As Online Schools Expand, So Do Questions About Their Performance - WSJ

As Online Schools Expand, So Do Questions About Their Performance - WSJ:

As Online Schools Expand, So Do Questions About Their Performance
Online classrooms offer greater flexibility and freedom, but a review of more than 400 full-time virtual schools shows they deliver relatively poor performance and low graduation rates

After years of steady growth, virtual schools are experiencing a blip as some states attempt to claw back public funds, citing student inactivity online, or force schools to close due to habitual poor performance.

Virtual schools, where all classes are online and old-fashioned classrooms don’t exist, had full-time student enrollment of about 300,000 last school year, or less than 1% of the nation’s nearly 51 million public-school students, according to a Wall Street Journal review of enrollment data. That is up from about 199,000 in the 2011-12 school year, under a tally by the National Education Policy Center.

Online charter schools, which are publicly funded but run by private entities, educate the bulk of these students. The popularity of the schools has increased substantially in the past decade, with many providing live learning sessions.

The greater flexibility and freedom offered by online classrooms can help some students thrive, including young professional athletes with busy training schedules, home-schoolers and victims of harassment. “It’s a bully-free area,” said Brenden Santos, a 12-year-old in Raleigh, N.C., who often starts his school day in his bedroom, working on a school-provided laptop. Students are typically required to take state end-of-course exams.

But a review of more than 400 full-time virtual schools in 34 states and the District of Columbia shows they deliver relatively poor performance and low graduation rates compared with public schools overall.

Those performance levels and student-participation concerns have brought virtual schools under increasing scrutiny, although some educators and researchers say not enough states are holding the schools accountable.

In Ohio, state audits found that a prominent virtual charter school, Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow , or ECOT, didn’t educate as many students as the school indicated, based on logon data and offline participation information. The state demanded the school return nearly $80 million in funding and began reducing payments to the school. ECOT says the reduced payments caused its shutdown last month, leaving 12,000 students to enroll elsewhere. The school denies the allegation and is challenging the state’s methodology in the Ohio supreme court.

RELATED

• Two Families, Two Takes on Virtual Schooling (Dec. 15, 2011)
• My Teacher Is an App (Nov. 12, 2011
• Online High Schools Test Students' Social Skills (Sep. 24, 2009)

The California Department of Education has ordered California Virtual Academies network, or CAVA, to pay back about $2 million to the state, saying it improperly used state funds and citing the school for unsupported student attendance. CAVA said in a statement there was no misuse of public funds and it planned to appeal the decision.

In New Mexico, a state commission voted in December to reject a renewal application for the virtual school New Mexico Connections Academy, citing poor academic performance. An administrator at the school said it has appealed the decision. In Indiana, Hoosier As Online Schools Expand, So Do Questions About Their Performance - WSJ:

How charter schools are prolonging segregation

How charter schools are prolonging segregation:

How charter schools are prolonging segregation

Editor's Note: 

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about education in New Orleans.

Proponents of charter schools have bought into the watered down notion of inclusion

Charter schools didn’t create segregation, but the charter school movement isn’t helping to end it either.

When Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We must never adjust ourselves to racial segregation,” he wasn’t suggesting that black kids need white kids and teachers in the classroom with them to learn. King was acutely aware that segregation sustains racial inequality in schools and other institutions. Education reform without an explicit attempt to dismantle the sources of inequality isn’t a moon shot toward justice; it is simply a maladjustment to injustice.

A recent Associated Press analysis of national school enrollment data found that “as of school year 2014-2015, more than 1,000 of the nation’s 6,747 charter schools had minority enrollment of at least 99 percent, and the number has been rising steadily.”

A startling number, but the charter school lobby essentially responded with a version of, “So what?”

“Academics, attorneys, and activists can hold any opinion they want about public charter schools and other families’ school choices,” said a spokesperson for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools in an official response to the AP story. “In the end, parents’ and students’ How charter schools are prolonging segregation:

Andre M. Perry

David M. Rubenstein Fellow -Metropolitan Policy Program

@andreperryedu

Rollbacks, attacks and tumult mark DeVos's first year - Education Votes

Rollbacks, attacks and tumult mark DeVos's first year - Education Votes:

Rollbacks, attacks and tumult mark DeVos’s first year

by Félix Pérez

Today marks Betsy DeVos’s first anniversary as President Trump’s education secretary. The first cabinet nominee in the nation’s history to require a tie-breaking vote by a vice president, DeVos remains steadfast in her advocacy for using public school funds for private school vouchers and charter schools. She has not backed away from her mission to tear down public schools and the teachers and education support professionals who work in them, while she has removed protections against predatory for-profit schools and rolled back student rights.

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Lily Eskelsen García, an elementary teacher from Utah and president of the National Education Association, said DeVos has “betrayed and undermined the fundamental mission of public schools to provide opportunity for every student who walks through the door. . . To say that 2017 was a tumultuous year at the federal agency that oversees education policy affecting more than 50 million students is an understatement.”

Eskelsen García, who announced a petition calling for DeVos to resign, added, “We can do better then DeVos. We have to.” She continued:

Over the last few weeks, more than 40,000 members and activists continued to voice their objections about the numerous ways Betsy DeVos has failed students and public schools in the last year. They confirmed what educators already knew: she is the most unqualified education secretary the nation has ever had.

Sign the petition calling on Betsy DeVos to resign.

DeVos’s influence is not limited to the federal government. Below you will find governors races where she and her family have made contributions to candidates who ascribe to her philosophy. Here, in descending order, are our top 5 DeVos stories.

5. School visit ignored how vouchers fail students with disabilities

DeVos’s first visit to a school as education secretary was to a private voucher school in Florida. She and Trump ignored an inconvenient fact about the state’s voucher schools: Florida’s voucher program for special needs students, the McKay Scholarship, asks students with disabilities to waive their rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA. The same limitation holds true in many other voucher states. DeVos’s oversight — or slight — came as no surprise given her admitted lack of awareness of the federal special education law at her confirmation hearing. To be clear: Under IDEA, states are required to ensure that all students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate education in public schools and that parents are given a voice in their child’s education.

4. Refused to rule out federal funds for private schools that discriminate

At her confirmation hearing, DeVos refused to say whether she would deny federal funds to private schools that discriminate against students based on sexuality, race or special needs. In response to a question from Representative Katherine Clark whether an Indiana voucher school that denies access to students with LGBT parents would be disqualified from receiving education funds, DeVos answered, “For states who have programs that allow for parents to make choices, they set up the rules around that.” Pressed by Clark after DeVos’s nonanswer, DeVos said, “The bottom line is that we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children’s school and education decisions.”

3. Described historically Black colleges and universities as ‘pioneers of choice’

DeVos praised Historically Black Colleges and Universities as “pioneers of school choice,” a remark that bears no relationship to the truth of their origins. For many generations, HBCUs were the only choice for African American students facing racism and educational segregation. DeVos’s gross inaccuracy prompted educators and students at Rollbacks, attacks and tumult mark DeVos's first year - Education Votes:

What Do We Know About Betsy DeVos' Extreme Agenda, One Year In? | Alternet

What Do We Know About Betsy DeVos' Extreme Agenda, One Year In? | Alternet:

What Do We Know About Betsy DeVos' Extreme Agenda, One Year In?

DeVos continues to be painted as an unqualified naif. The truth is much scarier.

In the latest episode of the Have You Heard podcast, AlterNet education contributor Jennifer Berkshire and co-host Jack Schneider examine the DeVos education agenda, one year in. They revisit some of her most controversial statements, including her comparison of public education to food trucks and her infamous hat tip to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Among their key takeaways: while DeVos continues to be painted as an inexperienced naif, she is a profoundly political actor, and deeply involved in the efforts to transform the U.S. along right-wing, libertarian lines.

The following is an edited transcript. Listen to the entire episode.

Have You Heard: Betsy DeVos is fond of invoking Uber as a model for how public education should be 'disrupted.' What does her fondness for this particular analogy tell us about her larger vision?

Jack Schneider: In remarks DeVos made at the Brookings Institution in the spring, she likened traditional public schools to taxicabs, arguing that “just like the traditional taxi system revolted against ride sharing, the education establishment feel[s] threatened by the rise of school choice.”

What’s so telling about this statement isn’t just the comparison of educating a young person to driving someone from point A to point B. It’s also the implication that there are lots of choices out there. DeVos lists them for us: Uber Pool, Uber X, Lyft Line, Lyft Plus. So far I really only hear two options. If we unpack this What Do We Know About Betsy DeVos' Extreme Agenda, One Year In? | Alternet:

Read: Nunes memo full text - Vox - Fire Nunes

Read: Nunes memo full text - Vox:

Read: Nunes memo full text

Unseat Devin Nunes - https://www.unseatdevinnunes.com/

Andrew was raised in Visalia, the son of immigrants who has committed his life to public service. Andrew returned home after law school and became a prosecutor for Fresno County, and is now running for Congress to continue serving the community.  Andrew’s experience as a successful Deputy District Attorney and deep ties to Fresno and Tulare Counties make him an ideal candidate to take on Devin Nunes for California's 22nd Congressional seat.

The Democrat and Prosecutor Challenging Devin Nunes
Andrew Janz | Candidate for Congress | California's 22nd - https://www.andrewjanzforcongress.com/

THE ART OF THE DEAL

The House Intelligence Committee just released the “Nunes memo” — and it has some explosive allegations about the FBI.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee voted on Monday night to release the four-page memo, authored by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), which alleges that the FBI abused its power in surveilling Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016. The vote gave Trump five days to review the classified document and decide on whether it should be released for the public.

Despite objections from the FBI and Democrats, Trump authorized the release of the memo on Friday. Minutes later, the House Intelligence Committee released it to the public.

The memo contains several striking claims that could potentially threaten special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation.

You can read the full text of the Nunes memo below:

Read: Nunes memo full text - Vox:

Read: Nunes memo full text - Vox:

What Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Betsy DeVos Won't Tell You About 'School Choice' | American Civil Liberties Union

What Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Betsy DeVos Won't Tell You About 'School Choice' | American Civil Liberties Union:

What Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Betsy DeVos Won't Tell You About 'School Choice'

Indiana has one of the most expansive private school voucher programs in the country, courtesy of Mike Pence. During his time as governor, Pence “removed the cap on the number of students who could qualify for a voucher to a private school, increased the limits on qualifying family income, and removed [a] stipulation that the student had to try the public school first,” according to a searing analysis of the state’s school choice failures by The Washington Post yesterday.

The result?

Last year alone, Indiana taxpayers financed private school education — nearly all religious — to the tune of $146.1 million “with most of it going to families who would have sent their children to private school anyway.” Oh, and by the way, a 2017 study of Indiana students in grades 3-8 who actually did use the voucher to transfer from a public to a private school showed that the voucher program had a negative impact on students’ academic achievement.

Those are the type of important details you didn’t hear or read last week from voucher proponents who dubbed the week, “National School Choice Week.” President Trump issued an official proclamationrecognizing the “celebration,” while school choice supporters, such as Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Pence, wrote op-eds and deluged social media with platitudes about empowering parents and helping children achieve the “American dream.” There’s no question that parents should feel empowered when it comes to their child’s education, or that every student should be positioned to pursue their dreams, but that is not what the “school choice” movement is really about.

Rather “school choice” is a catch-all phrase that covers a variety of efforts What Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Betsy DeVos Won't Tell You About 'School Choice' | American Civil Liberties Union:

Thousands of students of color attend public schools where no teacher looks like them | #EduColor | stltoday.com

Thousands of students of color attend public schools where no teacher looks like them | Education | stltoday.com:

Thousands of students of color attend public schools where no teacher looks like them

When Sha’Diya Tomlin began attending Kirkwood High School three years ago, a white teacher asked her: “How many kids do you have?”

The teacher had not only assumed she was a teenage mother, but she had mistaken Sha’Diya for another black student.

Sha’Diya has had only one black teacher in high school, a fact that has weighed on her and at times caused her to doubt her self-worth.

“I can’t even really articulate exactly what it is, but being in a room full of people constantly every day who look nothing like you, it’s something that wears down on your subconscious,” Sha’Diya said. “It’s harder to learn when somebody doesn’t understand you or when you feel like somebody’s not going to understand you.”

Her experience with having few diverse teachers is common for students of color in the St. Louis region. More than a quarter of public schools in eight Missouri and Illinois counties — or 179 schools — had no teachers of color last year, according to a Post-Dispatch analysis of data obtained from the state education departments for Missouri and Illinois.

All told, more than 27,400 students, or 21.9 percent of black, Latino and Asian students, in the eight counties went to a school last year that had no teacher who looked like them.

“White students don’t have that problem,” Sha’Diya said. “They don’t have to think about, ‘I feel out of place here because of my skin color.’”

This mismatch in demographics mirrors a national reality. While half of students attending U.S. public schools were students of color in 2012, 82 percent of teachers were white.

Experts stress that just because a student of color has a white teacher doesn’t mean that teacher is less effective or cares less about that student.

“This is assuming teachers are equally good,” said Nicholas Papageorge, a Johns Hopkins University researcher who studies how a teacher’s race is connected to student achievement. “We’re talking about one thing that matters among many other things.”

But research also shows there are significant consequences when students lack teachers who look like them. Papageorge found in his research that black students who don’t have at least one black teacher in third through fifth grades are 29 percent more likely to drop out of school and 18 percent less likely to express interest in college.

That’s partly because white teachers are less likely to expect a student of color will be successful, research shows.

Another study by Papageorge found that white teachers are about 40 percent less Thousands of students of color attend public schools where no teacher looks like them | Education | stltoday.com: 

WHY TRUMP LIES ARE BETTER THAN THE TRUTH (A SCIENTIFIC COMPARISON)

WHY TRUMP LIES ARE BETTER THAN THE TRUTH (A SCIENTIFIC COMPARISON)

I. Credibility 
All Lies are designed to seem true. The expert liar carefully uses elements that seem probable and logical and are therefore easy to believe. On the other hand, The Truth is often illogical, wildly improbable and hard to explain.
Lies are more believable than The Truth. 

II. Reliability 
The Truth is spontaneous, accidental and unpredictable. Lies, however, can be planned in detail long in advance and are thus guaranteed to turn out as predicted. 
Lies are more dependable than The Truth. 

III. Economy 
To be The Truth, an account of a given event must be completely accurate. This requires painstaking resourcefulness, expensive research, time-consuming attention to detail, complex logistics and thoroughness. In spite of all that, some people will believe it and others will not. Lies will produce identical results without all the fuss and bother. 
Lies are simpler than Truth; Lies cost less than Truth in time, money and effort. 

IV. Value 
The Truth can be found anywhere; it belongs to anybody who finds it, absolutely free. Lies are custom-made! often by experts, and the best ones are highly polished works of art. 
Lies are worth more money than Truth. Have you ever heard of anybody
bribing a witness to tell The Truth? 

V. Respectability
A. Great fortunes have been made by selling Lies to the public. The people who sell these Lies are often grateful to the gullible consumers, so they endow libraries and universities and cultural centers.

B. Nobody ever made a fortune selling The Truth. First of all, as already stated, 
The Truth is free. The only people who will pay money for The Truth are people who are
being blackmailed-and they are only buying The Truth so they can hide it before anybody else sees it.  Lies lead to libraries and universities, while The Truth leads to black- mail. 

VI. Stability
A. Take one thousand parts Truth, add one part Lies. Result: Lies. 

B. Take one-thousandth part Lies, add one part Truth. Result: again,  Lies. 

C. Note that you can make  Lies out of The Truth, but you
can't make The Truth out of  Lies. 
Lies are stronger and last longer than The Truth. 

VII. Imagination 
In reporting The Truth, a person must research the precise facts and stick to them exactly as they occurred. The liar can report the same incident without doing any research, merely saying what ever comes to his mind and filling in "details" according to his fancy.  
Lies are more creative than Truth. 

VIII. Recognizability
People are accustomed to hearing Lies all the time. If you tell The Truth, people will think you are lying. If you convince them you are telling The Truth, they will become suspicious. Why is he suddenly telling The Truth? What's going on? 

IX. Supply and Demand 
A. In describing any given incident, only one version can possibly be The Truth, whereas the number of Lies possible is unlimited. Obviously Lies are in far greater supply than Truth. 
B. There is a great demand for Lies if they are flattering, if they build up one's hopes, if they help one escape reality or if they promise health, wealth, power or potency. Nobody is very anxious to hear The Truth. The only people who demand The Truth are those who are investigating something (lawyers, etc.)-and they only want The Truth to prove somebody is lying. 

Lies are the acceptable medium of exchange in our society. They are in good supply and the demand for them remains strong. The Truth is in extremely short supply, but even this tiny supply far exceeds the demand. Thus, in our society, Truth occupies a position identical to that of dinosaur shit. 

Conclusions:

Lies are superior to Truth in numerous ways. 
Lies are more ingenious; Lies make the world seem more pleasant; 

Lies are less embarrassing than Truth, and less frightening. Furthermore, in fields such as diplomacy, statesmanship, merchandising, advertising, public relations and bookeeping, The Truth is an out-and-out handicap. In friendship, Truth is harmful; in love, it is disastrous. 

My prediction is that The Truth will be phased out of our society, almost unnoticed, in less than a generation. It will become a curio like the two-dollar bill. Probably there will be museums where samples of The Truth will be displayed for the benefit of curious children who want to know what it was like. One can only hope that the curators of these Truth Museums will have the good taste not to fake the exhibits. 

The Truth is that The Truth has become old-fashioned. It's full of odd-shaped little nooks and crannies, like so many old fashioned things, some people find them fascinating, but most people find them a pain in the neck. For those who care, it is a wonderful feeling to hold The Truth in your possession, to keep it and cherish it, never to misuse it, then to pass it along freely to anyone who wants it, giving it to them undamaged, unpainted, un added to and unsubstracted from and every bit as glowingly alive as ever. To find all those joys in the handling of The Truth is a labor of love, but most of us in today's society have no time for such things. 

Excerpts from:

The Rape of the A*P*E* is a book by Allan Sherman, published in September 1973 by the Putnam Publishing Group,^[1] regarding sex and its historical repression and resurgence in the United States.^[2][3] The "A.P.E." on the title is a play on the words "ape" and the "American Puritan Ethic".

The book was the subject of much publicity, when it appeared, due to both its subject and author. Despite his ill health at the time, Sherman went on a two-week media tour to promote The Rape and appeared on many radio shows.^[3] He died on November 20, 1973, just two months after the book was published.