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Virtual school company faces lawsuit

February 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A national company that operates two virtual schools in Idaho faces a class-action lawsuit from Investors.

The suit was filed in federal court in Virginia.

Investors claim the company, called K12, gave false and misleading statements about student performance on standardized tests.

They claim, as a result, K12′s stock traded at artificially inflated prices.

K12 operates and provides curriculum to the Idaho Virtual Academy online school and the iSucceed Virtual High School in Idaho.

“K12 disputes the claims made by this private law firm and will vigorously defend itself,” K12 Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Jeff Kwitowski told KTVB.com.  “As with any public school, test scores are publicly available.”

State Department of Education spokeswoman Melissa McGrath said the department had no comment on the specific lawsuit because it is not related to any school in Idaho.

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Can States and School Districts Cut Costs Through Digital Learning?

January 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Digital learning represents wide-open terrain for K-12 education reform. Several states — Alabama, Arizona, Idaho, Michigan and Minnesota — require students to take an online course to receive a high school degree. Twenty-seven states have established statewide full-time virtual schools since the first opened in 1997 in Florida, according to a report by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, an indication of virtual education’s growing appeal.

As with all innovations, though, there is always a question of cost for providing such new technologies, especially when states are providing less per-pupil funding.

A study released last week by the Education Center of Excellence at the Parthenon Group (commissioned by the conservative education think tank, the Fordham Institute) suggested that the costs of digital learning could be significantly less than more traditional modes. The authors cautioned that its findings must be interpreted with some caveats: costs vary across digital education platforms and different entities pursue online learning for different reasons (cost-savings versus enhanced offerings, for example).

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2011 Was an Inflection Point for Digital Learning

December 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In November 2010, in his most important speech, Arne Duncan called for more productivity during this ‘new normal’ period of lower revenue. As our second ‘new normal’ year draws to a close, the challenges are numerous but the inflection is clear — the shift to personal digital learning is on and innovations in learning are accelerating! Eleven trends marked 2011:

1. Poverty. The level of challenge was ratcheted up this year as most U.S. schools faced a double whammy of budget cuts and more kids in poverty. Despite heroic efforts, we lost a little ground on the equity front this year.

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New IEN director says project a year ahead of schedule, under budget

December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Green said, “One of the reasons that I was brought on was to bring the stakeholders together, create a … plan for the future of the IEN. … Once we complete this strategic plan, we’ll operationalize it and effectuate it. … We’ve already begun work on it. We have a facilitator in place, and we hope to deliver the product March 31st.” The plan, Green said, will go to Luna, the State Board of Education, and the governor for approval.

Green is a former executive director of the Idaho School Boards Association who in 2008 was named executive director of iSucceed Virtual High School, and this year formed Praxis Management Group. A former teacher, from 1998 to 2002 he worked for the Idaho Division of Professional-Technical Education.

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Luna: Opposition to for-profit education providers is like Occupy Wall Street (video)

December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“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,” wrote The Nation writer Lee Fang on Nov. 16.

But Luna doesn’t believe the school sector has been free of for-profit companies for a very long time. “The fact is in public education, there have been companies, private companies, that have been making profits on public education long before I was ever state superintendent,” Luna explained. “These are all for-profit companies that have been dealing with K-12 public schools for decades and they make a profit.”

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New Idaho Education Association leader has tough task ahead

November 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

BOISE, Idaho — The new president of the statewide teachers union has a tough task reorganizing the 13,000-member group after it took a beating during the 2011 Idaho Legislature, with measures passed to weaken their collective bargaining and phase out some job protections.

But Penni Cyr says she’s up for the assignment.

Cyr is starting a three-year term as president of the Idaho Education Association after nearly 30 years teaching in Moscow public schools. Her husband, Craig, works at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc., in Pullman, Wash., and remains in Moscow, where their four adult children also live.

“I go home when I can, but it’s often time to work,” Cyr said.

Among her top priorities: A campaign to repeal the sweeping education changes that were signed into law earlier this year with backing from public schools chief Tom Luna and Gov. Butch Otter. The laws will go before Idaho voters in November 2012.

The measures approved by Idaho lawmakers limit collective bargaining to salaries and benefits, dump seniority as a factor in layoffs and require union negotiations to be held in public. Idaho is also introducing teacher merit pay and shifting money from salaries to help pay for the changes, which will arm every high school teacher and student with a laptop and make online classes a requirement to graduate.

“(Students) are going to be excited because they get computers,” Cyr said. “But I worry, are we experimenting on our kids? Where’s the research that shows one-to-one computing devices, requiring online course, is going to help students achieve greater?”

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Can Virtual Schools Really Replace Classrooms?

November 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The article reports that an estimated 250,000 students in 2010-11 attend school online, sometimes in the form of full-time public cyberschools, sometimes in a cyber “hybrid” school. These children aren’t “home schooled” from a statistical point of view; they’re enrolled in schools with names that sound like online degree factories (Georgia Cyber Academy, Florida Virtual School), but are legitimately run by states and districts or outsourced to for-profit corporations. They’re going to school. At home.

A quarter-million kids represent a tiny percentage of the 56 million kindergartners through 12th graders in the United States, but it’s a percentage that’s growing, according to The Journal’s numbers: up 40 percent in the last three years. It’s that increase, rather than the actual number of students affected, that makes these virtual schools worth talking about, and it’s an increase not just in children and parents willing to embrace this, but also in school districts. Georgia and Florida both say they spend substantially less on a student in their online schools. An Idaho school superintendent told The Journal that he was considering closing entire departments and outsourcing their courses to online providers. “It’s not ideal,” he said, “but Idaho is in a budget crisis, and this is a creative solution.”

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My Teacher Is an App

November 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The growth of cybereducation is likely to affect school staffing, which accounts for about 80% of school budgets. A teacher in a traditional high school might handle 150 students. An online teacher can supervise more than 250, since he or she doesn’t have to write lesson plans and most grading is done by computer.

In Idaho, Alan Dunn, superintendent of the Sugar-Salem School District, says that he may cut entire departments and outsource their courses to online providers. “It’s not ideal,” he says. “But Idaho is in a budget crisis, and this is a creative solution.”

Other states see potential savings as well. In Georgia, state and local taxpayers spend $7,650 a year to educate the average student in a traditional public school. They spend nearly 60% less—$3,200 a year—to educate a student in the statewide online Georgia Cyber Academy, saving state and local tax dollars. Florida saves $1,500 a year on every student enrolled online full time.

For individual school districts, though, competition from online schools can cause financial strain. The tiny Spring Cove School District in rural Pennsylvania lost 43 of its 1,850 students this year to online charter schools. By law, the district must send those students’ share of local and state tax dollars—in this case $340,000—to the cyberschool. Superintendent Rodney Green, already struggling to balance the budget, cut nine teaching jobs, eliminated middle-school Spanish and French and canceled the high-school musical, “Aida.”

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Idaho Begins Process of Carrying Out Online Class Requirement

November 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This new fractional funding formula would apply only in cases where the student, or his or her parent, has selected a course outside of those offered by the companies that have been contracted by the state for a set amount. State Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, serves on Luna’s task force and has questioned the apparent disparities under the funding formula and whether they could make it more appealing for an online company to market their courses to parents in rural areas of the state.

“I’m still wondering how all this will work, given the parental choice,” Jaquet said.

But Luna counters that it’s very unlikely that a parent or student will venture outside the list of courses provided by their school district. He is also skeptical that online curriculum companies will “cherry pick” students when Idaho is offering a statewide contract.

The task force is expected to send out a request for information from potential online course providers later this week, said Jason Hancock, who serves as Luna’s deputy chief of staff. A request for proposals from online vendors would go out to bid early next year.

“We’re probably looking at some time in March, maybe April,” Hancock said.

Proponents of online education said the virtual classes will help the state save money and better prepare students for college. But critics said they’ll replace teachers with computers and shift state taxpayer money to the out-of-state companies that will be tapped to provide the online curriculum and laptops.

The online class requirement was approved last week by the state Board of Education and will go before Idaho lawmakers for review in the 2012 session, which starts in January. It will apply to students entering the 9th grade in fall 2012.

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Idaho Online Class Requirement For High School Graduation Gets Board Approval

November 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

BOISE, Idaho — Education officials on Thursday gave final approval to a plan that makes Idaho the first state in the nation to require high school students to take at least two credits online to graduate, despite heavy criticism of the plan at public hearings this summer.

The measure is part of a sweeping education overhaul that introduces teacher merit pay and phases in laptops for every high school teacher and student.

Proponents say the virtual classes will help the state save money and better prepare students for college. But opponents claim they’ll replace teachers with computers and shift state taxpayer money to the out-of-state companies that will be tapped to provide the online curriculum and laptops.

The rule will apply to students entering the 9th grade in fall 2012. It goes before Idaho lawmakers for review in the 2012 session, which starts in January.

The education board gave the online graduation requirement its initial approval in September after heavy opposition was voiced this summer at public hearings across Idaho. Trustees collected more feedback during a 21-day public comment period last month.

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