In every state that has authorized virtual charter schools, these schools are marked by two characteristics:
1. They are very profitable.
2. The “education” they provide is abysmal.
Typically, they have high attrition, low graduation rates, and low scores on state tests. The state fails to monitor them for quality. Students and taxpayers are fleeced.
The latest example is the Indiana Virtual School. The Republicans who control the legislature ignore failure so long as students are making choices. They happily waste taxpayer dollars so long as an entrepreneur is making money.
A former employee told the state Education Department two years ago that the Indiana Virtual Dchoolwas collecting millions of dollars for students who never enrolled or who enrolled but withdrew. The whistle blower was ignored. Of course. The employee was fired.
”Enrollment quickly swelled at the schools, thanks to the state’s favorable laws and lack of regulation about how fast they could grow. School leaders also had an incentive: Indiana’s funding system that gives schools more money for each student they bring in. Today, Indiana Virtual School and its sister school, Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, enroll more than 6,000 students and could get more than $40 million from the state this year.
“But staffing didn’t appear to keep pace with that expansion. The schools have already received scrutiny for their tiny teaching staffs — with Indiana Virtual School at one time having more than 200 students for every teacher. And the schools have posted dismal academic results, with graduation rates in the single digits in recent years and a fraction of students passing state exams. Indiana Virtual School received its third F grade in a row from the state last year…
”The high student-to-teacher ratios, lack of student engagement, and high student mobility are often blamed for the schools’ academic shortcomings. Students at most virtual schools, in Indiana and other states, perform far below average on metrics like state tests and graduation rate. Last year, Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy graduated just 2 percent of its 1,009 seniors, and 5.7 percent of 10th-graders passed both state English and math exams.
“At Indiana Virtual School, about 24 percent of seniors graduated in 2018, the same year the school received its third F grade from the state. About 19 percent of elementary and middle school students passed both tests, and 4 percent of high-schoolers did.”
The School insists its students have high needs, blaming them for the dismal rates of completion and achievement.
But it still has not explained why it collected millions of dollars for phantom students.
Betsy DeVos strongly endorses Virtual Charter schools because they offer “choice.” Results and quality don’t matter.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The state could cross check the numbers. When they leave the virtual charter they enroll in the public school, often back and forth, to their detriment.
I guess Indiana was too busy promoting charter schools to ask the people at the public school what was going on- they know- they get the kids back.
Is anyone in ed reform questioning their relentless promotion and marketing of online classes given the results in their charters? What, exactly, would it take for an echo chamber member to raise a question?
Because they didn’t just cheerlead these schools. They jammed this garbage into every single public school without a shred of evidence that any of it had any value.
Let’s get a study on how many public schools replaced teachers with cheap online classes, based on the urging of ed reform consultants. Let’s measure the extent of the damage they did and then let’s resolve to stop hiring them and taking their advice.
People who believed online classes with 200 students per teacher were a good idea are not credible people and should not be relied upon.
Big expose on the voucher laws the echo chamber are all pushing:
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/03/abortion-gun-laws-stand-your-ground-model-bills-conservatives-liberal-corporate-influence-lobbyists/3162173002/
Lobbyists wrote them all. That must be why they’re all identical, down to the specific language in the political slogans used now, during the national, coordinated marketing campaign.
The voucher laws probably written by ALEC, financed by DeVos foundation
USA Today (April 5, 2019) has a big spread on canned legislation from ALEC, the Goldwater Institute, and others with a mention of the Devos foundation and proliferation of voucher legislation first conceived for special education and then expanded.
USA Today teamed with journalists and others in multiple states to show which states were more frequently targeted for legislation generated by Republican and by Democratic pushers of ready-to-use legislation.
The methodology, explained in the article. It is not exotic but the computing power required for this effort was huge.
Some of the legislators who were interviewed spoke about co-sponsorsing bills without really looking at them.
it is posted at oped news. https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Indiana-Virtual-School-Sc-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Fraud_Tax-Fraud_Virtual-Reality-190404-966.html#comment729897
with this comment
The corruption is mindboggling. “A Layman’s Guide to the Destroy Public Education Movement”: https://tultican.com/2018/09/09/a-laymans-guide-to-the-destroy-public-education-movement/
Get the NPE Newsletter and follow the GRAND THEFT of taxpayer money and the utter demolition of public education in America.
http://networkforpubliceducation.org/topics/newsletters/
I heard from a reliable source — the same place Trump finds his sources — that Betsy DeVos will be MAGA’s VP running mate in 2020 and then she will run for president in 2024 with help from Russia, again.
To be clear, MAGA means “Moscow’s Agent Governing America”. I cannot take credit for this proper interpretation of what MAGA really means.
The new meaning-
like it because of its truthfulness.
Some people tried to convince me that Michael Milken (founder of K-12 Online & former prison inmate for white collar crime AND worth $3.65 billion) was wrongly imprisoned & is a true philanthropist.
I told them I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell them…
Your friends probably read that schtick in
Town and Country’ s Philanthropy issue.
T&C also spread the false PR campaign that the pension “problem” is intractable.
Enemies of the people.
John Arnold, Ex-Enron Billionaire, is very very worried that public sector employees have pensions. He doesn’t need one. Why should they?
Hate to tell you, but I have way more than 200 students in a traditional, brick and mortar public school. I have 270 students at the moment (geography classes). Gotta love Utah class sizes.
Isn’t Indiana great! Sometimes I wonder if anything in this state works. The roads are once again showing potholes. They are fixed with the cheapest materials and never last. The pollution level is always high. Schools are underfunded and teachers sometimes rumble about striking, even though it is against the law.
I sent this publication from Indiana Chalkbeat to my state Senator Niemeyer [R-IN] and Representative Chyung [D-IN] along with some of my comments. Niemeyer believes that Indiana is doing great things for its students.
I received an email back from Chyung, [aide, secretary?} stating that my letter would be passed on to him. He is in favor of more money for public schools.
It’s the old camel getting nose in tent again. These online schools were originally pitched as a specialty tailored for a small population, particularly disabled students. When they were small operations with a good staff-to-student ratio, some of them may even have done a good job at that.
My eldest matched two of the cases mentioned in the Chalkbeat article: he had a chronic illness that sometimes interfered with walking, as well as a mental disorder that landed him in the hospital a couple of times. So he had those issues– trying to catch up from time lost due to downtime & doctors’ appts, as well as weeks lost in hosp/ recovery.
Back then (’98-’05 midsch/ hisch) in a well-funded NJ district he was provided everything from self-contained classes to 1/2-day tutoring by county (during dr-monitored recovery) to in-home tutoring by a highsch teacher (during at-home recovery). All that was organized by hisch SpEd and Guid Depts working together. He caught up, graduated with his class, went on to college.
Today– thanks to underfunding pubschs, especially their SpEd, combined w/unmonitored expansion of “school choice” alternatives– in some states his only option would have been these online travesties posing as schools to hoover up public dollars.