Dealing with e-schools: Kids in first year in online schools learn little, never catch up

Drilling down into the data.  The results for e-schools is not pretty.  The kids fall behind and never catch up.


Meanwhile the taxpayers pay millions and some corporations and sponsors make a lot of money.  $6000 per kid.


"Test scores plummet the year a student transitions to an e-school," that study found. "E-school students' scores see incremental increases in the subsequent years. However, it is important to note, that despite subsequent increases their scores remain below the scores they received prior to entering an e-school."


 Ohio Education Resource Center


An ugly graph.


http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/09/dealing_with_e-schools_kids_in.html

More virtual school potential fraud

Ohio lawmakers forward e-school attendance allegations

ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS — State lawmakers in Ohio have referred allegations to authorities that an online charter school failed to dis-enroll hundreds of chronically truant students in order to pad its rolls.
Ohio Virtual Academy, which serves about 13,000 students statewide, says it follows all state reporting laws and enrollment guidelines.
Reps. Bill Hayes (R., Harrison Township) and Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo), the House Education Committee’s top Republican and Democrat, told the Associated Press on Monday they have forwarded an anonymous whistleblower’s email to state Auditor Dave Yost, whose office has made school attendance fraud a priority.
Hayes also involved the Ohio Department of Education and alerted the school, whose authorizer said it is conducting its own review.
The whistleblower provided a lengthy list of specific students listed as truant, in some cases for most of the school year.

I wonder how much this cost the Ohio taxpayers?  How many youths are going to be unprepared to be productive citizens because of a lack of education because the E-school is more concerned about collecting money than insuring the students receive an adequate education.  A shameful scam.

I think K-12 is in trouble and would not be buying their stock.

Virtual Drop Out Schools, follow the money!

Another excellent article;

http://www.ohio.com/news/local/ohio-s-charter-school-dropouts-soar-push-state-in-opposite-direction-of-u-s-1.490893


"Charter schools such as Life Skills, operated by Akron-based White Hat Management and targeting dropouts, are sending Ohio spinning off in the wrong direction. Dropout rates nationally are on the decline, but Ohio’s rate is on the rise.
Granted, some dropout charter schools graduate nearly half of their students on time, a notable feat considering students enter these programs at least a year behind their peers in traditional high schools.
But that’s not the norm.
Many dropout charter schools, including White Hat’s chain of Life Skills centers, consistently report single-digit graduation rates. Over the course of last school year, more students dropped out of Life Skills than attended on the average day.

In the 2012-13 school year, more than 5,300 dropouts — a quarter of all Ohio dropouts that year — attended one of two online charter schools: the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow or Ohio Virtual Academy. Collectively, these two charter schools have a dropout rate 45 times higher than traditional public schools, and 10 times higher than the state’s eight largest city school districts.
Another 6,829 students ­— about a third of all Ohio dropouts — attended charter schools designed specifically for dropouts, among them Invictus and Life Skills. Last year, these dropout charter schools enrolled one percent of Ohio’s public school students but accounted for roughly the same number of dropout events as did public district schools, which enrolled 91 percent of Ohio’s students."

Ohio taxpayers are funding this mess.  Single digit graduation rates are shameful.  No private business would survive with results like these.

E schools in Ohio $218 million dollar experiment (per year)

In theory, a virtual school could be a good program for learning if it targeted students who would likely benefit from its schools.  These would include those highly organized and motivated students and parents.  A personalized instruction by sitting in front of a computer for hours per day.

In reality the schools accept and even target all students, including at-risk students.   It is also an easy fix to stay out of truancy court.  The results speak for themselves.  Is this the best service for Ohio Students? It is an expensive experiment.

A study in 2011 of Ohio's seven statewide online schools found that:

•"Of Ohio's 7 state-wide E-schools (which account for 90% of all E-school enrollment), six are not even rated "effective" by the Ohio Dept. of Education.

•5 of the 7 have graduation rates worse than Cleveland Municipal Schools, which has the lowest graduation rate of all traditional school districts.

•Far from saving money, E-Schools actually cost the state twice as much per pupil as traditional public schools."

 

Source: Ohio E-Schools: Funding Failure; Coddling Contributors, Innovation Ohio, 5/12/11; Cyber schools flunk, but tax money keeps flowing, Politico, 9/25/13.

 

So how does one get these students?  Market ,market, and market.  As the schools cannot discriminate, put together some slick marketing materials, employ a good sales force and sit back and collect the profits.

The USA TODAY analysis finds that 10 of the largest for-profit operators have spent an estimated $94.4 million on ads since 2007. The largest, Virginia-based K12 Inc., has spent about $21.5 million in just the first eight months of 2012.

 

So what is the motivation?  Profits or students?  Well since the e-schools do not have the quality, they will make it up in volume!

 

Again, look at the latest results in Ohio.