A Teachable Moment: Frustrated California Online Charter Teachers Educate Shareholders of Controversial K12 Inc. at Annual Washington, D.C. Meeting Today
To Protect Their 15,000 Students, Teachers Deliver Report Card of Straight Fs to Criticize K12 and Statewide California School
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Frustrated educators from troubled Simi Valley-based California Virtual Academies (CAVA) – California’s largest online charter school – delivered a report card with straight F grades at today’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. of shareholders of K12 Inc., which profits from the management services and school materials it provides to CAVA.
Concerned CAVA teachers like Jason Spadaro of Thousand Oaks, Calif., who traveled to the event here outside a law office on 11th Street, have been calling for improvements at their 15,000-student statewide school for years.
“CAVA and K12 are out of touch with the problems online teachers are facing at our school. I decided to travel to Washington, D.C. to speak directly to K12 about the poor and shortsighted leadership and lack of accountability contributing to these problems,” said Spadaro, who teaches 11th-grade U.S. history. “Just like public school employees, CAVA and K12 need to be held accountable for our school’s performance. As long as K12’s revenues come from public tax dollars, they owe it to taxpayers and students to account for the job they have done.”
In March 2015, CAVA teachers shared their experiences in an in-depth study of CAVA released by the “In the Public Interest” group that called for better oversight of the school. In June they filed complaints with school districts that authorized CAVA charters throughout California in an effort to protect students. Recently, new research from Stanford University and the University of Washington came out reinforcing many of the concerns CAVA teachers have voiced.
And according to recent press reports, the California Attorney General’s Office has launched an investigation of Virginia-based K12 Inc., a for-profit education company that is part of a probe of the nation’s virtual charter industry. Also, the National Education Policy Center in Colorado concludes in a separate new national study of charter operators in general that current state policies “promote privatization and profiteering.”
“There are a lot of students for whom the traditional brick and mortar school is just not appropriate, and an online virtual education provides an alternative that allows them to succeed,” said Mark Holtebeck of Hayward in the Bay Area, a high school special education teacher who attended the D.C. event today. “However, CAVA and K12 are damaging our students’ education. They treat educators as disposable commodities, and they are cheapening our work by profiting off the public trust. We need this to change, and that’s why I came here today.”
Holtebeck and his 750 colleagues at the statewide CAVA school are trying to get to the bargaining table in California to improve conditions for students and teachers. They are seeking a stronger voice in improving working conditions and student learning. The California Public Employment Relations Board’s historic recent decision declaring the California Teachers Association as the exclusive bargaining agent comes at a critical time and promises to provide momentum for the teachers’ ongoing efforts to make their online school more responsive to the needs of their students.
California state officials are calling on CAVA and K12 to honor the ruling and start negotiating, instead A Teachable Moment: Frustrated California Online Charter Teachers Educate Shareholders of
