to figure out the data. FYI: my definition of good (and most other pedagogical experts) is a context rich lab requiring problem solving and not just following directions.
Science experiments in the elementary grades are done mostly at home with parental supervision. As they get into more advanced grades, the science experiments are done (with MANY teachers present for guidance, not just one) in centrally located offices around the state or else in a mobile lab. It is really not difficult to do. Due to the teacher/student ratio during these labs, I’d venture to say that MUCH MORE true problem solving can be accomplished this way, versus in the traditional school setting where there is one teacher to an entire classroom of students.
Phone calls from the teachers happen on a biweekly or triweekly schedule, but a parent or student can also contact their teacher by phone at any time. During the scheduled calls, they spend time speaking with parents in order to answer any questions and to give updates on things. They also speak with the student at each phone call, touching base with them, allowing the student to express any concerns or ask questions, and also assessing reading and/or math skills. I have never had a problem contacting a teacher in my 5 years of cyber experience. Also, there are opportunities to meet teachers at field trips throughout the year. On top of all of this, there are daily live lessons online with the teacher right there in front of them live and teaching them different subjects in real-time.
Melissa
Problem solving in a lab experiment has little to do with student teacher ratio but rather the design of the lab to meet the needs of the students where they currently are. Labs are carefully designed to fit into instruction. A colleague working with a local museum, has done labs for cyber school& homeschool but they were not in any way tied to their curriculum. They had multiple grades with students studying different things. The school did not care. They just wanted a hands on experience
However if the “learning is personalized,” with some students progressing faster, then how are the labs also be personalized? Does the mobile lab do different things with different individual students? If not, then it does not really make the student who is moving faster gain anything special from the lab. They are doing something on a unit they have already mastered.
It is personalized, because when the student is at the point in their studies that they are ready to participate in the actual lab, they can then sign up to do the lab activity. It happens whenever they are ready.
Is the lab “activity” online? Do they meet their teacher face to face, or is that online too?
The lab activity is in person with the teachers.
Just curious…do you plan on approving my earlier comment about my experience with cyber school? (You don’t have to post this comment, I just haven’t seen my original comment show up yet.)
Here is the link to my letter to the editor about this issue and the full text. Sen eichelbergers town hall was about two weeks ago.
http://www.altoonamirror.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2017/11/local-schools-are-superior-to-cyber/
Are brick-and-mortar schools on the way out to be replaced by cyber schools?
This was a theme in Sen. John Eichelberger’s recent town hall meeting. Some in attendance argued online learning is superior to the face-to-face learning in our local schools.
Like many things in life, the reality is quite different from our assumptions.
Just a quick glance at the Pa. Performance Profile will show the abysmal performance of cyber charters compared to our local schools.
And that bad performance comes on top of cyber schools already having kids who are easier to educate. They enroll fewer kids in poverty or with special education needs.
“Ah, but cyber schools enroll kids who are already behind, and that is why the scores are so low,” claim proponents.
This is not the reason for the low score. The Pa. score is based on growth of a student. Growth scores show how a student has improved rather than relying only on a set score.
If students come in behind, there is more potential for growth. If cyber schools were educating primarily students who came in behind, the scores would be higher and not lower as they actually are.
In fact, a recent study by CREDO, normally a charter advocate group, found that students attending cyber schools, on average, had zero gains in math, meaning it was as if they had not even attended school all.
And this is only one of many studies showing the ineffectiveness of cyber education.
“But at traditional schools, it is hard to get in touch with a teacher” is another misconception.
In reality, human teachers are accessible via traditional phone calls, teacher conferences, email, Google docs, Remind apps, etc. And, of course, a local school has a fixed address where a concerned parent can just show up at the school.
Good luck having a one-on-one conversation with a cyber teacher who is teaching 1,000 clients, none of which they have ever met. Would that teacher even know your child by name, or be able to offer meaningful help or accommodations?
“But traditional schools are the same as they were 100 years ago, and they are a one-size-fits all model,” they argue.
If you believe that, then you have not been paying attention to schools for decades.
Students in your local schools are producing an extensive daily online newspaper, designing environmental remediation projects, using AutoCAD, writing computer code, and conducting scientific research and taking courses for college credit.
Online programs are great for ordering pizza, checking your bank balance and programming your dish to record a program.
Learning, however, is far too complex and nuanced to be treated like a fast food order.
Alice Flarend
Altoona
(The writer is a nationally board-certified physics teacher.)
That study by CREDO is so full of holes that it is amazing that any educated person even pays attention to it. Look up the flaws of the study…they are glaring.
Why did the NCAA strip accreditation from two dozen K12 Inc online charters?
Did you read the article I posted? You have nothing to say about the obvious problems with this study? Interesting.
My reading of the NEPC critique is that one of the main concerns that NEPC has with CREDO Urban report is the effect size because the effect sizes are incredible small and do not warrant the claims made. In the cyber report for math, the effect sizes are literally orders of magnitude higher so that concern is not present in the cyber study. However the incredibly small effect sizes for other charter studies makes all of the choices in methodology suspect.
Can you tell me where to find the data on Cyber opt outs? I try to keep informed about the level of opt outs and have never looked into those explicitly from Cyber.
I have never heard of cyber opt outs.
Thanks. Neither have I but a commenter above mentioned that cybers have a lot.
Check this out. It is a detailed article outlining all the flaws in the CREDO study (the study that supposedly proves that there is little if any academic growth in cyber school students).
http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2015/09/problems-credos-research
Cyber charters are shams. There has never been a reputable study that concluded that children learn more and better when homeschooled by distance learning. Learning is about relationships, and no one has a personal relationship with a machine.
To me, cyber learning is as bad an idea as a perpetual motion machine. They both go against core principles of how we understand things to work. Perpetual motion machines violate the Law of Conservation of Energy and cyber learning violate basic Constructivist Principles. Humans learn by constructing knowledge and this construction is heavily influenced by prior experience and the use of language. This type of learning is not just memorizing terms but going deep into causes, effects and abstract ideas.
By definition, cyber school cannot adjust to an individual student’s prior experiences. A computer cannot engage in spontaneous and deep conversation, questioning a student’s pre- and mis- conceptions.
When I have had conversations with people who have had success with cyber schools, the point emerges that the parent fills these teaching roles. And that is fine if there is a parent or other human available to homeschool in that way. However, that is a rare case for the overwhelming majority of cyber students.
Again, for some reason, you haven’t posted my original comment, which states that parental involvement is vital in this setting. I have had amazing success with my daughter in the cyber setting, due to her own hard work, the flexible learning environment of her cyber school, and my parental involvement. Traditional school would not have allowed her to move along at the fast pace that she’s capable of. She would have been bored out of her mind in the traditional classroom, while students with learning difficulties in traditional classrooms struggle to keep up.
I bet these cyber schools wouldn’t care when they get sabotaged by hackers pulling off DDoS or WannaCry attack, but the operators will love to take advantage of that like Equifax by taking tuitions and student data as hostage.
Cyber school is good for the student who is very goal oriented.
It is not for the student who refuses to attend or do work in the brick and mortar school.
There are many parents out there that choose cyber as an option to avoid dealing with the basic responsibilities of life. Not wanting to deal with waking the child and making sure they have everything ready to go out the door to school. It is at times a fight but don’t want to teach the child to get up in the morning, preparing for the day and going out into the world to be a productive citizens. The parent is to concerned with their own needs .
Does the study include the information on the average salary of a family makes for these cybers? How many students from each county? Where does the county rate on the pay grade scale from the richest to the poorest? Who among the parents and/or other relatives that have graduated from high school, received a GED or are drop outs.
Parents seem to forget they are the ones that need to make sure their child is educated. Some parents believe when their children are telling them they are doing well in classes. Unfortunately parents don’t always follow through and monitor school work. Even though their child is doing school work they may not always be aware the child is behind in their pacing.
Students who do refuse to attend brick and mortar schools believe it will be better for them. If the kid isn’t passing at one will most likely will not be successful at the other. There are some cybers that if the family is truthful with them, the cyber will tell the family cyber won’t be a good option. A lot of parents believe once they make the switch they cannot move back to their original school district until the new grading period or the new school year. If they notice their child is not being successful they can transfer back at any time. Even if they’ve only been enrolled in the new school 2 weeks or less.
Some cybers have the student log into a virtual classroom each day. Including the classroom time the student must complete an average of 5 to 6 hours a day. There are others that work at their own pace but still must complete a specific number of a hours a week (Monday-Friday) but if the student opts to not do the work during the week they will give them the weekend (Saturday-Sunday) to do make up work but still do not complete assignments. In these instances there doesn’t seem to be any recourse. Or the student who hops between brick and mortar schools to an assortment of cyber schools will not be successful either.
Many school districts have gone the route of incorporating their own cyber schools. If the see the student isn’t being successful they make them come back to brick and mortar. However, if it is a cyber outside of the school district the only person that can make that choice is the parent. An sadly they don’t.
The student’s attendance is a major factor in success in either type of educational program. If the student doesn’t go to school the student’s home school district is the one who is responsible to file citations on attendance. The cyber school alerts home district of the attendance issues. The home district will file the paperwork on behalf of the cyber school. That is if the communication between home school district and the cyber school work together. If both groups work together there will be success with whichever choice of education. If it does go to the point of the citation it involves the local magistrate. The fines are extreme. It could be the low end at $25 or it could go up to the extremes such as: First citation $300; Second citation $500; Three or more citations can max out at $750. Parents will be filed on until the child turns 17. Students can be cited at the ages of 15 and up. The student will lose their driver’s license even if they are not licensed yet. It will go into affect as soon as they are licensed. Lastly, the parent/guardian could go to jail. It has happen.
Future employers do look at attendance at either educational school. They also take into account with way the student went. Most employers will prefer the brick in mortar school because the student gets up and goes to their job each day compared to cyber which can be get up whenever they choose. They consider if the student received a diploma, GED, and a cyber certificate. There have been colleges that have made students who have gotten their cyber certificate go back and get a GED because the certificate does not meet their requirements. Pennsylvania state law says a student must be graduated by the age of 21 or if they turn 21 while enrolled in school they may complete that year of their education.
It is up to the student and their parents for them to be successful with their education whether they choose to go the traditional route brick and mortar school or try the modern approach cyber schools but the bottom line is putting in the effort and time to be successful and graduate.