Soon-to-open Flex Academy, with ties to for-profit K12, excites some, raises eyebrows in others
Have you seen the billboards that have sprung up alongside the highways that transect Minneapolis, Richfield and Bloomington promoting Flex Academy, a new school slated to open next fall?
Depending on whom you ask, the signs signal the imminent privatization of public education, an unfair marketing advantage or an innovation that could catapult schools into the new millennium.
When fully enrolled, Flex Academy will be a public charter serving 525 students in grades 6-12 in a “blended learning” environment. Students will show up to school in Richfield where they will work online at their own pace. Many of the school’s features — from the digital curriculum to the template for its website — are provided by a publicly traded corporation, K12 Inc.
Excitement — and raised eyebrows
The concept is one that excites most proponents of innovation in education: Combining technology that allows lessons to be personalized for each student with a 19-to-one student-teacher ratio that allows plenty of supportive face-time. The local names associated with the school are well-respected educators and scholars.
But the other novelty has eyebrows raised. Some of the tax dollars that will follow Twin Cities students to the school will go to pay for billboards, recruiters and marketers. Some will find their way into the pockets of corporate stockholders.
Like other Minnesota charters, Flex Academy is a nonprofit governed by an independent school board. Board members may choose to augment K12’s offerings or not use them at all. But that doesn’t seem likely: The proposal to create the school was made by a K12 vice president who founded the first two Flex academies, both located in California’s Bay Area.
The model — local teachers, aides and administrators working closely with a company that provides “turnkey” management and academic services — is on the rise in other parts of the country. But it’s new to the Twin Cities, where most charter proponents have eschewed bringing profit into the picture.
Indeed, with a few exceptions Minnesota has not even seen the arrival of the nonprofit charter management organizations many states court because their economies of scale allow them to hit the ground running and to use network resources for recruitment, teacher professional development and other things that bedevil cash-strapped stand-alone start-ups.
The school’s charter authorizer, Innovative Quality Schools (IQS), is not troubled by Flex’s contract with K12. The group authorizes the very successful Duluth Edison Charter Schools, an 18-year-old program that contracts with the privately held for-profit Edison Learning.
“We sometimes think our current schools are not for-profit,” observes Bob Wedl, a former state education commissioner, a partner at the think tank Education Evolving and IQS’ liaison to Flex. “Houghton-Mifflin, IBM — lots of places sell stuff to schools.”
'Hybrid disruption'
IQS is more interested in what’s been termed “hybrid disruption.”
“There are any number of things we were really interested in with this model,” Wedl explains. “The curriculum is online. That enables students to move at their own pace. Teachers can then guide students who need more support.”
Veteran Minneapolis teacher and principal Greg Gentle will lead the new program. He was in the process of exploring opening a blended learning school in 2012, the year San Francisco Flex Academy posted the largest gains in its district. When he learned the organization was trying to open a school here, he went to visit the California one.
“I was definitely skeptical,” he says. “I was a teacher in Minneapolis Public Schools when Edison came and went and I understand people’s concerns about public dollars and for-profit entities in public education. But don’t forget that Edison now has a very successful school in Duluth. It can work.”
And it’s easier than going it alone, Gentle says. “I worked with new charter schools in the past that really struggled because they didn’t have the kind of financial support they needed,” he says. “We have great support including strong curriculum and in the area of operations. Operations is hard for start-ups. We are much better positioned for a strong foundation to launch Flex Academy because of relationship with K12.”
LRN on NYSE and NASDAQ
K12 enrolls more pupils — 137,000, including some in schools that buy only its curriculum — than any other education management organization (EMO) in the country. Its stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ as LRN.
Soon-to-open Flex Academy, with ties to for-profit K12, excites some, raises eyebrows in others | MinnPost:MinnPost's education reporting is made possible by a grant from the Bush Foundation.