North Carolina Online High Schools
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It was the Hoke County school system that spawned the Leandro court case over inequity of state funding for low-wealth school districts.
The case brought some improvement, but Hoke still is a long way from having big resources. But we just got a look at a program there that helps students use 21st century technology to learn better and faster, with more resources at their fingertips.
For the rest of the article, go to Editorial: E-learning – Hoke finds way to get its students online
A controversial bid to open up a statewide virtual charter school got a go-ahead this afternoon from an administrative law judge, and could open by this fall unless the N.C. State Board of Education appeals the judge’s order.
N.C. Administrative Law Judge Beecher Gray found the state education board acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner by not acting on an application submitted in February by N.C. Learns, a non-profit organization that will contract with K12, Inc., an online education company that sends its profits to Wall Street investors.
K12 has had a reputation for aggressively pursuing proposals in other states, and North Carolina was no exception. The company hired a s team of lobbyists from one of the state’s top firms, McGuire Woods, including former state Rep. Jeff Barnhart to lobby Cabarrus County school board officials, a group that up until recently he had represented in the state legislature. Then, N.C. Learns (which doesn’t have any apparent funding streams outside of start-up dollars forward by K12, Inc.) hired state Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, another Cabarrus County Republican, to serve as its lawyer.
For the rest of the article, go to Virtual charter moves forward after judge rules against State Board of Education
The five Republicans vying to be the party nominee for the state superintendent of public instruction base their strategies for changing education statewide on their experiences in the classroom or the school district boardroom.
The winner will face Democratic incumbent June Atkinson in the general election.
The campaign for state education chief comes at time when state education leaders, battling budget cuts and an increased interest in privatization, see the need to formally spread the message that public schools, which enroll about 1.5 million children, serve the public good.
“What works for one school doesn’t work for all across the county in our own school system,” he said.
He, too, wants to move away from the emphasis on standardized tests.
“We’ve taught kids how to take bubble tests,” said Scholl, a self-employed business consultant and member of the N.C. Virtual Public School advisory board. Once students figure out how to take the tests, he said, they can make it through school without learning subjects’ content.
John Tedesco, a Wake County Board of Education member, said he wants to bring the county experience cutting operational expenses and expanding school options to the state job. Tedesco was board vice-chairman of the state’s largest school district until voters turned out the Republican majority last year. Tedesco remains on the board, but he is no longer vice chairman.
The honor has also put a national spotlight on the N.C. Virtual Public School, the nation’s second-largest online public school. Fetzer helped develop a program there in which online and classroom teachers pair up to teach traditional high school content to students with disabilities.
Michelle Lourcey, curriculum and instruction director for the N.C. Virtual Public School, tapped Fetzer to develop the program, now finishing its second year, after seeing her success teaching online students courses they had previously failed in brick-and-mortar schools.
“She’s so passionate in her belief that all kids can learn,” Lourcey says. “She can take those kids who have known no success in that subject, and she is able to work with them until they know that success.”
The award allows education leaders to showcase practices that are working in the growing world of online education, says Mattlea Parker, a technology specialist with the Southern Regional Education Board, which co-sponsors the award.
For the rest of the article, go to Tar Heel of the week: National online teacher of the year helps children learn in a new way
A state advisory committee wants to see more information on the virtual charter school industry before the state starts funding any of the online schools.
The N.C. E-Learning Commission, which acts in an advisory role to both N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue and the N.C. State Board of Education, met Thursday morning and passed a recommendation that the state board take a closer look at virtual education before approving any cyber schools.
The committee’s recommendation for a detailed cost analysis, curriculum review and accountability assessment of virtual education programs is expected to be in front of the N.C. State Board of Education by June.
“As we go forward with virtual schools, with charters, I think it’s very important that we do it right,” said Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, the committee chair (and one of several Democratic candidates for governor).
Funding will be a major issue — nothing now prevents a virtual school from getting the same amount of funding as a brick-and-mortar charter school.
For the rest of the article, go to Virtual charter schools need to be scrutinized before opening, N.C. commission says
A NYC-based law firm has filed a class-action lawsuit in a federal court in Virginia against K12, Inc., the for-profit virtual school company, claiming that its top officials intentionally misled the public and investors about its quality of the education.
The lawsuit was filed Jan. 30, as reported here by the Washington Post.
The claims of fraud at the top levels of the company should be of particular interest here in North Carolina after the company, K12, Inc., (NYSE:LRN) edged its way into a partnership with the Cabarrus County school system to try and tap into state education dollars.
Stock for the virtual school company had been steadily rising (a high of $39.74 was reached last April) since its 2007 emergence on the market, but plummeted after a critical New York Times article late last year, “Online schools fare better on Wall Street than in classrooms.” The Times investigation found that the company pushed to bring in more profits while students were failing and falling far behind their traditional school peers.
K12 stock was trading at $21.63 a share mid-day today.
For the rest of the article, go to Virtual charter school company with NC intentions slapped with class-action lawsuit
The Cabarrus County Board of Education granted preliminary approval to the application submitted by North Carolina Virtual Charter Academy in a 5-2 vote at its business meeting on Monday.
The application will now be sent to the State Board of Education for approval.
This was the third time the board discussed the application.
If it is approved at the state level, the virtual charter school would be based in Cabarrus County and would enroll students statewide.
It would have North Carolina-certified teachers, and students would have online and hardcopy school materials, said Joseph Chisholm, vice president of school development for K12, Inc., a technology-based education company that provides curriculum, who presented at the board’s business meeting in December.
For the rest of the article, go to Virtual Charter Academy gains initial approval
Cabarrus County didn’t give the warmest welcome to a virtual charter school company that‘s hoping to use the Western North Carolina county to slide into the larger North Carolina’s education market.
The company, K-12, Inc. (NYSE: LRN), wants the school district (which is located just outside of Charlotte) to sponsor an application to the N.C. State Board of Education to open up the state’s first virtual charter school. Then, the company (operating under a yet-to-be created non-profit in order to comply with state laws) would enroll students statewide, siphoning off money from various school districts and sending Cabarrus County a cut of the money their trouble . (Read our investigative article from December to learn more about K12 in North Carolina).
The company hopes to have 2,750 students within a few years, at a cost of $18 million to taxpayers for a quality of education that critics have said is questionable and puts profits before children.
The Cabarrus County School board held a meeting Monday, and several board members questioned why the company wanted to enter the state’s market through them, according to the Concord Independent Tribune.
For the rest of the article, go to Virtual charter company gets pushback in Western N.C.
The days of Guilford County Schools students ambling to class to relearn polynomials or literary genres while their friends hit the beach during the hottest days of the year are over. At least this summer.
For the first time, the district will not offer face-to-face instruction in classrooms this summer. Instead, most students who need to pass a class or exam will complete their work at home, the library or wherever they can access the Internet. The online-only approach, piloted at Northern High School last year, will help the district shrink its summer school budget from roughly $438,000 to $86,000.
For the rest of the article, go to Summer school classes move online
CHAPEL HILL – The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board unanimously approved about $350,000 in recommended local budget reductions Thursday night to offset a shortfall in state funding.
The district faces a total state funding decrease of about $6.2 million after the General Assembly passed its budget. Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed the budget, but the General Assembly was able to override her veto.
The district will face $3.4 million in discretionary cuts (an $827,830 increase over the previous year). Many of the items covered under those cuts have not been funded in the past, so there would be little impact on operations. There were also $450,000 in cuts to N.C. Virtual Public Schools and the More at Four program.
For the rest of the article, go to School cuts offset funding shortfall
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