A long-time supporter of charter schools, the Walton Family Foundation, has issued a damning report regarding online charter 'cyber' schools. These are the same 'virtual charters' Senator Jerry Tillman demanded be opened here in North Carolina. K12-Inc opened the N.C. Virtual Academy, and Pearson opened the N.C. Connections Academy. Both have seen substantial loss of students since opening last fall. Emphasis below is mine.
It wasn't too long ago that we were hearing teachers cannot be trusted to assess the progress of their students and we needed all kinds of tests run by outside businesses (at big expense) to see how our kids were doing in school. It is so nice to see Sen. Jerry Tillman has a newfound trust in our teachers:
“The good teachers are doing informal assessments all the time, and they already know what they’re doing…"
Thanks to NC Policy Watch and Lindsay Wagner for attending today's Education Appropriations Committee meeting and for her interview with Sen. Jerry Tillman (R-Randolph).
“They [private schools] are not regulated and we don’t know what they teach there, do we? Do you know?” said Tillman at the conclusion of Tuesday’s joint education appropriations meeting. A proponent of “school choice,” Tillman said he prefers the charter school model over private school vouchers.
I was not surprised to see the NCGA Repubs were holding a closed meeting Thursday on education issues. Held behind closed doors In Kannapolis and not open to the public, they had several presentations, mostly from entities that favor the privatization of public schools.
I sat in on the NCGA Education Oversight committee meeting last Tuesday, where only one bill was brought forward. That draft bill will fix a situation where a retired educator is asked to come back to work temporarily, but IRS regs forced the school system to give them a bronze-level health care plan, whereas in retirement, they have a gold-level plan. Many were not heeding the call for temp employment so they did not lose the higher level of health insurance. The proposed bill (no number for it yet) will fix that situation.
Is a virtual education the same thing as an in-person education? Can profits and education co-exist without short-changing children? And how much will this cost us? North Carolina is going to find out.
In last summer’s General Assembly session, Sen. Jerry Tillman (R, Moore, Randolph) pushed through a bill requiring the establishment in North Carolina of 2 virtual charter schools, knowing that one likely applicant was K12 Inc. And now that the law is in place, there have been only 2 applicants, one of which is K12 Inc.
At the same point in time that other states are finding schools run by K12 Inc to be inadequate to the job of educating students, North Carolina is opening the door to bring those problems here.
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