DeVos backs Online Charter Schools despite lousy record!!! Parents know better?

It's kind of an interesting dynamic; Scott Walker says he wants to spend money on public education, a smaller amount than he originally cut, knowing he'll never get it from the legislature. Aw shucks, he tried, right? 

But it's the money taxpayers are losing just under the radar with virtual online schools: 

The Nation: In Wisconsin … in March of 2011, while busting the teachers unions in his state, Walker lifted the cap on virtual schools and removed the program’s income requirements. State Representative Robin Vos, the Wisconsin state chair for ALEC, sponsored the bill codifying Walker’s radical expansion of online, for-profit schools. Vos’s bill not only lifts the cap but also makes new, for-profit virtual charters easier to establish.

The latest study, the K-12 Academic Report, took a look at Wisconsin Virtual Academy's scores, compared to the states public schools. Here's the graph:

Horrible? Yes. So imagine how embarrassed the guy pushing virtual schools must be now, when voters realize those "evil" teachers were right all along when they tried to stop the movement:

Bob Reber, President of the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families, said “Despite their millions of dollars, dozens of lawyers and and army of lobbyists who tried to stifle this innovation, virtual schools are a permanent reality and are alive and well in Wisconsin.”

Check out this story from 2010: $12 an Hour for Teachers, $1.7 Million a Year for the Teachers’ Boss: Your Property Tax Dollars at Work in McFarland-Posted on October 12, 2010

Education Sec. Betsy DeVos backs every effort of privatization, despite the scores shown above. Here are a few of her comments:

School choice’s many components: “We think of the educational choice movement as involving many parts: vouchers and tax credits, certainly, but also virtual schools, magnet schools, homeschooling, and charter schools.” 2013.  "One long-term trend that’s working in our favor is technology. It seems to me that, in the internet age, the tendency to equate ‘education’ with specific school buildings is going to be greatly diminished.” 2013.

Online Charter Schools...what could go wrong? Wow, the internet age!!! And yet, the bad news keeps  rollin' in on those charter online schools:

Online Charter Students in Ohio Perform Far Worse Than Peers, Study Finds: Students in Ohio's burgeoning full-time online charter schools perform far worse on state assessments than similar students in brick-and-mortar charter and regular schools, according to a new study from researchers at New York University and the RAND Corporation.

1. The schools, which deliver instruction entirely or primarily via the internet, tend to attract lower-income, lower-performing white students, then fail to provide those children with the supports they need, the study concluded.

2. "Students in Ohio e-schools are losing anywhere between 75 days and a full school year of learning compared to their peers in traditional public schools and brick-and-mortar charter schools. If kids are in e-schools for a long time, they're likely going to fall very far behind their peers," a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation said in an interview. 

3. Closely mirrors a nationwide 2015 study of cyber charter school performance by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes, which found that more than two-thirds of the country's 200 or so cyber charters perform worse than comparable traditional schools.

And because taxpayers have money to burn, how about court battles with the privateers?

EdWeek: Ohio state officials contend the nine schools were paid for more than 9,000 students who did not complete enough coursework to be considered full-time. The state's largest e-school, the 15,000-student Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, has contested the results via a lawsuit and administrative appeals.

The Nation article went on to point out the money to be made through the virtual school scam:

Florida was one of the first states to undertake a program of “virtual schools” … In addition, twelve states have expanded virtual school programs or online course requirements this year.

This legislative juggernaut has coincided with a gold rush of investors clamoring to get a piece of the K-12 education market. It’s big business, and getting bigger: One study estimated that revenues from the K-12 online learning industry will grow by 43 percent between 2010 and 2015, with revenues reaching $24.4 billion.

The rush to privatize education will also turn tens of thousands of students into guinea pigs in a national experiment in virtual learning—a relatively new idea that allows for-profit companies to administer public schools completely online, with no brick-and-mortar classrooms or traditional teachers.

Virtual "online" Schooling a Disaster!!!

Virtual "online" schooling may be big on the Republican privatization front, but like the hyped up advertising of private and charter school backers, it's all smoke and mirrors, betting on the insecurities of parents to rake in the profits. Some school districts don't even want local virtual schools included in their average student scores.

Wisconsin Virtual Academy's (WIVA) state test scores vary between grades but are generally lower than McFarland's, which is why the district separates them out when reporting its scores in the spring.

But the GOP privateers won't mention this or the following studies every parent thinking about "online" schooling should see. It's a wonder we're even trying this:

Online Charter Schools Have An “Overwhelming Negative Impact,” Study FindsMore than 200,000 students are enrolled in the online schools, but evidence suggests they are getting a very bad education in return.

Online charter schools, which enroll 200,000 students nationwide, have an “overwhelming negative impact” on the academic outcomes of students by almost every measure, according to a series of sweeping national reports released today by three different policy and research centers.

Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes, or CREDO, found that students at online charter schools saw dramatically worse outcomes than their counterparts at traditional, brick-and-mortar schools. 

Over the course of a year, cyber school students lost out on the equivalent of 180 days of learning in math and 72 days reading.

CREDO found that more than two-thirds of online charter schools had academic growth that was worse than traditional schools.

Watch out for these two:

The CREDO study found no particular correlation between how schools were managed and the outcomes of online charter students. The online charter sector is dominated two for-profit companies; K12 Inc., a publicly traded education company, and Connections Academy, which is owned by Pearson, the world’s largest education company. 

This should scare the daylights out of parents who already have kids online:

In its own report, Mathematica Policy Research found that online charters had dramatically higher student-to-teacher ratios than at brick and mortar schools; more than a third of the schools had more than 50 students to a class. Students at online charter schools received less live contact with teachers in a week than those at traditional schools did in a single school day. The schools lacked support staff like guidance counselors and tutors.

And a third report, by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, found serious gaps in oversight and funding of online charters by states. The study was funded by the Walton Family Foundation, which has traditionally been highly supportive of charter school growth nationwide.

Republicans try to exempt failing grades at virtual schools from local districts report cards, so no ones accountable to taxpayers. Hey, how's privatization working out?

Private online virtual charter schools are failing, but you’d never know it by the way the media generally accepts how bad they are. It’s like we've had the debate, now move on. 

  

The following EdWeek article excerpt seems to just take our virtual schools failure for granted:

..."watchdogs maintain that given their generally poor academic performance and high student turnover, full-time online schools—particularly independent cyber charter schools run by for-profit management companies..."

That might come as a shock to a few parents. Online schools are generally doing a bad job academically.

At the same time, this Wisconsin State Journal article details how one district is trying to exempt their virtual charter schools bad grades from being included in their overall report cards. Outrageous? Yes:

The performance of Wisconsin virtual charter school students would no longer affect their school district’s overall state report card rating if more than half of the virtual school’s enrollment is from outside the district, under legislation proposed last month. Officials from the McFarland School District and its Wisconsin Virtual Academy, the state’s largest virtual charter school, are among those seeking the change … The McFarland School District created WIVA in 2009 … The K-12 virtual school has not been meeting state standards for two years, in contrast to the district’s traditional schools, which overall exceed state standards.

In September, District Superintendent Scott Brown noted in a letter to district parents that the overall district report card rating would have been “notably higher” without the virtual academy’s rating included in the cumulative score.

Many virtual charter schools are run by for-profit operators and have recently been scrutinized for poor performance statewide.

Of course Republicans have their fingerprints all over this virtual school cover-up:

The amendment proposed by Sens. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, and Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, is opposed by DPI, which releases the report cards.

Spokesman John Johnson said … no district would be held accountable for the virtual schools with high open-enrollment numbers under the proposal … “If the virtual charter schools don’t have those students accounted for in their district’s totals and they won’t be counted in their home districts, then they wouldn’t be counted anywhere,” Johnson said. “We oppose that amendment. We believe it goes against what we’re trying to do for accountability of school districts for taxpayers.”

Even more to the point:

“If the bill passes, McFarland and other host school districts will be able to enjoy the revenues they rake in from hosting a virtual charter school without worrying that the poor performance of the virtual school will pull down the report card score for the district,” wrote Madison School Board president Ed Hughes...

The superintendent made my case for good public school systems, and ending privatization:

“Having a good school district causes a good demand for housing in your area, attracts businesses to your area, and we want people to have an accurate view of our district, and the way it’s working out, it isn’t,” Brown said. “Ultimately, (the virtual school) can’t harm our bricks-and-mortar efforts, that’s kind of the bottom line.”

K12 Virtual School settles suit for misleading investors over performance. What about parents?

Many parents don’t know it, but they’re in the middle of the Wild West days of privatizing education. Anything and everything goes under the guise of giving parents "choices." Wow, sounds empowering, doesn't it.

The largest and most powerful online school is K12, is about to hide their massive failures by settling a lawsuit that exposes their parental con.

EdWeek: The for-profit education provider K12 Inc. has reached a tentative settlement in a class-action securities lawsuit brought by investors who said they were misled by the company's business practices and academic performance. The online schools provider has agreed to pay $6.75 million to plaintiffs, while company officials said they also continue to deny any claims of wrongdoing … other claims, focused on academic performance and school quality, will be voluntarily dismissed, according to a statement by the company.

See any red flags?

And that’s the problem. The investors in this case only wanted their money back, and were willing to settle the case and walk away. What about the problems they sighted in their lawsuit. What about the school systems and parents that bought into this scam? Will they be compensated or have their kids lost years returned to them?

I posted this audio from NPR just a short time back...



From an eSchool article, the facts not presented above:

The Times published numerous improper practices at K12’s virtual charter schools. After the article appeared, the price of K12 stock plunged.

The lawsuit, aimed at the country’s largest operator of full-time public virtual schools, alleges that:

• K12 engaged in improper and deceptive recruiting and sales strategies, aimed at enrolling students regardless of their ability to successfully complete the curriculum;

• K12 failed to disclose administrative pressure from upper management to pass students, despite poor or nonexistent academic performance, so as to maintain high enrollment levels and continued government funding; and

• According to various academic benchmarks, K12 students chronically underperformed their peers at traditional schools.

The complaint alleges that, as a result of these actions, K12’s statements regarding its academic performance, financial performance, and business and financial prospects were “materially false and misleading.”

The settlement means this story goes away. That’s at the heart of privatization.

Online College Courses actually Widen the Achievement Gap. More Virtual School Snake Oil.

After the bad news came in about the failure of K12, one of the biggest “virtual” online schools, we’re now learning the following online college courses are doing more harm than good.

This should make every parent question the effectiveness of all online course work, especially if there’s no teacher present. These online courses never made sense to me as stand alone schools. They seem tailor made for supplementing what's already being taught in the classroom.

I’m posting this because coincidentally the UW-Madison just announced the roll out of these online courses, for free. No harm done you say? It seems to me the university could spend their time and effort on something that works.

jsonline: Low-cost online courses may allow a more diverse group of students to take college classes, but a new study from Columbia University suggests they also could widen achievement gaps, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week.

Researchers at Columbia examined 500,000 courses taken by more than 40,000 community- and technical-college students in Washington State. They found that students in demographic groups whose members typically struggle in traditional classrooms struggled even more in online courses, the Chronicle story says.

The study found that all students who take more online courses, no matter the demographic, are less likely to attain a degree. However, some groups—including black students, male students, younger students, and students with lower grade-point averages—are particularly susceptible to this pattern.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced this week it will begin offering a handful of massive online open courses (MOOCS) this fall.

The big question is whether MOOCS can successfully educate students without offering direct interaction with faculty.

Online Education Failure, Privatization not Working.

Just be keenly aware of how Scott Walker and legislative Republican describe the wonders of online schools. Those programs have been miserable failures. But common sense would tell you that.

Online education is specifically geared to children who have different needs. It's not for everyone. They are not another system of education like charter schools and private schools, although I don't consider them legitimate either, because Republicans have given them magical qualities and importance that just make education...happen.

The following NPR report should finally put the final nail in the coffin of this privatization scheme, known as cyber schools. Pass this along to every school board member you know, and every parent you know talking about this scam.

Public cyber schools are popping up across the country, even for the youngest students. Many are run by the same for-profit company, which has made a big business of online education. But student test scores are falling short.

You'll notice the parents who have bought into this will never be honest with themeselves. They will always like K12, despite the overall bad grades. They either won't admit how bad they are at their jobs, or they see something in their children those tests would never show. Big surprise.