Archives for category: Virtual Charter Schools
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Network for Public Education: A Report on Online Learning: What Every Parent Should Know

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2018 //
7

 

The Network for Public Education has released an important report on online learning, directed at parents who need more information about the value of the time spent on computers and other devices in and out of the classroom.

The report urges parents to be wary of hype intended to sell a product of inferior quality and to protect their children’s instructional time from hucksters.

The report aims to answer such questions as:

With so much attention focused on online learning, it is important that parents be armed with the facts. What does the research tell us about online learning, and what are the different types? How well do students do when they take courses online vs. courses with face-to-face classmates and teachers? What is online learning’s promise, and what are its pitfalls? What role does profit play in online learning? When virtual schools get dismal results, why are they still supported? And what are the privacy implications of outsourcing more and more student data into private hands, as occurs when more learning goes online?

It reviews the research literature, which is thin, and warns parents against programs whose sponsors whose primary motive is profit. It looks at blended learning, “personalized learning,” and such programs as Rocketship Charter Schools, School of One (now known as Teach to One), and Mark Zuckerberg’s Summit Learning Platform. It also casts a wary eye towards virtual charter schools, behavioral management apps, and online credit recovery. Additionally, close attention is paid to student privacy issues, which few of the vendors have protected.

 

 

Categories For-Profit, Network for Public Education, Privacy, Technology, Virtual Charter Schools

Renegade Teacher: Online Charter Schools Are a Fraud and a Scam

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2018 //
8

 

Renegade Teacher hast taught in both public schools and charter schools in Detroit. He writes here about the highly profitable fraud of online charter schools. Among their most prominent supporters are Betsy DeVos (who invested in them, and now advocates for them) and Jeb Bush, who relentlessly promotes online learning.

From his own experience as a teacher, he saw what online learning lacks: human relationships between students and teachers and between peers. It is soul-deadening.

“Online education in the K-12 sphere is a growing trend- as of 2015, there were some 275,000 students enrolled in online charter schools. In my home state of Michigan, from 2010 to 2014, the number of students in Online Charter Schools increased from 718 students to 7,934 students (over 1000% increase).

“Private, for-profit companies (using public funds) are cashing in- the two largest online charter companies, K12 and Connections Academy, are raking in an estimated $1 billion per year (as of 2014). The motive is profit over substance: less operating costs, less teachers, and less building maintenance.

“The results have been damning: according a study from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CREDO), students in online charters lost an average of about 72 days of learning in reading and 180 days of learning in math IN THE COURSE OF AN 180-DAY SCHOOL YEAR. They could have had equal math progress if they had spent the entire year asleep.

“In Philadelphia, a system composed of mainly poverty-stricken Black and Latinx students, online schools educated more than one-third of students as of 2014 [1]. The kicker is that, between 2011 and 2014, 100% of those students failed their state achievement tests. 100%!!! [2].”

The biggest online charter school in Ohio recently collapsed, both an academic and financial disaster.

Renegade Teacher thinks they should be banned. They are educational frauds.

Categories Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, 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

Colorado: Director of Online Charter School Under Investigation

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2018 //
7

The executive director of an online learning charter school has been placed on leave while the school’s attorney conducts an internal investigation. Why he is being investigated was not disclosed.

Richard Mestas, executive director and principal of GOAL Academy High School, the state’s largest alternative-education program, has been placed on paid administrative leave during an internal investigation, says the school’s attorney, Dustin Sparks of Monument.

Sparks said Thursday he is conducting the investigation…

Mestas, a Pueblo native, had been acting as executive director since July 2016 before being named sole finalist for the position in February 2017.

He has been affiliated with GOAL, an acronym for Guided Online Academic Learning, since 2007, when he was principal of Dolores Huerta Preparatory High School, a charter school in Pueblo.

Dolores Huerta and GOAL, which became a separate school in 2008, were two of five charter schools in the Cesar Chavez School Network.

But the for-profit education management group experienced massive internal strife. At one point, Mestas was said to be held against his will in his office and physically threatened by the network’s chief executive officer.

The state education department threatened to close all the schools amid staff upheaval, financial mismanagement and allegations that Cesar Chavez School Network was misusing taxpayer money, based on an independent audit. Instead, the schools were released from the network in 2009 and allowed to operate independently.

The management network dissolved in 2010.

GOAL was authorized under the Colorado Charter School Institute but petitioned Falcon D-49 to come under its wing in 2012.

D-49’s board approved a three-year contract extension with GOAL on Feb. 8, accepting a revised budget of $31.3 million for this school year and requiring the school to remain in good academic standing.

Is the problem academic or financial?

Stay tuned.

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Stephen Dyer: How Did ECOT Survive for So Many Years?

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2018 //
6

 

 

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) was a scam from day one. Early on, state officials questioned its viability and its enrollment numbers. Yet for 18 years, it continued to collect state money. Why?

Stephen Dyer explains why. 

Campaign contributions.

“Now that the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) is closed, it pays to step back and understand why a school that the Ohio Department of Education didn’t approve in 1999 because it didn’t think ECOT could effectively account for its students was shut down 18 years later because … it couldn’t effectively account for its students.

“A major reason that this 18 year, more than $1 billion in state taxpayer funded operation was allowed to continue, despite repeated signs they weren’t keeping track of their students. (One of those signs included an audit by then-Auditor Betty Montgomery that showed ECOT had overbilled taxpayers every year between 2001 and 2005.)”

Categories Education Reform, Virtual Charter Schools

Mother Jones: The GOP’s Biggest Charter Scam Just Imploded

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2018 //
14

 

Readers of this blog are familiar with the story of ECOT, the mammoth virtual charter school in Ohio. It made over $1 Billion for the entrepreneur who founded it. But it seems to be slipping rapidly down the drain hole.

Mother Jones tells the story here in graphic detail. 

“Now, with ECOT imploding, some state politicians have floated the idea that Lager, who has made millions in profits off the school and come a long way from the Waffle House, should be personally held responsible for paying back some of the $80 million owed to the state. But while the coming days will reveal if the political will or mechanisms exist to make this happen, it’s unclear how he might ever be held accountable—because the real scandal is that ECOT grew up legally, with the support of state politicians and national GOP power brokers, and that in many ways it has served as a model for schools like it across the country. Now, the same districts ECOT pulled its funds from are scrambling to find a way to take in its former students, and Ohio is facing a reckoning, after nearly two decades when the state became one of the country’s freest laboratories for pro-charter policies. “Why did it take a generation and a half of kids to go through this crappy system for us to do something about it,” Stephen Dyer, a former Ohio state representative asked me in exasperation in December. “The reason is because a lot of money came in.”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

Ohio: The Worst Cyber-Charter in Nation May Close

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2018 //
1

 

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow may become the Electronic Classroom of Yesterday.

ECOT may lose its sponsor and may be forced to close unless some other entity eager to collect 3% of every dollar steps forward.

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180110/ecot-losing-sponsor-could-close-next-week

ECOT has collected over a billion dollars from Ohio taxpayers over its 15 or so years, thanks to campaign contributions of a few millions a year.

Governor Kasich and other state officials have spoken at its graduation ceremonies. The New York Times said that ECOT has the lowest graduation rate of any high school in the nation.

ECOT recently was required to repay the state of Ohio over $60 million for inflated enrollment and phantom students.

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform, Virtual Charter Schools

Two Indiana Senate Bills Propose Tightening Regulation of Charters

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2018 //
8

 

The lack of accountability and transparency, as well as the ineffectiveness, of many charter schools is awakening politicians, even in choice-obsessed Indiana. Fraud is an ongoing problem in the absence of public oversight.

 

“Two Indiana senators — a Republican and a Democrat — are calling for the state to reform how charter schools are overseen.

“Sen. Dennis Kruse, an Auburn Republican who chairs the Senate Education Committee, and Sen. Mark Stoops, a Bloomington Democrat also on the committee, have each proposed a bill to ensure charter school authorizers cannot open new schools or renew charters without evidence that students are learning.

“The bills come two months after a Chalkbeat investigation revealed that while the small Daleville Community School District charged with overseeing Indiana Virtual School has appeared to follow state law, it isn’t necessarily meeting the needs of the school’s thousands of students.

“The district was on track to earn at least $750,000 in fees last year overseeing Indiana Virtual, which over its six-year lifespan has earned two F-grades and, in 2016, managed to muster only single-digit graduation rates. The school continues to bring in millions of state dollars for its students, and in September, opened up a second school, also chartered by Daleville.”

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, Indiana, Virtual Charter Schools

Columbus Dispatch Editorial: Will the ECOT Saga Please End?

By dianeravitch
December 18, 2017 //
10

One of the most remarkable turnarounds in the nation happened in Ohio. There have been so many charter scandals that the major newspapers have become skeptical, as well they should be. They have noticed the scams, frauds, phantom schools, phantom students. They’ve noticed how many charters get scores lower than the public schools they were supposed to compete with.

They are no longer entranced by the marketing of the charter school industry.

In Ohio, the biggest scandal is the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, known as ECOT.

This editorial appeared in the Columbus Dispatch. The editorial board is no longer fooled by the charter industry.

It was founded in 2000. It developed some very bad habits that cheated the public of millions of dollars.

“Alas, the school’s owner, who had no background in education, began to realize that education is really hard. And keeping the attention of at-risk students is really, really hard. The owner began to realize that many students who signed up for his school almost never logged in. Didn’t show up. His virtual classroom was half-empty. But tracking down these students and hounding them to get online and learn something would be time-consuming, expensive and, in many cases, nearly impossible.

“The owner quickly realized something else. Keeping an honest account of how many students were logging in to meet state attendance requirements would reduce the amount he could charge the state — by millions of dollars. Every year. The owner made an unfortunate choice. He decided to charge the state for a full year of instruction for each student signed up, even if a student logged in for only a few minutes each month.

“This is the sad story of ECOT — the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, Ohio’s largest online charter school. Since its founding in 2000, the school consistently has billed the state for students whose participation it could not document.

“In November 2001, then-State Auditor Jim Petro determined ECOT received $1.7 million for students not enrolled. Despite these early warnings, ECOT continued to charge Ohio’s taxpayers for phantom students, in increasing numbers.

“State audits from 2000 to 2016 revealed how lucrative this pattern has been for ECOT owner Bill Lager. Although organized as a nonprofit, ECOT contracts with two Lager-owned, for-profit entities for management and software services. From 2000 to 2016, ECOT paid the two businesses a tidy $192.8 million.

“At long last, in 2016 the Department of Education had had enough. It began insisting on honest accounting. After reviewing log-in durations and offline documentation for the 2015-2016 school year, the department concluded ECOT had reported 15,322 full-time students, while only 6,313 could be verified. The State Board of Education required ECOT to repay about $60 million of the $108 million it had received.

“This upset the owner. So he sued the state and its taxpayers, claiming the education department has no right to look under the hood, no right to check whether students actually are logging in. Fortunately, this argument was rejected by both the Franklin County Common Pleas Court and Court of Appeals. The case now is before the Ohio Supreme Court.”

ECOT has the lowest graduation rate in the nation.

How much longer will the taxpayers of Ohio allow this “school” to collect millions for students who never participated in class?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fake, For-Profit, Fraud, Ohio, Privatization, Virtual Charter Schools

South Carolina Cracks Down on Virtual Charters

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2017 //
4

Betsy DeVos loves virtual charters, but they have dreadful records. Even her like-minded Choice zealots Are backing away from this money-making machines.

In South Carolina, the state agency in charge of charter schools refused to allow some Virtual charters to change authorizers, which would enable them to restart the time clock on failure.

“Following months of political tensions and a contentious public hearing, the South Carolina agency that oversees 39 of the state’s charter schools has signed off on the requests of five charters seeking permission to transfer to a new sponsor. Another four, though, including three online schools, are in “breach” status because of persistently poor performance and will not be allowed to leave.

“We don’t feel that’s taking care of our fiduciary duties,” Don McLaurin, chair of the statewide South Carolina Public Charter School Board, said of the underperforming schools’ request to leave. “That’s just not how you improve education.”

“The three virtual schools — the Cyber Academy of South Carolina, the S.C. Virtual Charter School, and Odyssey Online Learning — all contract with the for-profit, publicly traded K12 Inc. for services ranging from day-to-day operations and instruction to curriculum. The fourth, Midlands STEM Institute, is a technology-focused “bricks-and-mortar” public charter school located near the city of Columbia.

“Separately, the state’s Office of the Inspector General is examining data the schools submit to the board that raise questions about enrollment and attendance at the four schools whose transfer requests were denied. Early in the hearing at which the transfer requests were heard, board members were told the auditors have found nothing so far that should factor into their decision.

“Other states and charter school authorizers that have attempted to shutter poorly performing online schools with for-profit operators have found themselves waging wars of attrition, with the companies spending lavishly on lobbying and donating to sympathetic elected officials.

“South Carolina, where 10,000 of the state’s 26,000 charter school students attend virtual schools, is shaping up to be no exception. According to public disclosures analyzed by The 74 in a previous story, the for-profit schools and their representatives have spent nearly $1 million in the state since 2010. In 2015 the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, better known as CREDO, found that online schools have an “overwhelming negative impact” on student growth.”

K12 Inc. is great for profits, not very goood for students or taxpayers.

Categories K12 Inc., South Carolina, Virtual Charter Schools
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