Teacher Retirement Fund Invests in Online Charter Schools, Private Prisons
By Anthony Cody.
Teacher retirement funds represent the largest amounts of money under the control of working educators. The California State Teacher Retirement System (CalSTRS) is the second wealthiest retirement fund in the nation, with $179.4 billion in assets.
CalSTRS counts among its many investments a major stake in several enterprises that are working against the interests of California teachers and students. According to this listing from June of 2015, CalSTRS owns 154,838 shares of K12 Inc, valued then at $1,959,000. (The shares have since dropped in value by about $20%).
K12 Inc is the nation’s largest chain of “virtual” charter schools, which operate by enrolling mostly vulnerable students and homeschoolers in online courses. Recent research has confirmed that these schools are delivering very poor results. This study conducted by CREDO found that:
More than two-thirds of online charter schools had weaker overall academic growth than similar brick-and-mortar schools. In math, 88 percent of online charters had weaker academic growth than their comparison schools.On average, online charter students achieved each year the equivalent of 180 fewer days of learning in math and 72 fewer days of learning in reading than similar students in district-run brick-and-mortar schools.
This confirms the findings of a 2012 study focused on K12 Inc in particular which found that student learning and graduation rates were low at these schools.
The mean performance on state math and reading assessments of K12-operated virtual schools consistently lags behind performance levels of the states from which the schools draw their students.Across grades 3-11, the K12 schools’ scores were between two and 11 percentageTeacher Retirement Fund Invests in Online Charter Schools, Private Prisons - Living in Dialogue: