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Oklahoma: For-Profit Online Charter Chain Gobbles Up Rural Districts

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2019 //
23

 

Oklahoma has underfunded its public schools over the past decade. Many districts have switched to a four-day week to save money.

Some rural districts, facing insolvency, are turning their schools over to Epic, a for-profit online charter chain, which can balance the books by putting kids online and cutting teachers’ jobs.

Like all online charter schools, EPIC overstates its “gains” while its actual results are less than mediocre.

“To save his financially imperiled school district, Panola Superintendent Brad Corcoran in 2017 pitched a plan to convert the traditional public district into a charter school. 

“In becoming a charter, Panola Public Schools would turn over its management to a company affiliated with Epic Charter Schools, the largest online school in the state. The school board agreed. 

“The Epic-related firm contributed $100,000 toward Panola’s debt as part of the agreement. That company manages the small district for a more than 10 percent cut of its funding.  Panola’s high school students now have the option to attend most classes online from home.

“The deal was unprecedented. Not only was it one of the first conversions-to-charter in the state, it allowed Epic’s company to operate a school and gain many benefits denied other charter schools: It could tap into and spend local property tax revenue to cover costs of student transportation, school buildings and sports facilities, like traditional school districts.

“And Epic didn’t stop at Panola….”

Epic has 23,000 in Oklahoma and it is growing in California as well.

”Trice Butler, superintendent of Wilburton Public Schools, which neighbors Panola, said she is concerned that Epic is looking to replicate what it’s done in Panola in other districts.

“Butler said her primary concern is her belief that students at Epic are receiving a subpar education. She cited Epic’s low high school graduation rates and high numbers of students leaving Epic and returning to traditional schools with academic credit insufficient for the time they were enrolled. (Epic maintains that some students come to them behind in credits and the school helps them catch up.)

“Epic’s presence in Panola has also raised concerns about aggressive attempts to attract students and teachers from surrounding school districts even in the middle of the academic year.

”Panola spent $650 for postcards, and at least some were sent to addresses in nearby Wilburton school district, promising a customized education for students and touting the school’s “double-digit academic growth.”

“Butler called this “predatory marketing” and said the statements made on the postcard are misleading.

“Panola elementary students did post positive academic growth on the latest school report cards, with 80 percent of students improving between 2016-17 and 2017-18. But only 27 percent of those students scored on grade level, compared with 57 percent in Wilburton and 51 percent statewide.”

Oklahoma has followed a policy of large tax cuts for corporations, especially those in the oil, gas, and fracking industry, and budget cuts for education and other public services. The state is abandoning its future.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, For-Profit, Funding, Oklahoma, Online Education, Virtual Charter Schools

Critics Protest Outrageous Award for Corporation Hawking Online Instruction for Pre-Schoolers

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2019 //
20

 

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is outraged that The Audacious Project is honoring the Waterford online preschool program, which will use this platform to expand their efforts to open additional  online preschools. Early childhood experts agree that this is harmful to children. I say it is a mean and stupid idea. Efforts to put little children in online schools should be denounced, not celebrated. Children need real interaction with real human beings.

Please sign the petition.

 

For Immediate Release

Contact:
David Monahan, CCFC: david@commercialfreechildhood.org; (617) 896-9397

Early Childhood Advocates Call On The Audacious Project to Reconsider Major Award for Online Preschool
A TED philanthropy project would widen educational inequality and deprive children of the hands-on preschool experiences they deserve.

BOSTON, MA – April 12, 2019 – Early childhood advocates are calling on The Audacious Project, housed at TED and designed to fund ideas for social change, to postpone plans to designate Waterford UPSTART, an online “preschool” program, as one of the participants in its funding program for 2019.  Award winners will be announced at TED2019 in Vancouver on April 16. Last year’s award winners averaged $63 million in new funding. According to a Waterford representative, the funding will allow UPSTART to dramatically increase the number of children enrolled in its program.

In their call for The Audacious Project to postpone funding, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and Defending the Early Years (DEY) point to their October 2018 Position Statement on Online Preschool, which has been endorsed by more than 100 experts in child development and early education. The experts and advocates say that online preschool programs like UPSTART are poor substitutes for high-quality early education, and that funding online programs instead of high-quality early education will make inequality worse, not better.

“There is a tremendous need for universal pre-K, and it’s admirable that The Audacious Project wants to address educational inequalities, but online preschool is not the answer,” said Nancy Carlsson-Paige, EdD, Professor Emerita at Lesley University and DEY Senior Advisor. “Kids learn by playing, exploring, and interacting with peers and caring adults – not by memorizing letters, numbers, and colors presented to them on screens. Children who receive UPSTART’s screen-based version of a preschool experience will be disadvantaged compared to children from more resourced communities who have play-based, experiential early education. A truly audacious project would take the funding intended for these online programs and direct it instead to giving low-income, rural, or otherwise underserved children the high quality, face-to-face education they deserve.”

UPSTART, which started with public funding from the state of Utah and has spread to at least seven other states, claims to promote “kindergarten readiness” through 15 – 20 minutes per day of online instruction. But advocates say that UPSTART’s lessons are poorly designed and developmentally inappropriate. An analysis of one UPSTART lesson by DEY found it was pedagogically unsound, “confusing” and “overloaded with distracting images.” UPSTART also recommends that children wear headphones and complete lessons alone, contrary to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation that parents “co-view with your children [and] help children understand what they are seeing.”

“Online preschool should never be rewarded or considered a legitimate alternative to high-quality early care and education,” said Denisha Jones, PhD, JD, Director of Teacher Education at Trinity Washington University and Director of Organizing for DEY.  “I implore The Audacious Project to reconsider giving money to a screen-based program at a time where early childhood experts are increasingly concerned with screen time and the loss of high-quality interactions between children and educated early childhood teachers. Programs like UPSTART may be less expensive than real universal preschool, but those savings come at the expense of the low-income kids and kids of color they purport to help. We should be investing our money, time, and resources to ensure all children have access to affordable, high-quality, early childhood education.”

Last year, seven of The Audacious Project designees were granted a total of $441 million from partners including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. It is not yet known which groups are funding UPSTART, or exactly how much money the program will receive, but an email from a Waterford PR representative indicated that the award will be enough to “provide an opportunity for every four-year-old to be ready for kindergarten.” (Emphasis in original.)

The DEY/CCFC letter pointedly states, “We don’t believe your impressive list of funders and partners would be satisfied if their own children spent 75 minutes a week on a computer in isolation as a substitute for face-to-face preschool rooted in caring relationships and social interaction.” It also warns that a major expansion of online preschool could derail the growing movement for real universal preschool. It asks The Audacious Project to postpone the award and meet with advocates to better understand their concerns.

Added Josh Golin, Executive Director of CCFC, “Over and over, we’ve seen educational technology such as 1:1 programs, virtual charter schools, and personalized learning software falsely marketed as a panacea for inequality. Now the EdTech evangelists have set their sights on preschoolers. Isolated children on computers guided by algorithms can never replicate the joyful exploration and interactions at the core of the preschool experience. We urge The Audacious Project to rethink this award.”

The DEY/CCFC letter can be read in full here.

Categories Childhood, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Corruption, Disruption, Education Industry, For-Profit, Fraud, Online Education

Pearson Invests in the Business of Education

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2019 //
46

 

The British giant Pearson announced that it was creating a venture capital fund to invest in new technologies to transform education.

Yuch!

More tech trash on the way!

Protect your child from tech capitalization and monetization!

Press release:

“We are launching Pearson Ventures, a fund to invest in growth stage start-ups that are building the future of education and employment. Pearson Ventures will build on the success of Pearson’s Affordable Learning Fund and will continue to lead our ongoing partnership with Learn Capital.”

Today Pearson, the world’s learning company, made an announcement regarding how they plan to support startups in building the groundwork for the next era of education and employment.

Here’s the gist of the news:

  • Because education will look very different in 2030, Pearson, like learners all over the world, will need to continue to learn, adapt and reinvent itself: finding new business models, incorporating emerging technologies into its products and services, and finding new ways to collaborate with education institutions, government, and businesses.
  • To do so, Pearson is launching Pearson Ventures, a fund to invest in early stage start-ups who are building the future of education and employment.
  • With an initial capital commitment of $50M over three years, Pearson Ventures will invest in companies building new market opportunities with innovative business models, future technologies and new educational experiences.
  • Pearson Ventures will focus primary in early-stage startups with Series A and B rounds.

Below, please see the blog post regarding the announcement, or find it here.

Let me know if you have any other questions on the news. Thanks!

-XX

Pearson Ventures: The Future of Learning

Jonathan Chocqueel-Mangan, Chief Strategy Officer at Pearson

Students entering school today face the possibility of being the first generation of 100-year-old workers. Just let that sink in. Having a career that lasts late into life means the skills and knowledge learned in childhood, or a degree earned at 20 years old, won’t be enough for success in a rapidly changing economy. Whether it is a student seeking help with math homework, or an adult seeking a masters degree, we know learners need education that is convenient, flexible and life changing. We also know education will look different in the future, so finding new business models, incorporating emerging technologies into our products and seeking new partners for collaboration is becoming more important than ever.

That’s why we are launching Pearson Ventures, a fund to invest in growth stage start-ups that are building the future of education and employment. Pearson Ventures will build on the success of Pearson’s Affordable Learning Fund and will continue to lead our ongoing partnership with Learn Capital. PALF has invested over $20M in some of the world’s most impactful education startups, improving education for underserved populations, while returning more than $7 million to the company. But as we look to the future, this new approach is a way to shift our investment work to align more closely with Pearson’s five-year strategy, especially our focus on lifelong learning and employability.

With an initial capital commitment of $50M over three years, Pearson Ventures will invest in companies building new market opportunities using innovative business models, future technologies, and new educational experiences. While Pearson Ventures will pursue competitive financial returns, equally important is its ability to collect shareable insights and drive organizational learning to help future-proof the company. As a result, we will be doing things a bit differently than a typical venture fund.

Investment Criteria: Pearson Ventures will focus primarily in early-stage startups with Series A and B rounds, typically partnering with venture firms and accelerators through a co-investment structure. While we will have a global remit, we will focus on geographies where Pearson already has a significant footprint, both to maximize the strategic benefits to our investees and the relevance to Pearson.

Investment Focus: We will prioritize companies who are working in areas of high strategic importance, including employability, lifelong learning, and next-generation assessment; offering new technological capabilities such as artificial intelligence, mobile-first delivery, remote proctoring, or augmented/virtual reality; creating social impact through upskilling, income share agreements, or increasing higher-ed access.

Leveraging Pearson’s Scale and Reach:Pearson Ventures will deliver unique benefits beyond just capital. As a global learning company, Pearson Ventures will proactively connect its portfolio companies with relevant experts in content, product design, and business development, as well as advise on geographic and market expansion. In most cases, new investments will have a Pearson advocate or sponsor as a touch point, in addition to the investment team. On a case-by-case, and mutually agreed, basis, portfolio companies can also receive a seconded Pearson employee, or join a Pearson team or office as an entrepreneur-in-residence.

Through Pearson Ventures, we will continue our commitment to invest in businesses that have a social impact on learners. Alongside our commitments to improve learner outcomes and use digital to reach more people, Pearson Ventures is one more way we’re becoming more innovative, learner-centered, and future-focused.

Categories For-Profit, Online Education, Pearson

Ontario: Students at 700 Schools Plan Walkout to Protest Mandatory E-Learning and Increased Class Sizes

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2019 //
6

 

In a remarkable show of solidarity, students at 700 elementary and secondary schools in Ontario planned a mass walkout today to protest the government’s imposition of mandatory e-learning in high school, a ban on cellphones, and increased class sizes. 

“Students have started a movement with a very clear message: Hands off our education,” said organizer Rayne Fisher-Quann in a statement.

“Students understand the importance of fiscal responsibility, they understand the importance of balancing the budget, but most importantly they also know that our world-class education system should never be a victim of cuts,” said the Grade 12 student from William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute in North York.

That will get the attention of the government!

Categories Class size, International, Online Education, Resistance

Nancy Carlsson-Paige: Online Preschool Stinks!

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2019 //
18

Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education expert who taught for many years at Lesley University in Cambridge, writes here at Edsurge, a tech website,explaining why online preschool is a truly rotten idea.

It is a terrific article, and it begins like this:

The recent growth of online preschools, already in existence in at least eight states, gives states an inexpensive way to deliver pre-K education. But it is a sorry substitute for the whole child, play-based early childhood education that all young children deserve to have.

Cyber schools have been increasing over the last twenty years, and most programs are marketed by for-profit companies. The more recent emergence of online preschool programs opens the door for cyber education businesses to cash in on the estimated $70 billion per year “pre-K market.”

In an education reform climate that has redefined education as academic standards and success on tests, online pre-K programs are an easy sell. Parents are ready to buy into computer-based programs that will get their kids ready for kindergarten by drilling them on letters and numbers. The programs teach discrete, narrow skills through repetition and rote learning. The truth is that for children to master the print system or concepts of number, they have to go through complex developmental progressions that build these concepts over time through activity and play.

Young children don’t learn optimally from screen-based instruction. Kids learn through activity. They use their bodies, minds and all of their senses to learn. They learn concepts through hands-on experiences with materials in three-dimensional space. Through their own activity and play, and their interactions with peers and teachers, children build their ideas gradually over time.

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Early Childhood Education, Education Reform, Online Education

Nancy Bailey: Beware of Tech Titans Bearing Gifts

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2018 //
8

Nancy Bailey learned that the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative was giving $14 Million to the schools of Chicago to put more students online.

Apparently no one in Chicago ever heard of the Trojan horse.

Read on.

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Chicago, Online Education, Technology

NEPC: More Evidence that Virtual Schools Are a Waste of Time and Money

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2018 //
19

The National Education Policy Center released its sixth annual report on “virtual education,” including both online schools and blended learning. The overall funding: neither is as effective as traditional schools with human-to-human interaction.

 

BOULDER, CO (May 1, 2018) – NEPC’s Sixth Annual Report on Virtual Education, Full-Time Virtual and Blended Schools: Enrollment, Student Characteristics, and Performance, provides a detailed overview and inventory of full-time virtual schools and of blended learning schools, including student demographics, state-specific school performance ratings, and—where possible—an analysis of school performance measures.

School performance measures for both virtual and blended schools indicate that they are not as successful as traditional public schools. Nevertheless, enrollment growth has continued.

Full-time virtual schools deliver all curriculum and instruction via the Internet and electronic communication, usually asynchronously with students at home and teachers at a remote location. Blended, or hybrid, schools combine virtual instruction with traditional face-to-face instruction in classrooms.

The report, beyond adding to the overwhelming evidence of poor outcomes for online schools, documents an interesting trend in the sector. Compared to prior years, there has been a shift in the type of schools with the most growth. We are now seeing more school districts opening their own virtual schools. These district-run schools have typically been small, with relatively small levels of enrollment. But the trend is nonetheless evident. While large virtual schools operated by for-profit education management organizations (EMOs) still dominate this sector, they have lost considerable market share. 

Find Full-Time Virtual and Blended Schools: Enrollment, Student Characteristics, and Performance, by Gary Miron, Christopher Shank, and Caryn Davidson, on the web at:

http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2018

Categories Accountability, Online Education, Technology, Virtual Charter Schools

Bill Phillis: Ohio Allows ECOT to Spend $33 Million on Ads, Lobbying, Lawsuits, and Profits

By dianeravitch
September 16, 2017 //
11

Bill Phillis, watchdog extraordinaire for Ohio, reports that the state of Ohio has allowed the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) to use public money in its public relations blitz to avoid accountability for inflation of enrollment and the state’s efforts to claw back more than $60 million. ECOT is notable for having the lowest graduation rate of any high school in the nation, as well as dubious quality standards. Its founder is a major contributor to elected officials. In return, he has collected many millions of dollars of profit.

Bill Phillis writes:

“ECOT has spent $33 million on ads, lobbyists, profits and lawsuits
since January 2016

“According to a September 3 Columbus Dispatch article, ECOT has spent $33 million on TV ads, lobbyists, lawsuits and William Lager’s for-profit companies since January 2016, all in pursuit of gaining state approval to continue to count students that are not participating.

“Over 400 school buses could have been purchased with the $33 million ECOT has spent recklessly. While Ohio students ride on worn-out buses, the ECOT Man spent money extracted from school districts to rev-up his tax-consuming machine.

“It is amazing that public officials have tolerated payments to ECOT’s for students not participating during a span of 15 years. Now that ECOT has finally been audited and exposed, this business is in the process of submitting a plan to transition to the totally unregulated dropout recovery charter scheme.

“Will state officials allow this duplicity to proceed? This will be an ethical and moral test for state officials and the Ohio Department of Education.”

You can contact Bill Phillis or join his organization at:

William L. Phillis
Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding
614.228.6540
ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net
http://www.ohiocoalition.org

Categories Failure, For-Profit, Ohio, Online Education, Virtual Charter Schools

Tim Slekar: Scott Walker Continues His Crusade to Eliminate the Teaching Profession

By dianeravitch
September 10, 2017 //
17

Tim Slekar, dean of education at Edgewood College and a fighter for teachers and public schools, reports here on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s latest salvo in his campaign to eliminate the teaching profession.

He writes:

“Wisconsin’s Joint Finance Committee passed Scott Walker’s budget proposal dealing with teacher education on a 12- 4 party line vote. While the entire proposal is a partisan disaster that continues the dismantling of Wisconsin’s public school system—one item is worth highlighting.”

Future teachers need no student teaching experience. They can completely bypass traditional professional education.

“The American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence will be granting teaching licenses in Wisconsin.

“What does it take to earn a teaching license through the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE)?

$2100
A computer.
Web access
?

“That’s it! You never need to step foot in a college classroom or a classroom full of children. This is truly “fast-track” alternative teacher certification. Who needs to work with kids or learn how to interact with other human beings? That’s so “traditional.””

The ABCTE was created by Kate Walsh, who also founded the National Council for Teacher Quality, whose purpose is to undermine teacher education programs. It is a standardized test that involves no practical or theoretical knowledge of teaching. NCTQ eventually sold off its ownership rights to this shoddy program.

Professor Kenneth Zeichner of the University of Washington, an expert on teacher education, had this to say about ABCTE:

“”Wisconsin is considering allowing the American Board for Certification of Teaching Excellence to operate within its boundaries. This program, which was started by Kate Walsh and the National Center for Teaching Quality as an alternative to the push by the profession to implement a national board certification, is a totally online program that requires teachers to pass 2 online exams about subject matter knowledge and professional teaching knowledge. There is no student teaching/internship/or residency experience or assessment of teaching competence, and graduates become teachers of record in classrooms with “other people’s children.” I have been a critic of what I consider to be substandard programs like Relay and TNTP that I believe do a poor job or preparing professional teachers who will stay in teaching for more than a few years. ABCTE is worse. No real preparation and they end up teaching in schools where students need the very best teachers. Shame on you, Scott Walker, Alberta Darling, and the rest of the WI alt right.”

Categories National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Online Education, Teacher Education

Slate: Online Credit Recovery Is Scamming Graduation Rates

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2017 //
14

Arne Duncan used to boast about the rising high school graduation rate, but he never talked about one cause of the increase: online credit recovery.

Slate has run a multi-part series on the online credit recovery racket. Imagine a student failing a one-year course, then earning full credit in less than one week. It has its benefits: superintendents get praised for the steady increase in the graduation rate; students get the credits they need to graduate.

But what they don’t get is an education.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/schooled/2017/05/what_class_is_like_for_high_schoolers_taking_their_courses_online.html

This segment begins:

“After she failed English her junior year at Riverbend High School in Spotsylvania, Virginia, 17-year-old Amelia Kreck had to retake the class. It took her two days.

“In the classroom, Amelia had struggled with essay writing. But the online course her school directed her to take as a replacement had no essays. Nor did Amelia have to read any books in their entirety. Unsurprisingly, she says, she never had to think very hard. That’s because she skipped out of most units through a series of “pretests” at the start, which she says contained basic grammar questions as well as some short readings followed by multiple-choice sections.

“Amelia says she enjoyed some of the readings in the online version of the class, created by for-profit education company Edgenuity, including excerpts from Freakonomics and the writings of the theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. She also appreciated the flexibility to work from home—until after midnight on one of the two days it took here to recover her credit. But “there was a big component of the original class that was missing from credit recovery,” she says. “Most of it was on the shallow side.” She finished so quickly, she says, that “I didn’t improve in the areas that needed improvement.”

Categories Accountability, High School Graduation, Online Education, Technology, Computers
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