K-12 questions

[~Sunny~]

Anyone ever used this that can tell me the pros and cons?  I am learning toward that way but am not sure. The state of Texas did make a stipulation that your child has to go to public school for at least ONE day and then get a withdrawal form to give to K-12. Dumbest thing I have ever heard of. One day?? Really??

[Lanny]

This may be OT or it may be helpful to you. When I was looking for a new school for DD, 2 years ago, I ran across the Texarkana ISD program. If we lived in Texas (we live in South America) possibly we would have applied for DD. If your student is in grades 3 to 8, their web page shows that they use Calvert. Here's a link to their Home Page:  http://texarkanaisdvirtualacademy.com/

 

I believe the vast majority of things I have read about K-12, when the state or school district pays for it, from people in various states, are negative.  Great for the K-12 Corporate "bottom line", but typically not so great for the students or their parents.  I don't know how K-12 works in Texas, but I assume the results vary, from state to state and that some states have better results from K-12 than others do.  Look before you leap and GL!

 

[Butter]

Technically it's that they have to have attended public school the previous year.  The interpretation varies and one day seems to be enough as stupid as that sounds (I suspect they really intended a full school year).  I read somewhere that that regulation was put in place in 2012.  Prior to that anyone could use the virtual schools at any point.  I do wonder just who pushed that through.  My 12 year old will be doing TXVA next year.  My friend's 4th grader will be doing TOPS (also uses K12).  She worked for K12 as a VA teacher in AZ previously.  She loved doing that and loves the curriculum.

[Ellie]

Anyone ever used this that can tell me the pros and cons?  I am learning toward that way but am not sure. The state of Texas did make a stipulation that your child has to go to public school for at least ONE day and then get a withdrawal form to give to K-12. Dumbest thing I have ever heard of. One day?? Really??

 

K12 is a publisher, the way BJUP or ABeka is a publisher. You can buy K12 if you want, just as you would buy materials from any other publisher.

 

What you're really asking about is a charter school that requires/provides K12. You wouldn't be enrolling your dc in K12; you would be enrolling them in Texas Virtual Academy. It is not enough to get information about K12; you must also ask about the benefits of enrolling in a home-based public school.

 

I cannot imagine a circumstance under which *I* would enroll my children in a public school program, especially not in Texas where homeschoolers are the equivalent of private schools and so are completely free of any government oversight or accountability. I prefer private homeschooling. For me, it would have to be something much, more important than the fact that it is "free."

[Courtney_Ostaff]

I worked for K12, and I felt like I was prostituting my teaching license. I've taught online in many different venues over the last decade, and that was the absolute least required of any of my teaching jobs.  I also felt like the curriculum was terribly watered down. As a parent, I'd be furious that my child was required to sit through that inanity. I quit as soon as I could.  :thumbdown:

[ravinlunachick]

We used our state's public virtual academy (which uses k12) for 3rd and most of 4th grade. I just withdrew dd on Monday. I really liked the curriculum, and if we could have afforded it, I might have considered enrolling privately. The first year, there was a great deal of flexibility, and we sent in periodic work samples to our homeroom teacher. We happily reenrolled dd and began to consider enrolling our youngest in K this fall. However, this year, there were BIG changes made. Suddenly, there were 2 hours of mandatory Class Connect sessions 4 days a week, on top of all the regular coursework! Because dd struggled in math, she had yet another hour of intervention classes (which were a joke) on top of that! The teachers were assigning various projects and required high-school level notebooks to be kept for math, science, and history. It was all just too much. We stuck it out, because I was waiting on an eval for dd's learning difficulties to be completed, but since we knew already that we wouldn't be returning next year, I pulled her so that she didn't have to endure the state testing week.

 

That said, I purchased the literature and history books online through Amazon and eBay to use next year. If I lived in a state with less intrusive rules about the use of the school, and if my student was performing at an  average or above level, I'd definitely consider enrollment. Go into it with both eyes open, though, and don't blindly trust in their website statements that the student can proceed at his/her own pace and that less than 25% of the time is done at the computer.

[JulieD]

Our experience with a K12 public virtual school was extremely poor.

 

The pros: It was free. The humanities are done well. The teachers we had were all pleasant and helpful.

 

The cons: It was like doing two full school days every day. Because the K12 curricula doesn't exactly follow state mandates, Study Island was mandatory. If they didn't get a ribbon on the lessons, then extra intravention classes were mandatory. The problem we had is that I was often teaching something that would be taught later in the year in the regular curriculum. This was especially distressing in math, where logical progression is a necessity. In the K-8 years quizzes are taken over again until the child reaches 80%. It's supposed to lead to mastery, but in my son's case led to memorizing the order of the answers. I didn't like the math or the science, but I will admit I am incredibly picky in those areas. Even though there are written materials in some subjects, he was tied to the computer all day because that is where the lessons are. We also had many technical difficulties that were always "our ISP's fault." At the time the interface was not very compatible with tablets, so you'd want one computer per child. While my son received feedback during online classes, all work done at home was graded by the parent, including writing assignments. (This could be a pro for some.)

 

Other thoughts: It's a better choice for people who feel satisfied with accomplishing the end result, never mind how they get there. If you feel you need to follow the path laid out for you, you will likely find it very stressful.

 

For comparison, our experience with Connections was overall slightly better. Part of the reason for that is what I was looking for was for the kids to get feedback from someone else, and Connections does a good job with that. Connections does provide more oversight, and that can be good or bad, depending on your situation. Connections curricula are aligned with state standards, so Study Island was always on something we'd already covered. On the other hand, I wasn't happy with most of the curricula. Frankly the newer redesigned courses were too tied to the computer and had too many errors fundamental to the subject. We had no problems with technical difficulties which was a great relief. You would want a computer for every child, although for some subjects the tablet worked OK.

 

In both schools online classes weren't required K-8 unless your child had difficulties with Scantron (3 times a year) or Study Island. We live in a rural area and had to travel about an hour away for 4 days to do our state testing.

 

I hate to say Ellie is always right, but, so far, every time I have ignored her advice I have regretted it sooner or later. :D Of course, it was a "learning experience" for all of us, as my dad would say, but I don't think it's quite the learning experience they were intending.

 

I hope this isn't too much information; I think there can be good reasons to enroll in a public charter, but it's important to know what you are getting into.

[Lanny]

-Sunny- A follow on to my first reply to you. During April 2012, when my wife tasked me to come up with an alternative for DD (they wanted to close the brick and mortar school she was attending, and they should have closed it, because the quality had gone down the tubes in the 4 school years DD was there), one of the things I looked into was K12/Keystone/etc.   There was a study published, several years ago, by the Education Dept. (?) at the University of Colorado, about K12 (and possibly other schools like it) which you can Google for. I suspect you will find it depressing...

 

A few minutes ago, I Googled for "reviews of K12 Texas".  I think it would be awesome if you could communicate with parents of students who are currently enrolled in the school you are looking at. Also, if you could attend an in person event, where there are students and parents in attendance, that would be super. The next best would be to attend one of these presentations:

http://www.k12.com/txva/event-type/person-events-0#.U2vvmlRdWp0

 

I just read this web page and it seems to reinforce my impression about most K12 schools that are publicly funded. K12 is "churning students" (the ones that drop out are replaced by newly enrolled students) and the results generally seem to be poor. K12 will bill the state or school district for shipping a computer and other materials to the student and K12 makes money, regardless of the results...

http://www.redhotconservative.com/k12-inc-and-texas-virtual-academy-exposed/

 

YMMV depending on the school you select for your DC.  I sincerely hope that whatever your decision, that you will be able to refer to some of the teachers, and some of the courses, as we do, as "Awesome".

[Jennifer N.]

My son is using K12 through a virtual academy this year.  I was all set to homeschool him for 4th grade after him being in public school K-3 but I was drawn in by the K12 curriculum.  I found this thread very useful to me last summer as I made my decision to homeschool versus virtual public school.  The conversation does get heated midway but I have to tell you both viewpoints really helped me in making my decision and knowing what I was getting into.

 

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/479776-k12-history-and-sotw-complimentary-schedule/

 

We have really enjoyed our virtual academy this year but it is a lot of work and I don't know that I could do it with more than one child (my middle two are in bricks and mortar school and my youngest is 3).  I have been mostly an afterschooler but I do homeschool in the summer.  The virtual academy was a lot of work for me but my son has learned a lot this year.  The teachers were great to work with but I can see how this can vary state to state.  I also spoke to someone recently who is more familiar with Pennsylvania's virtual/charter schools and she had a negative view of those schools (having taught there) as far as how they are run and the workload for teachers and how that workload affects the students (lots of students to one teacher).  The best advice I got last year was find some people in your state to tell you about your virtual academy.

 

Somewhere on this forum someone posted about Texas and she wrote a really detailed description that also helped me in making my decision.  Texas sounds like it has a lot of add on requirements for public virtual schools.  I will see if I can find it.

[EKS]

I have used several K12 products over the years.  I found their presentation of history and literature to be excellent though I never used their assignments beyond the little quizzes.  We also had good luck with their 1st and 2nd grade science courses. 

 

I used the parts of K12 that I liked and left the rest.  If I had to do K12 through a virtual school though, it would drive me crazy.

[Jennifer N.]

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/117807-k-12-online-public-school-satisfied/?hl=%2Btexas+%2Bvirtual+%2Bacademy&do=findComment&comment=5082754

 

This thread seems a lot longer that it was when I read it, but I must have read Pamela's #12 reply over and over because I remember that one.  I really weighed my options heavily before choosing our virtual academy.

 

In the end, I actually did decide to homeschool but they sent the K12 materials early and that just sucked me in.  I decided to try it for a quarter and then we had a good experience so we stayed.

 

I don't regret the choice but our situation is probably different from many.  My son wasn't challenged at his old school and we just wanted to work with him at home and build up his basic skills and enrich him too.  He is going to transition back into a full time advanced program in public school next school year.  So, he's been able to keep up with state standards in the meantime too.

[Ellie]

 

I just read this web page and it seems to reinforce my impression about most K12 schools that are publicly funded. K12 is "churning students" (the ones that drop out are replaced by newly enrolled students) and the results generally seem to be poor. K12 will bill the state or school district for shipping a computer and other materials to the student and K12 makes money, regardless of the results...

http://www.redhotconservative.com/k12-inc-and-texas-virtual-academy-exposed/

 

 

 

"K12 schools" are public schools, in most cases charter schools (charter schools, whether campus-based or Internet-based, write their own charters, which must be approved by the state; they don't have to comply with all of the same things that "regular" public schools do. For example, California has a military charter school, and I believe there is a girls-only or boys-only charter somewhere). You know that they are publicly funded because they are "free." Seems to me I have heard that there are some privately funded charter schools, but in most cases, they are public schools. Students enrolled in them are public school students, not homeschooled or private school students. The charter schools have to show academic success, which is why they do all of the testing and accountability and whatnot which K12 itself does not require.

[Insertcreativenamehere]

My son is doing K12 through Minnesota Virtual Academy. It was a compromise between public school and homeschool because my husband was not in favor of homeschooling independently. 

 

My son is in 1st grade and we have had a very good experience. He is thriving academically and we have enjoyed the curriculum for the most part, although the music curriculum is very dry. He finished up the 1st grade math and language arts early, so they sent the 2nd grade materials and we are now working on them. 

 

We do have to submit work samples monthly. There are no required Class Connects at this age. That would be a dealbreaker for me. Everything has been self-paced, although I understand that there is less flexibility in pacing in the older grades. We have been given a great deal of flexibility from the school and our teacher and overall, we have been pleased with our decision. 

[littlebug42]

I think much depends on the specific charter school that you are using the program through.  We did OHVA in Ohio one year when my kids were in K and 2 grade.  It was fine.  The teachers pretty much left me alone as soon as they figured out that my kids and I were all competent.  I used it the year my Dad died because I needed the extra help to keep the kids moving along and it gave us something to focus on.  We immediately returned to traditional homeschooling the next year after I was able to pull myself together.  It all depends on what you are looking to get out of it but you do need to remember that your students are definitely public school students and you are required to jump through their hoops.  The tradeoff has never been worth it for me.  I do know others though that have used this method of schooling all along and love it.  I think you need to make a list of what is most important for you for your kids' education journey and then see where these kinds of charter schools fit. 

[Tidbits of Learning]

We did it for a year and a half.  I have 4 kids though and it became too overwhelming for us.  Two of my children hated it altogether although they did well academically.  It was a lot of computer time.  We did k, 4, 6, and 7 our first year. This year we were in 1st, 5th, 7th, and 8th although my 8th grader was placed in the high school system and all high school courses.  My 1st grader was working ahead as well.  My 5th grader was drowning even with a 504 for his dyslexia.  My 7th grader knew how to work the system and the tests and hated it all.

I would not recommend doing it with more than 2 children.  For me, the high school was so drastically different than the k-8 that my student struggled and her teachers were constantly switching for the classes.  They could change things mid quarter or semester and there was nothing you could do about it.  Our state's k-12 is in it's 3rd year.  Last year, they pretty much left you alone if you were competent and your child was making progress.  This year, they really wanted everyone at the same pace and to have flipped classrooms and mandatory class connects.  They were going in and marking to skip lessons that weren't state required.  This was in Pre-Algebra and my older dd had been through Pre-Algebra the year before and you need those lessons for the next course Algebra.

I had enough around Thanksgiving and we went back to regular homeschooling.  The only thing I miss is that it was free.  It was hard seeing the amount of money we spent on curricula this February.  My kids are happier now though.