This is PR at its finest. K12 Inc., the for-profit, publicly traded online school corporation has been on a serious stock market slide for the past three months, though it really began more than a year ago, as you can see on the graph above. It’s been hovering in the $12 to $14 range lately, from a high of $38. So what’s the news in its Monday media release?
We looked at the Education Services industry and measured relative performance to find the top stocks. Relative outperformance is a bullish sign of underlying fundamental and technical strength. We look at yesterday’s price action of all companies in this peer group.
K12 (NYSE:LRN) ranks first with a gain of 5.31%; ITT Educational Services (NYSE:ESI) ranks second with a gain of 3.59%; and Apollo Group (NASDAQ:APOL) ranks third with a gain of 1.90%.
Yes! We climbed from around $12.5 to $13 Friday! We’re number one (in the gains among education stocks that day)!
I don’t expect to see another media release today. The stock is back down to $12.45.
Ah, last Friday. The good old days.
This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2014.
If you keep opposing it you will drive the value through the roof.
Think that through.
You think that’s spin? There is a guy on the TW that just keeps trying to contain the opposition to what’s going on at TUSD by spinning every story he can to try to make them look good, when it’s not possible….oops. You’re that guy.
It’s all about the company you keep. Both Apollo Group and ITT are in the vanguard of slumlords in the for profit education profiteers and both are targets of the same federal actions that forced Corinthian College into bankruptcy and closure this summer. (Neither Apollo or ITT are in the K-12 space and neither offer predominately online courses like K12).
Funny K12 would use those two bloodsuckers as indications they are not as bad as it seems from their stock performance. They’re not. they’re worse.
But is not all about for profit players, look into the LAUSD scandal/fiasco and the hasty departure of the district’s superintendent. One of largest public school districts selling itself out to the tune of millions of dollars to the Apple/Pearson Axis of Evil.
The rot is as well entrenched in public education as in the for profit industry.
The difference is…you can not root out the rot in the public schools, they simply promote them to a higher position and increase their salaries. In the profit world there is some accountability.
Free enterprise still works…as long as the Democrats don’t eliminate it for their bedfellow…socialism.
Well I’d point to the LAUSD affair, Rat, and comment public oversight won the day. Any profit driven company is accountable to shareholders first – and that’s at the core of the issue. The gold rush is on and the Obama administration is doubling down on the bets laid by Bush under NCHB. Public education is up for sale with Pearson/Apple/Gates Foundation and a slew of others fighting for position at the trough (or teat if you prefer).
It’s always a good strategy to point to egregious bad actors (K12, Corinthian, et al) while taking care of business with friends and benefactors. All politicians know this including the current president and his predecessor.
Yee ha!
Shut up and get a short position before it drops through the floor!
I have worked in many TUSD schools and the past few years as a retiree. THe teachers, principals and students are working extremely hard. I don’t know who or what you are seeing Rat T but they are extremely well organized and on task. I saw this a retiree, a substitute and now as a reading specialist. I think you better go visit a few more schools if you have really visited any. You also must want the system privatized. Worst idea in education I have seen. People making money on children…. they are not commodities. They cannot root the difficult problems because we must deal with them and just passing them on is not true at this point in time. Private schools, charter schools just send them to public schools if they cannot handle them. The other option is the charter schools(not all) make money and then close and THEN send them to TUSD and point to how they have failed(TUSD). So many are ignorant about what is really happening.
Rat T says: “The difference is…you can not root out the rot in the public schools, they simply promote them to a higher position and increase their salaries. In the profit world there is some accountability.”
Sorry, but once again you are confusing TUSD with the real world. In the world outside of TUSD there are consequences for school boards that do a lousy job…they get voted out by voters who are far more interested in making sure their kids get a good education than in rewarding failed politicians.
In the world outside of TUSD there are also consequences for administrators who do not improve learning for students. They sometimes get fired…more often they get hired in other places before the whole world knows how bad they are. I know at least a dozen superintendents and even more lower level central administrators from other school districts both in Arizona and in other states who were either fired, not rehired, or left their jobs under a cloud.
And please show me the accountability in the profit world. How many of the brokers on Wall Street who created and profited from the mortgage crisis lost a penny of their one money while they were putting our entire economy in the crapper? How many auto company executives lost money because they screwed up the American car industry? We know hundreds or thousands of auto workers lost their jobs and/or had their pensions cut even though none of them made any of the bad decisions that led to the auto bailout. And exactly how were the CEOs who moved heir companies out of the US for cheaper labor costs at the expense of American workers held accountable for their actions?
Sorry Marty but school districts all over the country are employing male and female teachers with sexual assault convictions. Saw a story yesterday that the U of Illinois hired a murderer that hid in Africa for 30 years,…they hired him to teach African American studies. (After killing his white wife)
I wish you were right.
From an overview of “school choice” policy made available by a representative of the Arizona Department of Education:
“Among the key lessons taken from Arizona’s experience with many various forms of school choice is that in nearly every instance, the haste to enact a program was not accompanied by a prudent investment in the necessary infrastructure to oversee it. This has left the ADE [Arizona Department of Education] and ASBCS [Arizona State Board of Charter Schools], among others, under-resourced to handle the demands of an ever-expanding system. […] the ASBCS is tasked with overseeing 535 charters serving 145,000 students, yet it has a staff of only 9. By its own account, it is severely understaffed for the amount of work it is required to undertake by law.”
This is not good news for the thousands of students enrolled in Arizona charter schools, and yet, if the first part of yesterday evening’s TUSD board meeting is any indication, parents in their right minds will continue to need viable alternatives to enrolling students in this uniquely unprofessional, uniquely dysfunctional public school district. It appears that none of the potential lessons that could have been learned from the many sad and disturbing facts that came to light during the weeks preceding the election have been taken to heart by the current board majority.
What did we have in the “Call to the Audience”? More grandstanding by embarrassingly poorly spoken representatives of the TEA and more vindictive, simple-minded abuse of Dr. Stegeman. What did the TEA reps want? Salary increases and Dr. Stegeman’s resignation. If I understand the district’s fiscal situation correctly — which is difficult, given the mutually contradictory reports different individuals on the board and in the administration are prone to producing — as things stand, salary increases would need to be funded from the district’s reserves; I have not heard from any of the parties reporting on TUSD finances that the district has yet figured out how to eliminate its current $1 million a month operating deficit. Many of us are in support, in principle, of salary increases for teachers — but does funding salary increases from the RESERVES fit with Dr. Sanchez’s vision of the compelling need for “sustainability” and “strategic planning” in the district? Perhaps. It remains to be seen. Running a substantial monthly operating deficit hasn’t seemed to check the Superintendent’s impulse to add new expenses up to this point, but he may have a “come to Jesus” moment in the future — no doubt when there are no reserves left to spend down, if not before.
It should be noted that the Superintendent and Board Member Cam Juarez conspicuously got up and left the room during the period in which a few of the speakers in the “Call to the Audience” were at the microphone. Could one of TUSD’s staunch supporters please explain: what is the purpose of public commentary in an Open Meeting, if elected officials and administrative leadership are allowed to absent themselves while it takes place?
After the “Call to the Audience,” there was an unexpected element: some remarks from a school administrator visiting from China. He was given time to speak and he said (through a translator) that this shining example of democracy in action he had just witnessed, in which one of the governing board members was repeatedly abused by teachers employed by the district and an elected official and administrative leader walked out on other commenters, seemed to be somewhat lacking in “harmony.” Well said. The meeting up to this point was also conspicuously lacking in “professionalism” and “civility,” but as every long-time observer of TUSD I have ever consulted says, those virtues have never been part of the district’s modus operandi.
What was up next on the agenda? Surprise, surprise! The Superintendent adding more positions to the central administration. And did the first proposed addition to the bloated central administration pass? Yes it did! Remarkably, it passed 3 to 2, with Grijalva, Foster and Juarez voting for and Stegeman and Hicks voting against. At that point I had to decline the pleasure of watching the rest of the meeting. No doubt it was more of the same.
I will never forget the role David Safier played, through his commentary in TW, in perpetuating the board composition we have had for the past two years. And now, “mission accomplished” in the TUSD board elections, David leaves the job of observing the ongoing dysfunctions of TUSD governance to parents with children enrolled in these schools. He returns to his charter-bashing posts, as though he doesn’t see any relationship between the way TUSD is being run and the travesties of “education” funded by taxpayer dollars through the “choice” movement.
The primary policy advisor to the State Superintendent of Education sees the relationship, David. I recently heard him confirm that TUSD is well known in Phoenix as the largest (in terms of # of students served) and most dysfunctional public school district in the state. If you want to understand the motivation for the continued defunding of Arizona public schools or for the formation of the policies that allowed entities like K12 Inc. to come into existence, you don’t have to look too far afield. All you have to do is start regularly attending TUSD board meetings. And indeed, in that you were such a strong advocate for this board majority maintaining control of the district, you really SHOULD sit through every blessed meeting, from start to finish, reveling in the great good you have helped to accomplish, through your rhetoric, for the Tucson community.
Anyone who would like to view TUSD governance meetings first-hand can do so through this web page:
http://www.tusd1.org/contents/govboard/gbvideo_archive.html
It usually takes them a few days to upload a new meeting video. A video of the 11.18 meeting described above should be available some time within the next few days.
Rat T says: “Sorry Marty but school districts all over the country are employing male and female teachers with sexual assault convictions. Saw a story yesterday that the U of Illinois hired a murderer that hid in Africa for 30 years,…they hired him to teach African American studies. (After killing his white wife)”
Last things first…the University of Illinois is not a K-12 school district. The rules are very different for colleges. Apparently, The University of Illinois has some flaws in its hiring process.
Yes, there are a few teachers with sexual assault convictions who slip through the cracks and get rehired in other states. I have seen this happen only once in many years of teaching, and that was not the fault of the school district. Identifying people with criminal records is not something done by school districts. It is done by State Departments of Education and law enforcement officials when people apply for teaching licenses. The teacher used a different name and was not identified until a fingerprint search was done. Given the lack of funds many states provide for background checks for teachers it is no surprise that it took a few months for the check to reveal the past criminal record.
As an avid supporter of vouchers you ought to be aware that private school teachers…and, indeed, many charter school teachers… do not have to be licensed by the state. There is no way to know their backgrounds, especially if they come from other states, unless fingerprinting is part of the background check done by the private or charter schools. I do not personally know whether these schools do such thorough background checks.