Shaina Cavazos of Chalkbeat in Indiana reports on the startling graduation rate of Indiana’s publicly funded virtual charter school: 2%. Two percent.
“About 2 percent of Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy’s 1,009 seniors graduated, putting the school’s graduation rate below just two others — a school that caters to students with significant intellectual and behavioral disabilities and an adult high school that enrolls only a couple dozen students each and graduated no students last year. Across the state, the vast majority of schools graduate at least three-quarters of their senior students.”
Do you remember when charter advocates promised that charters would be more successful, more innovative, and more accountable than public schools? They are not. For-profit Virtual Charter Schools are scams. They are a waste of money. They are a public embarrassment. Why are they allowed to open?
Peter Greene explains here about this Indiana cybercharter, which buys its existence by paying legislators, then collects public money to not educate anyone. This is not unusual. As you will see from the graph he reproduces, lobbying and campaign contributions area part of their business.
For-profit cybercharters, whether K12 Inc. or Connections Academy, should be illegal. They take public money, lobby legislators, get abysmal results, and are never held accountable. ECOT in Ohio was the darling of Republican politicians, who were happy to give its graduation speech, even though ECOT has the lowest graduation rate in the nation.
At the Indiana cybercharter that Greene writes about, only 10% of the money collected is spent on instruction!
These cybercharters are not schools. They are corporate honey pots that wastepublic money and children’s time.
If a state has children who require homebound instruction, the state should provide the online instruction, using certified teachers, with no profits, no lobbyists.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I just sent this article and my comments to Representative Chris Chyung [D-IN]. He has told me that he will work to fund public education.
This article should go to the Democratic members of Congress. Most representatives only hear from lobbyists. They rarely hear from people or groups that criticize what the lobbyists are promoting. It would be helpful if there were more pro-public education constituents in D.C. that could periodically visit Democratic representatives to remind them they are accountable to the people. We may not have money, but if we had a coalition of pro-public education and social justice groups, we might be able to have some clout. We need to make representatives to understand the importance of authentic public schools and the vast number of regular voting citizens that care about them.
Agreed.
Unfortunately the lobbyists are out there in full force no matter what political party.
That keeps the K-12, Inc. going strong.
Cynicism comes easily when we have a lying crook as President who surrounds himself with other lying crooks. Nonetheless, a story like this still amazes. It is incredible that in the accountability era, campaign contributing charter schools get a pass on the very problem– success with students– they claim to be able to solve. It further exposes the big lie: The push for charter schools has nothing to do with equity or students. It is all about profits and undermining one of the few remaining bastions of government responsibility for people, and of course, unions that protect workers.
and from what we’ve seen over the past decade and a half, it does wonders at dumbing down the constituency
Jen Bush’s lobbying company pushed online learning relentlessly for a decade
Why is he still credible in Ed reform circles? Why don’t they hold him accountable for selling this garbage?
And why did they all cheerlead for it like lemmings? Why weren’t there any critics or dissenters? Ed reform has an echo chamber problem- they punish critics so they end up pushing bad ideas well past their sell-by date.
It’s not just Jeb Bush. Come to CA and watch the Democratic party fully fund the CA Virtual Academy over and over.
Then deliver it to unsuspecting children.
This is way beyond political parties.
The fleecing of public schools mostly about moving money out of the public’s hands and into private pockets. The goal is to take a public asset from the working class and divert it to private corporations and the already wealthy. It is a huge loss for working families, sadly many of whom are none the wiser.
Ed reformers inexplicably believe that the students who need the most help would somehow benefit from LIMITING those students’ interaction with a teacher
The whole premise is ridiculous on its face but it’s an echo chamber, so no one dared to point that out
Instead they swallowed tech industry marketing, whole.
It shouldn’t surprise us that Ed reform promotes each and every tech industry profit plan in schools
Most of them are paid by tech owners
The entire movement is funded by people who make money selling programs and devices to schools.
Questioning tech industry marketing is a career killer in Ed reform. It’s suicide.
Town and Country’s 2018 “philanthropy” issue has an article that claims Michael Milkin’s reputation has been salvaged… the reality- not for Ohioans, Michiganders, and other states’ residents. Milken legitimized profit taking from public education. The private education industry fleeced Ohioans out of $1 bil and the charter churn in Michigan, where 80% of charters are for-profit, has been “brutal on Black families” (Detroit News).
Not one entry for any of the T&C “philanthropists”, cited their spending on education. Odd that. (Both Arnold and Gates got space on the pages.) Presumably, the rich have input to what’s written.
T&C falsely described Arnold’s “philanthropy” aimed at destroying pensions, as addressing an intractable problem. Since pensions, at an average 3% of state budgets (far less than corporate welfare spending), weren’t a “problem” until the Koch’s, Arnold and Pew decided they were, T&C shows itself as more than entertainment for the rich. It’s also their tool. Pension privatization enriches Wall Street fund managers and, it is one of the linch pins in the agenda to “destroy the middle class”.
Virtual charter schools have much lower standards for graduation than real schools, so the fact that only 2% are graduating is even more pathetic than it appears.
Online education is very useful for many more than home bound students.
In my state the median high school has around 250 students. These small high schools can not offer their students a rich and diverse curriculum without some form of distance learning. A second use of online classes is to reduce scheduling problems. My middle child took a K12 course that satisfied a state graduation requirement, allowing him to enroll in other classes that conflicted with the required class sections at his high school.
That is not inconsistent with my recommendation to ban for-profit virtual charter schools, which sell garbage and charge full tuition.
K12 Inc. was discredited by the NCAA because of the poor quality of their courses.
The tone-deaf Town and Country magazine wrote that Michael Milken’s reputation had been salvaged after his stint in prison. Wrong.
Your closing recommendation that “If a state has children who require homebound instruction….” suggested to me that you thought that was the primary reason to have online instruction. The purpose of my post was to point out that many students who are not homebound can benefit greatly from having options of online instruction.
There will need to be some kind of organization to provide these kinds of opportunities. Perhaps something like The Art of Problem Solving presents a model that you would like (https://artofproblemsolving.com/). I know the general opinion here is that there is not a dimes worth of difference between for profit and not for profit charter schools, but perhaps you don’t agree with the majority opinion.
In my son’s case, the K-12 class was an AP class, and he did take the AP exam. I doubt that the NCAA would have any problem with the result.
The NCAA decided that K12 Inc. classes were not worthy of accreditation. Take it up with them.
Any thoughts about the major points of my post?
1) That there is a significant difference between for profit (like K12) and non profit charter schools (like The Art of Problem Solving) so that you would support non-profit providers of internet classes
2) that you would support online courses for students who have outgrown the curriculum that the local school district believes it is reasonable to offer the students of the district
3) that students should be allowed to use online courses to minimize scheduling difficulties in traditional courses (or failing that, every student should be equipped with a time turner necklace)
Go away. You are a pest and a bore.
Are my questions difficult to answer?
My expectation was that you would say 1) yes, there is a significant difference between for profit and not for profit on line charter schools. I am against the for profit like K12, but open to the not for profit schools like The Art of Problem Solving 2) this is a blog about a better education for all, so of course I am in favor of an enhanced curriculum for any students who have outgrown the curriculum provided by the local school district, and 3) that scheduling issues are an unfortunate fact of the world, but if there are some things we might do to mitigate their influence (even though they fall short or Hermione’s time turner necklace), we should do those things to minimize the impact of schedule conflicts on students.
Do you have different answers to these questions?
For-profit schooling should receive zero public dollars.
If people want to pay for a degree, with no public support, that’s their choice.
No answer ever satisfies you.
You are a pest.
Rush Limbaugh perfected the argument technique characterized by an anecdotal story which masquerades as a truth for the whole.
“The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.
He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions—’the Party says the earth is flat’, ‘the party says that ice is heavier than water’—and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them.” — With ston Smith, protagonist of 1984, by George Orwell
///
Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.”– From the perspective of Orwell’s fictional character Emmanuel Goldstein
///
That fits TEs approach to a T(E). In this case, he ignores all the problems with cyber charters: abysmal graduation rate, lack of human interaction, profiteering and outright fraud and instead uses an anecdote to paint a fanciful picture of reality.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Indiana’s publicly funded, private sector, virtual corporate charter schools only graduated 2% – Two percent – of their 1,009 – one-thousand-and-nine seniors. That was a graduation class of 20 out of 1,009, and this virtual charter school takes money away from real brick-and-mortar publicly funded public schools. Why does Indiana let this virtual charter school stay in business?
Why does Indiana let this virtual charter school stay in business?
It’s run by politicians who ‘have all the answers’ to what is needed for education in Indiana. Facts don’t ever matter. I’ve written letters to the editor and letters to my state Senator Niemeyer [R-IN] and old Representative Hal Slager [R-IN]. All I ever got back was information telling what a good job they were doing in funding for education and that large a portion of money from the budget was going towards education.
I am SO happy to have a progressive new state Representative Chris Chyung. A number of months ago I went out with him putting flyers on doors letting people know that 500,000 people had been taken off the voters’ registration for NW Indiana. I got to talk with him for an hour or two [I forget how long we worked] and I found him to be just what I’d want. [He told me at that time that he was thinking of running for state representative.] He got elected and now has to work with conservatives and our conservative Republican governor.
He is young, I think only 25 years old but has his own business.
This isn’t about cyber charters. Discrimination exists towards Native Americans. DeVos has scuttled more than 1,200 civil rights investigations. Trump picks the best. [sarcasm]
………………………..
U.S. to Investigate Discrimination Against Native American Students on Montana Reservation
The Education Department said it will look into a long-standing complaint of racial inequities in Wolf Point schools after The New York Times and ProPublica wrote a story about the issue.
by Annie Waldman, ProPublica, and Erica L. Green, The New York Times Jan. 4, 5 a.m. EST
A year and a half after receiving a detailed complaint from tribal leaders, the U.S. Department of Education plans to investigate their allegations that the Wolf Point School District in Montana discriminates against Native American students.
In a Dec. 28 letter, sent hours after The New York Times and ProPublica published an investigation into racial inequities in the school district, the department’s Office for Civil Rights notified the lawyer representing the tribal executive board of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation that it would look into the complaint. The board includes members of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes.
The Office for Civil Rights is already looking into a complaint by Louella Contreras that the Wolf Point district failed to provide her granddaughter, Ruth Fourstar, with special education services. The department’s decision to look into the tribal leaders’ broader allegations bucks the Education Department’s policy under Secretary Betsy DeVos of pulling back from investigating complaints of systemic discrimination by schools and colleges, and concentrating on mistreatment of individuals. ProPublica reported in June that, under DeVos, the department had scuttled more than 1,200 civil rights investigations that began under the Obama administration and lasted at least six months.
Nationwide, more than 90 percent of Native students attend integrated public schools near or on reservations, which have historically restricted tribal influence over curriculum, funding and staffing. Native American students have some of the worst academic outcomes in public schools: They score lower than nearly all other demographic groups on national tests and less than three-fourths of Native students graduate from high school…
https://www.propublica.org/article/education-department-investigating-discrimination-against-native-american-students-wolf-point-montana-reservation
Why aren’t people petitoning for a writ of mandamus against whatever education authority exists in Indiana?
Utah has two for-profit online charter “schools.” Utah is closing its first school for “low grades–” an elementary school in a very poor area–but won’t even touch the online schools, that are usually the lowest scoring schools in the state. Their graduation rates are also abysmal, and yet they seem protected from these shut downs that regular schools face.
When I have students leave my public school for the online “schools,” we usually get the students back in less than a year, and they have fallen WAY behind. They may as well not be in any school at all.
“not in school at all”. That’s what happened in Ohio. But, there’s no getting the tax dollars back because charter operators funded the state GOP. Ohio’s attorney general is Republican.
Unfortunately, it’s not just a Republican problem.
In Connecticut, “Democratic” Governor Dannel Malloy has been a charter shill, aided and abetted by such “Democratic” leaders as Rosa DeLauro, who tried to cow Jonathan Pelto into withdrawing from the Democratic primary against her pal Malloy precisely because Pelto was exposing inconvenient truths about Malloys support of charters, among other things.
These people may be Democrats, but there is nothing the least bit democratic about them.
Politicians with their hands are out for billionaire cash. We expect better from Dems. In contrast, we know Republicans are at their core, larcenous.