An
excellent article by Kevin Huffman, former Tennessee’s education commissioner
on his battle with K12 Inc.’s e-school in Tennessee. Follow the money. He concludes that there is little evidence
that for-profits succeeding. Too many
conflicts in chasing the money over results.
We have the same situation in Ohio.
Some
excerpts:
“This
past summer, the state released the school results from the 2014-15 school
year. The Tennessee Virtual Academy earned a Level 1 in growth for the fourth
year in a row. It clocked in at #1312 out of 1368 elementary
and middle schools in the state. It is no longer the most improved lousy school
in Tennessee. It is just plain lousy. It is, over a four-year time, arguably
the worst school in Tennessee.
The
K12 saga raises a lot of difficult questions for me. Is it possible for a
for-profit company to run schools? Our very best charters all over the country
are non-profits, and I see little evidence of for-profits succeeding in the
school management business. I may be platform-agnostic, but the data is telling
a compelling story on this one.
And yet, the “marketplace” fails when we are not able to ensure that parents know that the school they are choosing has a running track record of failure. Clearly, there is a critical regulatory role, and we cannot simply assume that an unfettered choice environment will automatically lead to good outcomes.
In theory, K12, Inc’s stock should be hammered by its terrible performance in Tennessee, but it’s actually up in 2015. And why wouldn’t it be? The corporate shareholders aren’t looking for student results — they are looking for K12 to expand and grow and add more students.
Nobody asks me for stock advice, but I say: Buy! Buy K12 Inc.! It is the rarest of breeds — a company utterly impervious to failure. It fails again and again, and yet it lives and breathes! “
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