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15 Months in Virtual Charter Hell: A Teacher's Tale


treestarfae
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It kind of sounds to me like she went into that job thinking that she was going to be some kind of miracle worker.

She talked about serving a large amout of kids for whom this school was the "last resort". I would anticipate that group to have higher failure and drop out rates than the overall public school population which would average in all kinds of students.

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In general, virtual education isn't all it is cracked up to be.  I hear talk all the time about how B&M schools at all levels are going to go the way of the dinosaurs.  Nope.  

 

Even among 1/3 or more of my online college students, lack of motivation drags them down to a "F" very quickly.  The school I work for requires that you email and call once they are "absent" for two or more weeks, but I never found that to make much of a difference.  Usually once they're gone, they're gone.  And look at the % of people who actually finish the massive open online courses (MOOCs).  I've never seen one that was over 10%.

 

I don't have the study at hand, but someone did a solid research study on success in virtual schools.  And guess what?  The successful students (i.e. those who finished courses with "C" or better) had parents that were involved with monitoring their understanding and progress.   Gosh, that's the #1 factor for students in B&M schools too.

 

That said, online education has its place.  I enjoy the challenge of teaching online.  My teens are taking online courses that I couldn't begin to match in terms of quality and interactivity.  But I'm also INVOLVED (big shock!).

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San Jose State University did a study comparing the results from their online courses (through Udacity) with traditional courses and found that students from disadvantaged backgrounds did particularly poorly in the online ones, much more so than the other students taking the Udacity courses. So that suggests virtual schools in the elementary & secondary realm should probably not be targeting that particular demographic.

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I think her expectations were off--the contract says you're not "full-time" until you have 226 students? I worked >50 hours a week with fewer than 100 students. And with 200+ students, no, you are not going to be anybody's caring advocate and personal cheerleader. Especially since there is not a defined add/drop period. So IMO a lot of her hard feelings are because she didn't heed the information she had.

 

But from the POV of ensuring a good education, states are crazy if they're not overseeing this carefully. English-language learners in particular should be counseled out of a course with text-based communication, and low-income students may need help maintaining an internet connection for daily use. If anything, at-risk students need local, live help with a small student-teacher ratio. Mass online text-based courses are only going to be a good fit for fairly self-propelled kids who don't need any special help, or whose parents are providing close supervision and assistance.

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You are a better person than I.  My brother and best friend are high school teachers (in regular b&m schools), and they spend their life grading - for ~150 students.  I went to the movies on Sunday with my dds and bf's dd.  Bf stayed at Barnes and Noble the whole time grading - she didn't have time for a movie.  She got through less than one class (and she has something like 5?).  And they're all the same test, so she just has to check one key.  And there are no essays (she's a science teacher).

 

The author is an English teacher - she was grading essays (they take so much more time to grade!), and the kids were working on all different assignments from the beginning, middle, and end of the courses, and she had up to 450 students.  Oh, and no summers off, and you have to be on call almost 24/7?  B&m teachers don't have to do that. No freaking way would I take that job.  Other K12 charters may well be run completely differently, but I don't think she was just whining about the one she worked for.

 

She pointed out the reason teachers could have so high a student ratio was that most kids didn't turn in their assignments, so not as much to actually grade. No teacher could actually grade papers well for 450 students. That's what she found not okay - kids weren't even turning stuff in, and they were using that stat to increase teachers' student load and pass kids through.  Ew.

 

Well I would NEVER be an English teacher.  My brother is one at a community college and he loves it. I look at him and think he's crazy. I hate reading bad writing, which a good amount of it is. Even average writing would annoy me.  He can handle it though and grades papers quickly.  I would definitely be a science or math teacher though.  

 

I can't argue anything in regards to what she claims about the program because she does not specify if these were the practices of the K12 program or a charter school that used the program.

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Also, the impression the article gives is that all the K12 teachers are pooled together, dealing with a variety of students.  Is that true or do they only work with the students from one charter?

For my kids, their assigned teachers for online classes comes from anywhere in California.  Their homeroom teacher takes care of students in a particular area only, so maybe a 20 mile radius from her home.  The lead teacher covers the county, takes less students for homeroom and serves as a mentor to newer teachers,  My boys are also assigned subject teachers for Math and Science which I can call during office hours or drop an email and they would reply within 1-2 business days. The homeroom teacher is also the subject teacher for LA.

There are clubs which are nationwide and the teachers who are assigned those clubs do work with students from both the states and independent students both in the states and overseas.  However those are things like knitting club, lego club, cooking club, chess club and they meet once a month for an hour online.

Each state does run the k12 virtual charter differently and each charter would again tweak it to a local flavor. Kind of like how the local schools in the same district can be run differently.

ETA:

K12 virtual charter is just like any other school, a parent have to advocate for their child if their child needs it.  For high school, the parent can still login and check their child's grades and assignments.  They can also call the teachers for clarification if need be.  On their website they did mention the caregiver's needed commitment

"Parents of children in grades K–6 can expect to spend 3–5 hours per day supporting their child's education

In grades 7–8, learning coach time typically decreases to about 2 hours per day as your child becomes more independent

By high school, the parental learning coach role continues to be an important, supportive element; however, a student is expected to manage his or her own time with greater independence"

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San Jose State University did a study comparing the results from their online courses (through Udacity) with traditional courses and found that students from disadvantaged backgrounds did particularly poorly in the online ones, much more so than the other students taking the Udacity courses. So that suggests virtual schools in the elementary & secondary realm should probably not be targeting that particular demographic.

Since I did not read that study, I do wonder if undergrads skipping their online class or forgetting about their online class schedules due to part time work might play a part. 

Unfortunately that demographic might be just as badly served in B&M public schools.

""Broken Promises: The Children Left Behind in Silicon Valley Schools" highlights two tiers of achievement, based on state test scores from 2012-13. Only 14 percent of English learners, 21 percent of African-American students, 24 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of low-income students tested proficient in algebra at the end of eighth grade. That's compared with 58 percent of white students and 80 percent of Asians." (much more details in link)

 

ETA:

Think I found the SJSU study if its the same one you are thinking of.  If it is, that is in my opinion the wrong target audience for Udacity but I also don't know which charity would fund the extra money needed for small class size for these classes.

 

"The AOLEs included: a remedial-algebra survey course (Math 6L); introduction to college-level algebra (Math 8); and introduction to college-level statistics (Stat 95).

Research Design and Approach: The study was guided by three research questions:

1. Who engaged and who did not engage in a sustained way and who passed or failed in the remedial and introductory AOLE courses?

2. What student background and characteristics and use of online material and support services are associated with success and failure?

3. What do key stakeholders (students, faculty, online support services, coordinators, leaders) tell us they have learned? " (link)

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The data is most useful when you look at the same population.  The article said that 27.7% of K12 students met the progress goals while 52% of b&m students did.  It does seem pretty bad...  and it may be.  That's certainly enough to raise the need for a closer look.  But what we really need to see is a group of students who are all in pretty much the same situation and half of them do the virtual charter and the other half the traditional school.  Her assertion is that the brick and mortar school, while not perfect, will win.  And considering the limitations of the virtual classroom and what limited data we have, I think it's fair to say that it seems like that's the case.

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It kind of sounds to me like she went into that job thinking that she was going to be some kind of miracle worker.

She talked about serving a large amout of kids for whom this school was the "last resort". I would anticipate that group to have higher failure and drop out rates than the overall public school population which would average in all kinds of students.

 

Yes.  She I think didn't anticipate, though, that there would be such a staggering student/teacher ratio, and that she would have even less interaction than in school (the latter should perhaps be obvious, but the marketing is that there's "personalized" attention from the teachers, which she perhaps shouldn't have bought, but did). 

 

And that's why she's complaining about the charters (or at least her charter) targeting these populations - precisely because they have higher failure and drop out rates, and unlike what the marketing is selling them, virtual public charters are not the answer for that population.   Which is who she's talking about in the article; she's not talking about homeschoolers or advanced kids with involved parents.

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But what we really need to see is a group of students who are all in pretty much the same situation and half of them do the virtual charter and the other half the traditional school.  Her assertion is that the brick and mortar school, while not perfect, will win.  And considering the limitations of the virtual classroom and what limited data we have, I think it's fair to say that it seems like that's the case.

I don't think we can assume that the students in the virtual charter are identical to ones in a B&M school even if things like ethnicity, SES, and English proficiency status are the same. What does make a good control group are students who apply for a charter but do not get a slot in the admissions lottery. I don't know that such a control group exists for this particular charter.

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Everything everyone is saying can very well be true....but those things are also true for any program or place we choose to educate our kids.  Parents HAVE to be involved.  I don't do my son's work at all, but if I didn't stay involved and remind him and encourage him he would just check out. 

 

The negatiave things she is saying about the charter and about the student demographic is not my experience at all.  I know at least 10 families using K12 and only 1 dropped out and changed  to something else.  Others have been using K12 through a charter for years with no problems.  But they are involved. 

 

I also disagree that they don't have the same standards as B&M...that just hasn't been my experience at all.  I have to log time...if I fail to do so for 3 days in a row I get an email...after 2 weeks they can expell him.  He has to take several benchmark type tests a year besides the state standardized ones.  The hoops are every bit as bad as public school stuff....it is what makes me want to change programs often. 

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And that's why she's complaining about the charters (or at least her charter) targeting these populations - precisely because they have higher failure and drop out rates, and unlike what the marketing is selling them, virtual public charters are not the answer for that population.   Which is who she's talking about in the article; she's not talking about homeschoolers or advanced kids with involved parents.

Her piece comes off as a "hit job" on virtual charters as a whole (especially ones run by for-profit corporations), rather than limiting the criticism to what probably is a valid point. Given the bully pulpit (I presume Ed Week has a fairly high readership in the education community), I think that is highly irresponsible of her. It just plays right into the anti-charter sentiment that teachers' unions and their cronies hold. I worry that state legislators who are bankrolled by the state teachers' union will use it as an excuse to take action hurting all virtual charters, including the non-profit, flexible ones offering a curriculum stipend popular in my area.

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Her piece comes off as a "hit job" on virtual charters as a whole (especially ones run by for-profit corporations), rather than limiting the criticism to what probably is a valid point. Given the bully pulpit (I presume Ed Week has a fairly high readership in the education community), I think that is highly irresponsible of her. It just plays right into the anti-charter sentiment that teachers' unions and their cronies hold. I worry that state legislators who are bankrolled by the state teachers' union will use it as an excuse to take action hurting all virtual charters, including the non-profit, flexible ones offering a curriculum stipend popular in my area.

 

I'll agree that she has not been specific enough about what kind of charter she was working at, whether it was a state charter or K12 itself, and how it's not necessarily representative of all virtual charters.  That was sloppy.

 

I get the feeling, for example, that there may very well be virtual charters in CA that mainly target homeschoolers?  It sounds also like the level of flexibility and oversight can vary widely from charter to charter, even if they all use K12's curriculum.

 

Our one virtual charter here is run by a low-performing school district that pretty much set it up to solve some its funding problems by siphoning funds from other school districts.  It's very badly run administratively (they do things like lose people's paperwork).  I'm not opposed to the concept of virtual charters at all - I'm kind of jealous of states that have a nice selection.  Sounds like the nicely run ones can be a good option for the right students and families (though I still can't see how they'll help kids who are already at risk).

 

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Some of the CA charters were started by parents seeking a parent-designed independent study program (under CA law there is no such thing as "homeschooling" and all students are either public or private school students). These offer a curriculum stipend for the (secular) materials and classes of the parents' choice. The parent decides what to have the school buy for the student, plans the lessons, teaches the student, corrects assignments, and then submits a log of work completed plus a certain number of work samples to the charter. It's not as flexible as HSing by filing the private school affidavit, but there are far fewer hoops to jump through than with the K12 virtual charters (at least in 8th grade & below). Because my kids do well on standardized tests, the charter my kids are in pretty much lets me do my own thing.

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I was struck by the description of rolling admissions, leading to having to grade materials from different points in the process. Is that something that is common in virtual charters? I know some online schools like Keystone (owned by k12) do this, but it was my impression that the majority of virtual charters ran on a schedule similar to brick and mortar schools, so that there was a specific start and end date for each semester. Our state doesn't currently have any virtual charters (there are applications in for some to start in 2015), so it's not something I have any direct experience with it.

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 but it was my impression that the majority of virtual charters ran on a schedule similar to brick and mortar schools, so that there was a specific start and end date for each semester.

The virtual charters do have a schedule similar to B&M schools. Link is to CAVA's academic calendar which is similar to my neighborhood public schools.

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Dude goes to prison for securities fraud, gets out early for giving information on others and then gets to open a huge school company that gets hundreds of millions of dollars from the public? That's taking getting off easy to a whole new level. Why would anyone be surprised that it would be more about profit than student sucess? It's.freaking.Michael.Milken.

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