Archives for category: On-Line Education
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Accell Schools–For-Profit and Online–Hires Bill Bennett as Provost of Its New Classical Academies

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2025 //
7

Accell Schools, a network of for-profit online charter schools, announced that Bill Bennett has been hired to serve as Founding Provost of a new chain of online Classical Academies. Bennett will also serve as provost to two brick-and-mortar charter schools, one in Toledo, Ohio, the other in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

The founder of Accell Schools is Ron Packard, who has played a prominent role in the for-profit, virtual charter school industry for years.

You may recall Ron Packard. I have written about him in the past. His background is in finance and management consulting. He worked for Goldman Sachs and McKinsey. He was never a teacher or principal, which I suppose makes him an ideal education entrepreneur, unbound by tradition, open to innovation, and alert to profit making opportunities.

When he was CEO of K12, Inc., the leader in virtual charter schools, he was paid $5 million a year. K12 dealt with numerous lawsuits and controversies in relation to low test scores, low teacher pay, low graduation rates, and other issues. In 2020, K12 Inc. became Stride, which continues to be a leader in the virtual charter industry.

In 2014, Packard founded Accell as a charter chain. His company bio describes his experience:

Ron previously founded and was CEO of K12 Inc., where he grew the company from an idea to nearly $1B in revenue, making it one of the largest education companies in the world. Under his leadership, revenue compounded at nearly 80%. Prior to K12, he was CEO of Knowledge Schools and Knowledge Learning Corporation, and Vice President at Knowledge Universe, one of the largest early childhood education providers in the U.S.

He has also played a pivotal role in investments across the education sector, including LearnNow, Children’s School USA, LeapFrog, TEC, and Children’s Discovery Center. Earlier in his career, Ron worked in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs and served clients at McKinsey & Company.

Bill Bennett was U.S. Secretary of Education under President Reagan. He championed vouchers and morality during his tenure.

Until he became chair of the board of K12, he was known as a skeptic of computers in the classroom.

He wrote in his book “The Educated Child,”

“There is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve learning.”

— from his 1999 book The Educated Child

Bennett said in a February 2001 Bloomberg interview:

“From what I’ve observed in schools, we’d be better off unplugging the computers and throwing them out.” 

He abandoned his skepticism when he joined the K12 company.

His new role as a “founding provost” of online “classical academies,” calls upon his background as a moralist. His wildly popular “The Book of Virtues” made millions of dollars and established Bennett as the nation’s most moral man.

But this was a standing he lost years ago when it was revealed that he had a serious gambling habit.

The New York Times wrote that the “relentless moral crusader” was also a “relentless gambler.” It estimated that in 2003 that he had lost more than $8 million in Las Vegas.

Mary McNamara wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

It is just too delicious — the image of the man who wrote not only “The Book of Virtues” but “The Children’s Book of Virtues” pulling into Las Vegas in his comped limo, bags whisked to his comped high-roller’s suite while he heads into the blaring, bleating belly of the beast to spend hours pumping thousands of dollars into the slots.p. Turns out William J. Bennett, who considers passing judgment on the personal lives of our leaders a moral duty and who all but called for President Clinton’s head on a platter in “The Death of Outrage,” is a high-stakes gambler. The pulpit bully who took down the moral predilections of single parents, working mothers, divorced couples and gays in “The Broken Hearth,” the man who, despite rather formidable personal girth, preaches against those “ruled by appetite,” has, according to Newsweek and the Washington Monthly, dropped as much as 8 million bucks in high-stakes gambling over the last 10 years.

How much fun is that ?

Bennett’s fall from grace was camera perfect, and no doubt he’ll get big points from the judges for the spin of his attempted recovery. Gambling is legal, he quickly pointed out, at least where he did it. And he never put his family in danger. And it wasn’t $8 million, it was “large sums of money.” Furthermore, he always paid taxes on his winnings and, Atlantic City and Las Vegas being the charitable institutions they are, he pretty much “always broke even.”

If that weren’t intoxicating enough for his many detractors, within minutes of serving up this layer cake of denial, Bennett made a public vow that his gambling days are over because “this is not the example I want to set.”

Or as Kenny’ll tell you, you gotta know when to walk away, and know when to run .

Bennett got into hot water in 2005 when he made a comment on his radio show that was widely denounced by both parties:

Speaking on his daily radio show, William Bennett, education secretary under Ronald Reagan and drugs czar under the first George Bush, said: “If you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose; you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”

He went on to qualify his comments, which were made in response to a hypothesis that linked the falling crime rate to a rising abortion rate. Aborting black babies, he continued, would be “an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down”.

So, despite these handicaps, now 20 years past, Bill Bennett is making a comeback. Everyone deserves a chance to rehabilitate themselves. Even Bill Bennett.

Categories Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Virtual Charter Schools

West Virginia: Board Approves 2 For-Profit Online Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2021 //
23

West Virginia recently passed a charter school law, breaking its promise to the state’s teachers. A new board was created to authorize charters. That board just approved two for-profit online charter schools. One is run by K12 Inc., which changed its name to Stride. The other will be run by Ron Packard’s Accel, which operates low-performing charters in Ohio. Packard was the first CEO of K12 Inc., where he was paid $5 million a year.

Online charters are known for low academic performance, low graduation rates, and high attrition. A study by CREDO found that students in online charter schools learn almost nothing.

While findings vary for each student, the results in CREDO’s report show that the majority of online charter students had far weaker academic growth in both math and reading compared to their traditional public school peers. To conceptualize this shortfall, it would equate to a student losing 72 days of learning in reading and 180 days of learning in math, based on a 180-day school year. This pattern of weaker growth remained consistent across racial-ethnic subpopulations and students in poverty.

Categories Education Industry, K12 Inc., On-Line Education, Technology, Computers, Virtual Charter Schools, West Virginia

John Thompson: Beware the Virtual Charter Scam!

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2020 //
22

John Thompson writes here about yet another virtual charter scam, this one in Oklahoma.

He writes:

After years of failing to regulate charters, especially online and for-profit charters, Oklahoma is just one state that illustrates how hard it is to catch up and hold virtual schools accountable for either education outcomes or financial transactions.

In July 2019, according to an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation search warrant, “[Epic’s co-founders] enticed ghost students to enroll in Epic by offering each student an annual learning fund ranging from $800 to $1,000.” This was despite the fact that Epic knew that the parents of many homeschool students “enrolled their children . . . to receive the $800 learning fund without any intent to receive instruction.”

Epic’s recruitment of “ghost students,” who were technically enrolled but received minimal instruction from teachers, allowed the company to legally divert state funds for their own personal use, while simultaneously hiding low graduation rates to attract more support.

This year, Epic has received over $100 million in taxpayer money. And the company, in an exposé by the Tulsa World, admitted that over the years its “Learning Fund”—which is shielded from public scrutiny—received $50.6 million from the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

Tulsa World estimates the Learning Fund could cost the state about $28 million for 2019-2020. Moreover, the private management company Epic Youth Services receives a “10 percent cut” of the charter’s student funding. Also, state appropriations pay for the millions that Epic spends on advertising and generous contributions to elected officials.

If nothing else, Epic is helping to nail down the case that charters are a tool for privatization.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Oklahoma, On-Line Education, Virtual Charter Schools

Network for Public Education Releases a Parents’ Guide to Online Learning

By dianeravitch
March 9, 2018 //
12

MEDIA ADVISORY FOR
March 9, 2018

For more information contact:
Carol Burris, NPE Executive Director

718-577-3276

cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org


Kew Gardens, New York – Today the Network for Public Education (NPE) released a new report, Online Learning: What Every Parent Should Know, in response to the growing dependence on technology in K-12 education. Schools are increasingly implementing digital instruction, often requiring that students use online programs and apps as part of their classwork. Many students even attend a virtual, full-time charter school, never meeting teachers or classmates face to face.

Yet there is scant evidence of educational technology’s success and growing concerns regarding its negative impact. This guide presents a frank assessment of the intended and unintended consequences of online learning in K-12 school and offers questions parents should ask principals if their child’s school adopts computerized programs to deliver instruction, assessment or behavior management.

Rachel Stickland, Co-Chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, had the following to say about the report: “NPE’s Online Learning report is essential reading for anyone questioning the research behind the national push toward digital education. With this report in hand, parents can discuss their concerns with online learning confidently with school leadership – whether it’s the lack of evidence showing that it actually works, the political and moneyed interests advancing it, or how it places student privacy at risk.”

Dr. Faith Boninger of the University of Colorado Boulder researches and writes about commercial activities in schools. Commenting on the importance of the report she said, “As much as companies are eager to sell digital technology to schools, and schools are eager to increase children’s achievement, research does not support claims that shifting to digital educational platforms achieves the desired goals. What a growing body of research does indicate, however, is that excessive computer use by children leads to negative health effects such as vision and sleeping problems, social-emotional disturbance, and addiction to digital devices. NPE’s report on on-line learning is an important, timely, resource for parents. In plain language, its review of what we know about online learning shows that parents would do well to not accept promises or bland reassurances, but rather be extremely skeptical consumers. Armed with this report, parents will be able to ask administrators the very hard questions that must be answered adequately in order to justify the use of digital technologies to teach children.”

The 18-page guide is a parent-friendly review of the research on virtual schools, online courses, blended learning and behavior management apps. It also includes a discussion of the student privacy issues that arise when highly sensitive personal student data is collected by online programs and then distributed to third-party vendors without parent knowledge or consent.

The guide’s harshest criticism is reserved for virtual charter schools, whose academic ineffectiveness, coupled with fraudulent attendance practices, resulted in NPE’s recommendation that parents refrain from enrolling their children in online charters.

Based on the report’s findings, NPE President Diane Ravitch advises parents to “be wise consumers.” According to Ravitch, “Technology can be used creatively in the classroom by well-prepared teachers. But most of what is sold as ‘digital learning‘ is a sham that allows vendors to mine student data. Worse, online charter schools are educationally worthless. Students learn best when there is human interaction between teachers and students and among students. Parents must beware of false promises by profiteers.”

Online Learning: What Every Parent Should Know is available online at https://networkforpubliceducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Online-Learning-What-Every-Parent-Should-Know.pdf.

The Network for Public Education (NPE) was founded in 2013 by Diane Ravitch and Anthony Cody. Its mission is to protect, preserve, promote, and strengthen public schools for both current and future generations of students. We share information and research on vital issues that concern the future of public education. For more information, please visit: networkforpubliceducation.org.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Network for Public Education, On-Line Education, Technology, Virtual Charter Schools

Ohio: You Can Buy Republican Legislators at Bargain Prices

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2016 //
24

William Lager owns the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), which according to the New York Times, has the lowest graduation rate in the nation. ECOT is a virtual charter school, where students take instruction online. The state recently reacted to public criticism and decided to audit ECOT. It found that the school’s enrollment was vastly overstated, which meant that ECOT was receiving millions of dollars each year for nothing. ECOT went to court and argued that the state had no right to audit participation rates (attendance), but the court did not agree. Unless the decision is overturned on appeal, Lager will have to refund $60 million to the state.

Since 2000, ECOT has given $2.1 million in campaign contributions. Since 2010, 99% of Lager’s contributions have gone to Republican legislators. In the brief period when Democrats controlled the House, Lager gave them nearly $200,000. Since 2000, ECOT has received nearly $1 billion in state funds for its perennially failing school.

Think of it: an investment of only $2.1 million in campaign contributions generates nearly $1 billion in state funding for a low-performing school. What a bargain!

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Ohio, On-Line Education, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

California Settles with Online K12 Inc. for $168.5 Million

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2016 //
23

California Attorney General Kamala Harris reached a settlement of $168.6 million with mega-virtual charter K12 Inc. This settlement reflects the good investigative reporting of Jessica Calefati of the San Jose Mercury News, whose investigative reporting led to Harris’ review of K12’s finances and practices.

There are two more investigations underway: one by the California State Department of Education and the other by the State Controller. Now that virtual charters have been discredited by studies and thrown under the bus by the rest of the charter industry, this aspect of the industry may finally be on the skids.

“California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced Friday the state Department of Justice has reached a $168.5 million settlement with for-profit online charter school operator K12 Inc. over an array of alleged violations of false claims, false advertising and unfair competition laws.

“The settlement comes almost three months after the Bay Area News Group published a two-part investigative series on the publicly-traded Virginia company, which runs a network of profitable but low-performing online charter schools serving about 15,000 students across the state.

“Harris’ office found that K12 and the “virtual” academies it operates across the state used deceptive advertising to mislead parents about students’ academic progress, parent satisfaction and their graduates’ eligibility for University of California and California State University admission.

“The Attorney General’s office also found that K12 and its affiliated schools collected more state funding from the California Department of Education than they were entitled to by submitting inflated student attendance data and that the company improperly coerced the non-profit schools it operates to sign unfavorable contracts that put them in a deep financial hole.”

Politico reports that K12 Inc. disagrees with the characterization of the settlement:

– Speaking of charter schools, California Attorney General Kamala Harris said Friday that virtual charter school operator K12 Inc. will pay $168.5 million to settle [http://politico.pro/29NP6eM] alleged violations of the state’s false claims, false advertising and unfair competition laws: http://politico.pro/29nJ0Nj . But K12 pushed back on the settlement amount – preferring not to include $160 million in financial relief that Harris’ office says will be provided to certain schools that K12 manages. Instead, K12 CEO Stuart Udell said the company will only pay $2.5 million to settle the case, and another $6 million for Harris’ investigative costs. Udell said his company admitted no wrongdoing. “The Attorney General’s claim of $168.5 million in today’s announcement is flat wrong,” Udell said. “Despite our full cooperation throughout the process, the Office of the Attorney General grossly mischaracterized the value of the settlement, just as it did with regard to the issues it investigated.”

– The settlement is another black eye for the virtual charter industry, which just last month had three reform-minded groups calling for it to be improved, or else problems such as low graduation rates will “overshadow the positive impacts this model currently has on some students.” [http://politi.co/1tyKbnt] More from Kimberly Hefling: http://politico.pro/29ImzF8

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, On-Line Education, Virtual Charter Schools

What Should Be Done About Failing Virtual Charter Schools?

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2016 //
6

Gary Miron and Charisse Gulosino have prepared a guide and analysis of the growing online cyber schooling sector.

Nearly 300,000 students are enrolled in these schools. Their performance is unimpressive, decisively worse than public schools. Their graduation rates are abysmal. Yet they are profitable, which means their owners will continue to seek a greater market share.

The authors recognize that this secor produces inferior education.

What is to be done? I would say that these schools should not be allowed to operate for profit. They should not be allowed to advertise for customers. they should be closed if they are bad schools. That would be a start.

The authors recommend that policymakers should slow or stop
the growth of these schools. They should be closely monitored and sanctioned when they fail. They should be required to devote more resources to instruction and limit class sizes.

“

Categories On-Line Education, Technology, Virtual Charter Schools

Is Online Teacher Education as Good as Traditional Teacher Education?

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2015 //
39

Wouldn’t you know that the narrative of “bad teachers cause low scores and failing schools” would produce new contenders to prepare “great” teachers?

The regular ratings published by the National Council of Teacher Quality in U.S. News claim that almost every teacher education program in the nation stinks. They reach that conclusion not by visiting campuses but by perusing course catalogues and give demerits based on their own criteria.

But what to do?

The answer (to some): online teacher education.

Many online “universities” already offer degrees to teachers, who presumably never interact with a real child until they enter the classroom. Online universities are the biggest producer of masters’ degrees for teaching.

Now, Emily Feistritzer has created an online company called “TEACH-NOW,” which will offer degrees to those who want to teach. She has already awarded degrees to 600 teachers but plans to expand the number of students to 10,000.

The newly rebranded TEACH-NOW Educatore School of Education (taking the go-big-or-go-home approach to capitalization) was founded in 2011 by Emily Feistritzer, a long-time analyst of alternative-certification programs. TEACH-NOW is a traditional certification program, however—it takes at least nine months to finish, leading to certification. The first class began in March 2013.

While the school has commenced or completed training more than 600 teaching candidates, it announced this week ambitious plans to prepare 10,000 new teachers over the next five years, and establish a master’s degree program. To help with the expansion, TEACH-NOW has hired Philip A. Schmidt, former dean of the teacher-training program for Western Governors University, a major nonprofit online school. At WGU, Schmidt helped oversee a similar scale-up over the past 14 years.

“It’s true that we’re in the relatively early years of this school of education [TEACH-NOW], but everything about what I see and hear tells me that the jury is no longer out,” Schmidt said in an interview. “This pedagogical approach is the real thing.”Emily-feistritzer-phil-schmidt.jpg

That approach involves a cohort-based, activity-based model with a focus on group work and early exposure to the classroom, starting by week three of the program, Feistritzer said. There’s also emphasis on candidates understanding several forms of education technology.

I admit I am skeptical of most online learning programs for children and for professionals, but I am willing to be convinced. Has any reader earned a degree online? What do you think of your preparation to teach?

Categories On-Line Education, Teacher Education

Executive Salaries at K12, Inc.

By dianeravitch
August 26, 2015 //
39

While teachers across the nation have salaries lower than those of other professions and often need to take a second job to make ends meet, the executives at Michael Milken’s cyber charter chain K12, Inc. are faring very well indeed.

Their schools have high student turnover and low graduation rates, but it is a very profitable business.

The chairman of the board and CEO made $4.2 million last year.

The former CEO made $4 million.

The executive vice-president and chief financial officer made $824,000.

The president and chief operating officer made $5.5 million.

The executive Vice President, secretary, and chief counsel made $1.1 million.

The executive Vice President and manager of school services made $854,000.

Numbers are rounded.

Remember: It is all about the kids.

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, K12 Inc., On-Line Education

Stephen Dyer: Why Charter School Reform Failed in Ohio

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2015 //
4

Stephen Dyer of the Innovation Institute was sure that the Ohio legislature would pass a bill to reform the state ‘s unaccountable charters. But he was wrong. The Senate passed the bill but it died in the House.

Why?

Money. Lobbyists.

“The Real Politick of Ohio charter school reform stems from big campaign contributors William Lager, who runs the nation’s largest for-profit school – the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow – and David Brennan, who runs White Hat Management, which also has an E-School – OHDELA. Between them, they’ve given about $6 million to politicians since the charter school program began. In return, they’ve collected one out of every four state charter school dollars ever spent.”

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, On-Line Education, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes
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