Now this is an interesting development. Some prominent charter school organizations have published a report advocating stricter regulations to improve the performance of virtual charter schools, also known as on-line schools. This isn’t an entirely new development. Charter school organizations have been trying to weed out poorly performing schools from the charter ranks, and this is their latest effort. More at the end of the post about the positives and negatives of this push.
Three organizations, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, National Association of Charter School Organizers and 50CAN, joined together to publish A Call to Action To Improve the Quality of Full-Time Virtual Charter Public Schools. The organizations support virtual charters, but they’ve read the reports about how poorly students at those schools perform compared to students at other public schools and believe the schools should be more carefully regulated.
The facts about the virtual schools in the report look to me to be accurate. A vital bit of information is that 70 percent of the schools are run by for-profit organizations, directly or indirectly, which means the profit motive is going to trump education whenever the two are in conflict. Some other facts: there are 135 full-time virtual schools in the country; 79 percent of their students are in virtual schools with more than a thousand students; virtual school serve more students in poverty and fewer English language learners than traditional public schools.
The report’s recommendations are specific and, if implemented, could doom one of the biggest players, K-12 Inc., a publicly traded corporation (Arizona Virtual Academy, or AZVA, in one of its schools) whose many sins I’ve written about over the years and whose failings are being subjected to increasing scrutiny. The proposal is that enrollment be limited to hundreds, not thousands of students, and if the schools want to grow, they need to meet performance goals. That would be a stake in the heart of K12 Inc. whose profits are based on continual growth and whose stockholders are growing increasingly skittish (its stock is currently trading at about 11, down from a 2011 high of 36). AZVA has over 4,000 students. Another branch, Ohio Virtual Academy, has over 10,000 students. The corporation would crumble if it had to cut its schools’ student populations dramatically.
The report also recommends that virtual schools be funded based on their real costs, another potential stake in the heart of the for-profit model. Right now, most virtual schools get close to the same per-student state funding as brick-and-mortar schools even though they don’t have physical buildings to pay for and maintain, and their teachers often have twice the student load of teachers in other charters and school districts (A 50-to-1 student-teacher ratio is the standard at K12 Inc. schools). The report estimates that per student costs at virtual schools are 60 percent of the costs at brick-and-mortar schools. Take away their inflated public funding—remember, taxpayers pay for charter schools, just like we pay for school districts—and they lose their profit margins.
It’s good to see charter school organizations actively pursuing some of the bad actors in their midst, and I agree with almost everything I read in this report. However, there’s a bit of a caveat I need to add. When they go after poorly performing charters, their targets are almost always schools with students from low income families. It’s true, some of those schools are doing a lousy job, just like some district schools do a bad job with their low income students, but some charters serving those students do terrific work, even though their test scores are at the low end of the spectrum because of socioeconomic factors beyond the schools’ control. If charter organizations work together with state regulators to carve out the genuinely bad schools, that’s a good thing. However, their motives may not be that pure. Every time a charter with low test scores is closed, regardless of the reason, the average test scores for the remaining charter schools rise. Closing charters serving low income students for any reason, good or bad, can give the charter PR people the kind of undeserved bragging rights they love. “Look at our scores! We’re more successful than school districts,” they can say, even though their higher scores may be a result of serving a different population. The poster child for this type of self congratulation is the BASIS chain which has a variety of ways to screen out academically undesirable students, then brags about its students’ academic achievement. The “education reform”/privatization folks would love to be able to say the same kind of thing about charters as a whole, and the easiest way to do that is to close schools serving low income students.
This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2016.
The last paragraph reads like you think poor students can’t learn. Why is that?
David W, in the real world, the overall scores on standardized tests of students from low income families are significantly lower than the overall scores of students from high income families. That’s true in the U.S. and around the world. That doesn’t mean low income students can’t learn, but with some rare exceptions, schools with low income students have lower achievement scores than schools with higher income students.
Thanks. That’s a shame that educators can’t fix it.
@David W
How would you suggest educators fix income and wealth inequality and poverty? With all due respect, that sounds like a task far beyond the scope and training of educators.
It should not escape anyone that Finland’s students test scores improved remarkably after Finland’s politicians addressed their nation’s income and wealth inequality.
Charter schools are not public schools. We need to stop calling them “public”. Charters are privately operated schools receiving public money. They select their boards, the public does not. They are not accountable in the same way as real public schools. They don’t have to follow any procurement code, like real public schools, and cronyism, avoiding special needs kids, and “deselection” are rampant. Deselected kids are sent to real public schools. Finally for profit charters don’t have to reveal anything about their business practices. “Transparency” and “accountability” are always whined about in the legislature only as applied to real public schools.
Frances Perkins makes a very good point. Charter schools have evolved into big business. Some are even corporate chains with their stock traded on Wall Street. Take a look at the rules in Arizona for opening a charter school; they are way different from what they were when charter schools began in Arizona. Now, only very wealthy people or corporations have the capital necessary to open a charter school.
I watched Joes Crab Shack address income inequality. They raised wages and asked customers to stop tipping. When servers found there was no reward for hard work and quality service they started to let things slide.
They had to close last week as they lost their customers to restaurants with better service.
All men are created equal, but outcomes vary.
Finally, an editorial I can agree on. Several times I was a graduation speaker at Primivera which was one of the largest operators. The intense pride these parents had for their students graduation was striking. Their low socioeconomic status was pervasively evident.
The recommendations of these charter groups need to be viewed with extreme suspicion. They would be glad to shut down school choice. Who wants all that competition?
As for Frances Perkins comments, I chaired the board for two charter schools for seven years. We were a “dumping” ground for district school students and welcomed the challenge. No students are expelled in Arizona any more. Principals go to the parent and tell them “leave or be expelled.” The parents always leave. This flow of students is two to one towards charter schools. Sometimes students bounce through six different schools before their behaviors come under control enough to be accepted. On his second day of school, one student went through our parking lot and keyed every car with a piece of steel. Its no coincidence that murders by juveniles in Arizona have declined from 70 per year to 7 (2012 latest Bureau of Justice data) since charter schools began in Arizona.
I believe online charter schools are great for students with health issues, location, or other issues that preclude them from attending a traditional brick and mortar. In addition to questions of quality/rigor, transparency, funding, success claims, profit motive, teacher pay, etc, I have a couple other points of concern: identity verification and part-time funding.
Identity verification: Students may earn credits through many online programs without proving who is actually submitting the assignments or taking the tests. The work is not proctored and a parent, sibling, friend, or hired proxy could actually be doing the work for which the student is earning credit and getting a diploma. I believe at least final exams should be proctored in person at an approved test center or via Skype or other program that proves the identity of the person submitting the work is the person registered to earn credit. To combat fraud and substitute test-takers, College Board and ETS now require students to upload photo ID when registering for the SAT or ACT respectively, which is matched to the student in person on test day.
Part-time funding: My understanding is that students are now allowed to dual-enroll (be simultaneously enrolled in more than one school) and that state funding is split between the schools the student is attending. For instance, in the case of a student attending a traditional brick and mortar public high school full time but who also takes a class from on online charter (for credit recovery, to accelerate, to bypass a school’s more rigorous curriculum), the state funding is split 75% to the brick and mortar (who is still educating that student full time) and 25% to the online school. I welcome further information/clarification on this funding issue.
I believe online charter schools are great for students with health issues, location, or other issues that preclude them from attending a traditional brick and mortar. In addition to questions of quality/rigor, transparency, funding, success claims, profit motive, teacher pay, etc, I have a couple other points of concern: identity verification and part-time funding.
Identity verification: Students may earn credits through many online programs without proving who is actually submitting the assignments or taking the tests. The work is not proctored and a parent, sibling, friend, or hired proxy could actually be doing the work for which the student is earning credit and getting a diploma. I believe at least final exams should be proctored in person at an approved test center or via Skype or other program that proves the identity of the person submitting the work is the person registered to earn credit. To combat fraud and substitute test-takers, College Board and ETS now require students to upload photo ID when registering for the SAT or ACT respectively, which is matched to the student in person on test day.
Part-time funding: My understanding is that students are now allowed to dual-enroll (be simultaneously enrolled in more than one school) and that state funding is split between the schools the student is attending. For instance, in the case of a student attending a traditional brick and mortar public high school full time but who also takes a class from on online charter (for credit recovery, to accelerate, to bypass a school’s more rigorous curriculum), the state funding is split 75% to the brick and mortar (who is still educating that student full time) and 25% to the online school. I welcome further information/clarification on this funding issue.
About time. I have heard reports with my own ears from kids themselves. Online learning is often no learning at all. And, contrary to some strong opinions, home schooling is often no schooling.