Notorious Ohio Online Charters Try to Evade Oversight, Tarnish Reputation of Charter Sector
Patrick O’Donnell, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, reports that, “Poor test results at online schools are creating divisions in the charter school community in Ohio and nationally, leading some national leaders to question whether e-schools should even be part of the charter school movement.”
He adds that, “In Ohio three statewide e-schools, each run by for-profit companies, dominate the market with 30,000 students between them. Combined, the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT), Ohio Connections Academy and Ohio Virtual Academy account for 76 percent of all online students in the state.” The Ohio Virtual Academy is operated by K12 Inc., and Ohio Connections Academy is reported by O’Donnell to be owned by Pearson. ECOT, the largest, is operated by Columbus entrepreneur, William Lager.
Last month a group of think tanks released a three-part report on the problems in the massive online charter schools. Mathematica Policy Research described how the nation’s 200 online charter schools operate; the Center on Reinventing Public Education explored the policy concerns around regulation, accountability, and funding provisions; and Stanford CREDO examined academic results of the e-schools and compared them to the academic records of traditional public and charter schools in which children come to a school and are taught by live, on-site teachers. O’Donnell describes the conclusions of CREDO’s study: “Researchers found that students in online schools learn far less than students in other schools. Nationally, students learned the equivalent of 72 days of school less in reading and 180 days less in math, each school year…. For Ohio, online students learned 79 days less material in reading than peers in traditional schools and 144 less days in math.” This blog covered the series of reports Notorious Ohio Online Charters Try to Evade Oversight, Tarnish Reputation of Charter Sector | janresseger:
