Acellus/Power Homeschool tutor mode disaster

[Farrar]

Do y'all know about this? Yes, I'm mostly posting out of schadenfreude because I hate them and their weird cult so much. But a few days ago, the owner canceled the parent-controlled "tutor mode," erased all the data, reposted all the courses on a more expensive site, and then accused homeschool families of being cheaters for doing exactly what the content and mode was supposed to allow parents to do - control how they used the course content. He basically explained to a bunch of homeschoolers that he doesn't know what homeschooling is or how it works. It's just parents "cheating" on behalf of their kids.

Now a ton of families are flipping out. There are hundreds of people in a FB group all trying to get together a class action lawsuit against Acellus. Of course, I'm sure that at least some of the members of that group are actually Acellus sock puppets. They just can't help themselves. It's how they got started in business, after all. But they're still at it.

I hope they manage to get a lawsuit together. This business is so gross.

[Shoeless]

I heard some rumblings about it, but I haven't paid close attention. I was under the impression that Acellus and PHS were two different things? I didn't realize they were the same company. 

 

[Farrar]

Acellus and Power Homeschool are two different arms of the same company. One is a "school" and the other is (was?) a service for homeschoolers.

[Heartstrings]

🍿I’ll be watching this for the schadenfraude too.  It is a weird little cult, especially for such a poor product.

I don’t understand suing though?  I guess I’m missing something there. Why not just cancel?  

[Amy in NH]

30 minutes ago, Heartstrings said:

🍿I’ll be watching this for the schadenfraude too.  It is a weird little cult, especially for such a poor product.

I don’t understand suing though?  I guess I’m missing something there. Why not just cancel?  

I think they're suing because they paid for a product that they're now not getting, and they don't know how to teach their kids without it.

[YaelAldrich]

Links please?  Because all the homeschooling newbies tout it like it's amazing. I haven't seen the hubbub in my state HSing groups. 

[Shoeless]

1 hour ago, Heartstrings said:

🍿I’ll be watching this for the schadenfraude too.  It is a weird little cult, especially for such a poor product.

I don’t understand suing though?  I guess I’m missing something there. Why not just cancel?  

It seems like all the student data and work has been deleted. If someone lives in a state where they need to hand in a portfolio or proof of work completed, they are up the creek. 

I'd want my money back, too, if I paid for a product that suddenly changed the terms and removed all my data without giving me any notice to download/backup. 

[HomeAgain]

4 hours ago, YaelAldrich said:

Links please?  Because all the homeschooling newbies tout it like it's amazing. I haven't seen the hubbub in my state HSing groups. 

Same.  Though I'm banned from the Happy Homeschooler one for the region. 🤣

In our local group I'm willing to bet the parents aren't really keeping tabs on things and will find out in the coming months.  They just don't know..........yet.

[Farrar]

I don't think there are any links to anything other than Roger Billings' tweets and user conversations. I looked to see if anyone had written anything about it. I added a note about it to my Acellus sucks old blog post (if you look for critiques of Acellus, it continues to be a top hit and it still gets a ton of traffic even though it's years and years old and super out of date). 

As I understand it, they're talking about suing because their data was erased and they were accused of cheating for using the product the way the wording on the site said it was intended to be used. And there was zero warning given.

I both do and don't sympathize with them. I don't because geez, could there be any more red flags about an education company where the owner is the leader of cult who gave himself his own degrees? But I do because some of them are in a tough spot. Imagine you're a busy parent, your dyslexic high school freshman was failed by the system and the pandemic only exacerbated it. You live in a high regulation state so you've chosen to homeschool because otherwise she was just sitting in a school all day learning nothing being told she was dumb. You find Acellus because their sock puppets and supporters tell you it's amazing. Your kid starts doing it and it's basically working. For the first time in years, your kid is making some progress. You go in and modify the lessons for her disability. You start finding ways to enrich her education a little. She's nearly done with all her progress on her courses. When you have your review with the county in another month, you'll be able to show all the reports, along with the other things you've managed to add in. Then a week ago, she goes to log in and do her work and boom. It's all gone. Where is she on the lessons? What happened to the little progress tracker that you were going to show the government to prove you were in compliance. How is she going to finish our the last month and a half of school? There was no warning. If you'd had at least some warning, you could have downloaded your data so you at least knew what she'd done so you could show that at your review. But nope. All gone. And not only that, you can still have her do the courses, but she has to start over at square one. Your downbeaten, dyslexic kid who was finally feeling like she'd done something is being called a cheater and told she has to start the whole class over.

I think part of the problem here is that both sides think they're doing something they're not. Roger Billings is saying that Acellus awards the "credit" whether that's a high school credit or a middle school one (which, there's barely any such thing, but whatever) or anything else. Acellus is the arbiter of whether a student has "done" the work. The parents are saying, no they are. And they're right. Because that's literally homeschooling. Even for Acellus Academy or whatever, which is an accredited school, a ton of states do not recognize it and students are officially being homeschooled when they're enrolled. But then the parents are also saying, woe is us, our children cannot finish their credits without these videos and lessons. And it's like, well, hold up. You're the one giving the credit. So, sure. Of course they can. You pick some way for them to finish it. Like, yeah, it's annoying, but this is part of being empowered to award the credit. 

[Farrar]

So, if you go search on Facebook, you'll find a few people who have posted public threads about it. It's mostly happening in Acellus user groups. Apparently the post that I was thinking was on Twitter was not. It was just Roger Billings posting in his own Acellus user groups that they're all a bunch of cheaters. Apparently when people were complained and asked if they could have refunds for the courses that they now lost all the progress on, they were told their accounts could be blocked and their kids never allowed to re-enroll. Lol.

My guess is all of this was some sort of weird way to regain business. Most homeschool businesses are seeing a drop off in their services now that students are returning more fully to schools. I hope this destroys them in some way.

[itsheresomewhere]

I can’t tell you how many times I have been told how wrong I was about acellus and its lack of academics, etc.  Is it bad I hope this is the nail in the coffin for it or takes it down a lot?  
 

Now if this could only help knock down the sudden influx of “homeschool” businesses that have popped up here that are not what they say.  They are just money makers/scammers who have no clue what they are doing. 

[Ann.without.an.e]

I've homeschool for over 20 years and never heard of it but it sounds like I didn't miss out on anything. 

[Farrar]

31 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

I've homeschool for over 20 years and never heard of it but it sounds like I didn't miss out on anything. 

They're popular enough in some areas that people in some states have bemoaned that a whole "generation" of homeschool kids are being schooled on this tripe. They have tens of thousands of users. Their advertising budget is through the roof. But also, they use sock puppet accounts to tout their product. Like, still to this day whenever anyone says anything positive about them, I'm like, gee, I wonder if that person is real now.

[freesia]

I’m curious as to why he’s accusing them of cheating? What did they do that he thinks is wrong?

[Heather W]

8 hours ago, Amy in NH said:

I think they're suing because they paid for a product that they're now not getting, and they don't know how to teach their kids without it.

"They don't know how to teach their kids without it"? Really?? So apparently you know what we homeschoolers can and can not do now. Good to know! Please. Since it is very obvious you do have not a clue as to what is going on and what we are actually going through, please refrain from commenting. We have lost almost a whole year's worth of schoolwork because of Roger Billings. The fact that he NEVER informed any of us, except a post on Facebook, which is unacceptable by any business standards, then gets made when we stand up to him and speak our minds, deletes our comments, and then proceeds to delete our children from the program all together speaks volumes! As for us not knowing how to teach our own kids, please just stop. You have no clue what we are or are not doing. You do not know how we are using the program. You are truly showing your ignorance. 

[ocelotmom]

2 hours ago, Heather W said:

"They don't know how to teach their kids without it"? Really?? So apparently you know what we homeschoolers can and can not do now. Good to know! Please. Since it is very obvious you do have not a clue as to what is going on and what we are actually going through, please refrain from commenting. We have lost almost a whole year's worth of schoolwork because of Roger Billings. The fact that he NEVER informed any of us, except a post on Facebook, which is unacceptable by any business standards, then gets made when we stand up to him and speak our minds, deletes our comments, and then proceeds to delete our children from the program all together speaks volumes! As for us not knowing how to teach our own kids, please just stop. You have no clue what we are or are not doing. You do not know how we are using the program. You are truly showing your ignorance. 

I agree with you. This is an offensive assumption.

I'm an experienced homeschooler and long-time forum member who is currently using Miacademy, which is often lumped into the same category as Power Homeschool. I came on over here today to find out what exactly the Power Homeschool drama was all about, since I knew someone here would have the scoop. The drama has been alluded to in the FB group I'm in, which is being flooded with new families jumping ship from PH, but people are referring to it very vaguely, with no details.

We've done it other ways in the past, but this is a tool that is working for us at this point in our lives. 

And I agree - the most important point in this is that people lost access to a resource they had paid for, and were relying on for legal compliance, with no advanced notice, regardless of their reason for choosing it. You can always switch curriculum mid-stream, but losing the documentation is much harder to recover from, and could potentially get people in a lot of hot water.

Edited April 11, 2023 by ocelotmom

[Farrar]

2 hours ago, freesia said:

I’m curious as to why he’s accusing them of cheating? What did they do that he thinks is wrong?

The system gave parents the power to skip lessons and move content around. It was supposed to be an explicit perk of the program. Parents could use it like a curriculum that they were in charge of. But for whatever reason, he decided that skipping around or skipping content is cheating now. And that's his justification for pulling the plug. I think he never had any respect for or understanding of homeschoolers. And he was just ready to try a new business model. So it's partly his longtime disdain for his own users and partly a thinly veiled excuse for shifting and deleting everything on the spur of the moment.

[Ting Tang]

That's a major accusation from the creator of this program: cheating.

It sounds a bit far-fetched to me!  When we were new a few years ago, I thought it was like one of two homeschooling programs, other than Abeka.  LOL 

[teachermom2834]

I know nothing about this but I’m here with my popcorn. There’s no drama like homeschool drama. 
 

I hate it for the families that are caught up in it. I always do. But man when things blow up in the homeschool world they really blow up. 😞  I do hope the families can find a solution and get settled and back on track. 

[Christi]

We only used PH for math because I’m terrible with math and needed help understanding/teaching it to my daughter. I picked PH because I know of other parents who have used it and had no problem with it and because I knew nothing about Roger Billings or his “cult”. Shame on me for not doing more research. But I still don’t think it’s fair that plenty of us have been paying every month for a service that now we have nothing to show for. Yes, I know that we can supplement and give credit for courses in our own way, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve been paying for something that is now lost, because they took it away. Our children’s work rightfully belongs to us because we paid for it. They have accused parents of “cheating” and yet they have stolen our kids’ work. Anyway, I’m grateful that I live in SC where the government doesn’t care how I homeschool my child and I don’t have to report anything. I’m still upset about how the whole thing has been handled though. I canceled immediately before they could charge me for another month. But I’d really like my money back for the whole year. Just my experience from it all, for what it’s worth. 

[Farrar]

44 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

I know nothing about this but I’m here with my popcorn. There’s no drama like homeschool drama. 

Right?!

I have so much hatred of Acellus that I got a little gleeful that they're losing business over this. And I do get frustrated that people are dismissive of the whole sketchy background of this company. But I do hope they get their money back. And figure out good solutions for the rest of the year. And that no one ends up in legal trouble with their state or homeschool regulations. I was actually thinking that I wished some semi-reputable news outlet would write an article about it so that families could at least point state regulators to that to say, look, we were victimized by this mass data deletion.

[KeriJ]

12 hours ago, YaelAldrich said:

 

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by KeriJ
posted too quickly

[KeriJ]

nm

[Clarita]

I didn't know anything about this program until now. (Low reporting state and eldest is in Kindergarten, I don't need these types of programs.)

I'm kind of appalled at the negative comments toward the parents who are trying to get some of their tuition back. From the things that I've read 1) he announced and made the changes immediately after a pay cycle and 2) deleted all of people's data without sufficient warning (I don't know technicalities but to me a FB post/tik tok/insta is not sufficient notification, essentially it should be at least an email or bold face note on the platform informing users). So I hope they get some compensation for their troubles and hopefully the threat of having to pay out will force the company to make things work for the parents affected for the rest of the school year. To me it's makes more sense to flame the service provider for not finishing out the school year (< than 2 months from now) before making major changes to their program.

[Farrar]

For me, my negativity toward Acellus users comes in part because I've been called some nasty names by them for questioning the quality of the program and its racist content. It's also because honestly, I never know if they're real people. Acellus uses sock puppet accounts to promote their business and have been discovered for it many times. At one point, I suspected that some of the comments on my blog post about Acellus were probably Acellus employees. I stopped approving most comments there because some of them were threatening and rude.

It's hard to watch some of the changes in the homeschool community toward using these types of resources. This sort of canned content is just not that good for student learning outcomes or rich education. It's hard not to blame the users who are fueling it. But I do think the ultimate blame should be on the corporation and its rich owners who manipulate (did I mention all those sock puppets?!?) and overpromise and flood the internet with so much marketing that when you search for a homeschool program it's the first hit.

 

[Amy in NH]

6 hours ago, Heather W said:

"They don't know how to teach their kids without it"? Really?? So apparently you know what we homeschoolers can and can not do now. Good to know! Please. Since it is very obvious you do have not a clue as to what is going on and what we are actually going through, please refrain from commenting. We have lost almost a whole year's worth of schoolwork because of Roger Billings. The fact that he NEVER informed any of us, except a post on Facebook, which is unacceptable by any business standards, then gets made when we stand up to him and speak our minds, deletes our comments, and then proceeds to delete our children from the program all together speaks volumes! As for us not knowing how to teach our own kids, please just stop. You have no clue what we are or are not doing. You do not know how we are using the program. You are truly showing your ignorance. 

This kind of crap distance learning program gives real home education a bad name.  I've been actually teaching my kids at home for more than 20 years while watching the erosion of the quality of home education by parents like you who want to park their kids in front of an online babysitter.   

"we homeschoolers... have lost... a whole year's worth of schoolwork"?  Just because you can't log into some app doesn't mean your kids didn't learn anything up until they blocked you - u

If you know how to teach your kids, then you don't need Acellus. 

 

Edited April 11, 2023 by desertflower
personal attack

[Shoeless]

I find some of the sock puppets kind of funny. One of them was babbling that the daughter of a "friend" got into Harvard using nothing but Acellus/PHS. 

Sure, sure... 😁

 

[itsheresomewhere]

2 minutes ago, Shoeless said:

I find some of the sock puppets kind of funny. One of them was babbling that the daughter of a "friend" got into Harvard using nothing but Acellus/PHS. 

Sure, sure... 😁

 

You forgot- “The highest scores they have ever seen.”  Um sure….

[Ting Tang]

4 hours ago, Farrar said:

For me, my negativity toward Acellus users comes in part because I've been called some nasty names by them for questioning the quality of the program and its racist content. It's also because honestly, I never know if they're real people. Acellus uses sock puppet accounts to promote their business and have been discovered for it many times. At one point, I suspected that some of the comments on my blog post about Acellus were probably Acellus employees. I stopped approving most comments there because some of them were threatening and rude.

It's hard to watch some of the changes in the homeschool community toward using these types of resources. This sort of canned content is just not that good for student learning outcomes or rich education. It's hard not to blame the users who are fueling it. But I do think the ultimate blame should be on the corporation and its rich owners who manipulate (did I mention all those sock puppets?!?) and overpromise and flood the internet with so much marketing that when you search for a homeschool program it's the first hit.

 

We've got to scrutinize the resources we use to educate our children.  I think that is why I have no clear plan for homeschooling next year, lol.  If you are going to use anything with shortcomings, or something that isn't racially sensitive/balanced, you need to be prepared to make right on that with your children. 

[kirstenhill]

I don't know anyone IRL that uses them, but had I just heard about PH/Acellus in the dyslexia FB group I'm in, I think I would have had no clue that it was run by a sketchy cult leader - I learned about that here. 

I really do feel for parents caught off guard by this.  In the dyslexia group, there are so many parents who feel pushed into homeschooling because public school and even online charter schools have failed them.   For people who are trying to work and homeschool and are struggling to figure out how to help their student, I really get why an inexpensive online solution is appealing.  I feel like the boat they're in is so different than the one I'm in, as someone who has organized my whole life around homeschooling since my oldest was a preschooler and who chose homeschooling out of personal desire to do so - so I don't want to be too judgy about the choices people are making who are walking a very different path than mine.

[Farrar]

I sympathize with the fact that some of these Acellus users really have legal obligations to show progress to their state. So if they had intended to screenshot and print their online work to show that to state reviewers to prove themselves, they've lost all that and have to figure out what to do. That's really rough.

I agree that obviously the kids still learned and made progress if they learned and made progress.

I think it's okay to outsource student learning in various ways. But just like there's a difference between, a flimsy workbook you buy at Costco and an in depth program like Art of Problem Solving... there's also a difference between plopping your kid down at a computer with canned content and enrolling them in a class with a live teacher and an organized curriculum and textbook. You have to distinguish.

[Heartstrings]

18 hours ago, Shoeless said:

seems like all the student data and work has been deleted. If someone lives in a state where they need to hand in a portfolio or proof of work completed, they are up the creek. 

My state doesn’t require that so I didn’t consider that aspect.  

[Shoeless]

1 hour ago, kirstenhill said:

I really do feel for parents caught off guard by this.  In the dyslexia group, there are so many parents who feel pushed into homeschooling because public school and even online charter schools have failed them.   For people who are trying to work and homeschool and are struggling to figure out how to help their student, I really get why an inexpensive online solution is appealing.  I feel like the boat they're in is so different than the one I'm in, as someone who has organized my whole life around homeschooling since my oldest was a preschooler and who chose homeschooling out of personal desire to do so - so I don't want to be too judgy about the choices people are making who are walking a very different path than mine.

This is why PHS/Acellus feels predatory to me. There's a segment of the homeschool population that is in a really tough spot and some of these online "schools" play on their fears while delivering a garbage product. The Acellus experience is probably marginally better than what these families were experiencing in public school, but it's still not a quality education. 

Online providers like PHS/Acellus are very popular in my corner of the world.  Thinking very hard on this, I actually don't know anyone that uses traditional curriculum anymore.  Most people shifted to online or embraced unschooling. 

ETA: I thought of one family that uses books! Mom is a 2nd generation homeschooler using Konos, which is what she was taught by her parents.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Shoeless

[KSera]

5 hours ago, Farrar said:

For me, my negativity toward Acellus users comes in part because I've been called some nasty names by them for questioning the quality of the program and its racist content.

 

Wow, I was curious just what kind of stuff Acellus was putting out, so I did a search and yeah, it's bad! The articles I was seeing about it were from several years ago, so I'm very surprised they have continued to maintain this kind of following, particularly given the weird cult stuff (since I know some parents aren't going to have a problem with the racist content).

[mom31257]

The main Power Homeschool site it still up and looks just like it did a couple of weeks ago.  https://www.powerhomeschool.org/

Ds used this for a couple of courses in high school, US History and Health, and we had a good experience with it. Ds would have definitely alerted me to any racist content, and he never said there was anything like that. 

I had just recommended it to someone, so that's why I looked at the site a couple of weeks ago. 

[Heartstrings]

13 minutes ago, mom31257 said:

Ds would have definitely alerted me to any racist content, and he never said there was anything like that. 

I think it’s mostly “soft” racism.  Like leaving out Columbus being terrible to the inhabitants of the island he stumbled upon, talking about how the Indians harried the poor white settlers, super White washed, very Daughters of the Confederacy. I’ve not heard any account of what might be called “overt” racism, but I could have just missed those reports.   
 

(I’m not making judgement calls, soft bigotry is bigotry, just trying to be descriptive). 

[ktgrok]

3 hours ago, Farrar said:

 

I think it's okay to outsource student learning in various ways. But just like there's a difference between, a flimsy workbook you buy at Costco and an in depth program like Art of Problem Solving... there's also a difference between plopping your kid down at a computer with canned content and enrolling them in a class with a live teacher and an organized curriculum and textbook. You have to distinguish.

I use some outsourced stuff that is pretty basic at times, but that is to free my own brain/time/energy up for the more fun stuff. So my K student is doing Reading Eggs (LOVE THIS!) and Math Seeds so i can check off those phonics/math boxes, and she has a subscription to Epic Books for the read to me books, when I don't get a chance to read to her as much as I like, but then we have all sorts of manipulatives out to fiddle with, cook, look for patterns, I read to her, we watch educational videos and documentaries together, look up what bird we saw outside, listen to podcasts, go to the park, hike, etc. So we use something basic, then "unschool" on top of it.  Older kids do a balance of math and typing online, but a physical workbook for writing basics (Wordsmith series), then do our science together with a ton of books and hands on resources, we listen to podcasts, watch documentaries, go on field trips, I read to them at lunch, etc etc. 

I'm at the point where I kind of look at it as a "semi homemade" homeschool. Remember those "semi homemade" cookbooks, that used some canned/boxed stuff but then you added to it? I cook like that a lot, and I guess I school like that as well. 

Where you get in big trouble is just eating the boxed/canned stuff without any fresh ingredients added...or just using canned curriculum without any outside resources. 

[ocelotmom]

11 hours ago, ktgrok said:

I use some outsourced stuff that is pretty basic at times, but that is to free my own brain/time/energy up for the more fun stuff. So my K student is doing Reading Eggs (LOVE THIS!) and Math Seeds so i can check off those phonics/math boxes, and she has a subscription to Epic Books for the read to me books, when I don't get a chance to read to her as much as I like, but then we have all sorts of manipulatives out to fiddle with, cook, look for patterns, I read to her, we watch educational videos and documentaries together, look up what bird we saw outside, listen to podcasts, go to the park, hike, etc. So we use something basic, then "unschool" on top of it.  Older kids do a balance of math and typing online, but a physical workbook for writing basics (Wordsmith series), then do our science together with a ton of books and hands on resources, we listen to podcasts, watch documentaries, go on field trips, I read to them at lunch, etc etc. 

This is largely how I look at it.

At one point, I was a stay at home parent. I spent a lot of time planning, piecing together curriculum, and teaching. 

Now, I'm a single parent working full time. My kids use a computerized curriculum for their spine, which they can do mostly independently. Not so I can totally ignore them and be uninvolved, but so that I can be sure the basics are covered and we can spend our time when I'm not working focusing on areas where they are having trouble, interests, and enrichment, rather than the day to day of trying to get them to do their math. 

I also use a lot more canned food, frozen veggies, and so forth in my cooking than I ever did previously. But they get a home-cooked dinner Every. Single. Night. Just with less time spent on the chopping.

For those interested in the drama... apparently Power Homeschool has agreed to reinstate progress for the affected students and allow them to get their records and complete their courses, but tutor mode will not be available for enrollment going forward. They are blaming the parents involved, saying that this change was announced a year ago, which the parents say is not true.

Edited April 12, 2023 by ocelotmom

[Heartstrings]

Anecdotally, I’ve heard from friends who are die hard accelus users that this has really soured them. Some will keep using it in the other mode, but a lot are unhappy about it.  Nearly everyone was looking at other options.  Calling your users cheaters isn’t a great idea. 

[humbleseeker]

I think the evening Satureday prior to Easter Roger Billings posted a rant on a Power Homeschool facebook group. The rant ends by Billings saying he might discontinue PH, but not in those words. So, a screen shot of the owners rants from these sites would be helpful. It is now Wednesday and I am unsure if those posts are still available.

 

[Shoeless]

2 hours ago, humbleseeker said:

I think the evening Satureday prior to Easter Roger Billings posted a rant on a Power Homeschool facebook group. The rant ends by Billings saying he might discontinue PH, but not in those words. So, a screen shot of the owners rants from these sites would be helpful. It is now Wednesday and I am unsure if those posts are still available.

 

Look around FB. People took pics and posted his rants publicly on their own profiles. 

[smfmommy]

I don't know if the content is any better, but FunCation Academy has a special "leaving Power Homeschool" special going on right now.  They are taking full advantage of the PH snafu.  

[humbleseeker]

[humbleseeker]

[El...]

Wow, that is... What a way to put your business in a dumpster and light it on fire.

[Heartstrings]

That post isn’t great customer service, he might need to hire PR people.   He also fundamentally does NOT seem to understand that he has essentially 3 different programs with 3 different markets.  He should have put more thought in before jumping into the homeschool market, and maybe he shouldn’t have ever jumped into our market since he doesn’t seem to respect us.
 

I have wondered about people switching to Acellus for a diploma after using power homeschool.  I had no idea why they were allowing that, just from a business standpoint.  Letting parents pay the lower fee for power homeschool then giving them the same benefit of the higher priced option didn’t make dollar and cent sense to me, yet I know people who have done just that.  He could have just stopped letting people do that and it would have made sense from a business financial standpoint.   It would have also made sense product wise since there are a lot of assignments that are optional in power homeschool that are required in Accellus academy.   
 

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Heartstrings

[humbleseeker]

On 4/11/2023 at 9:28 AM, freesia said:

I’m curious as to why he’s accusing them of cheating? What did they do that he thinks is wrong?

It may have more to do with the public schools that have the program. There is a pbs article from 2 years ago about someone putting a cheat code into the platform to finish his work. He said he use the cheat code because he was bored and he could. There are also at least a few online business's selling math answers or cheat codes for the Acellus program. The first word on the cheating was the Acellus Academy but I think it is happening in the public schools.

I suspect that at least one of these business's was buying Power Homeschool service and using tutor mode to sell the answers. I know this maybe a stretch. 

[Farrar]

One of the things that's so insulting to homeschoolers in that post is that he's like, this isn't for YOU, this is for the REAL public school teachers who are using Acellus as a supplement to REAL education. I mean, it wasn't that blunt, but that's basically what he's saying. Putting aside that they literally advertised the product to homeschool parents touting that they could use it this way, I have only the nastiest words for the assumptions underlying that. We are real teachers. How do you think some of these homeschool parents were using the product?

[freesia]

For me it sounded like what he was saying was that it was cheating to use the tutor mode and then transfer to the academy—using it as a way to avoid the cost and work if the other program. 
However, yes, it is clear that he doesn’t respect homeschool teachers or understand That some were using it the way he says classroom teachers were. And certainly erasing everyone’s data before the end of the year was terrible. 

[Farrar]

2 hours ago, freesia said:

For me it sounded like what he was saying was that it was cheating to use the tutor mode and then transfer to the academy—using it as a way to avoid the cost and work if the other program. 
However, yes, it is clear that he doesn’t respect homeschool teachers or understand That some were using it the way he says classroom teachers were. And certainly erasing everyone’s data before the end of the year was terrible. 

But then that’s not cheating, it’s just not a course you’ll give credit for at your specific school. That’s a fine policy. I would expect them to have that policy.