June 4, 2010
THE BAY CITIZEN
Public Financing Supports Growth of Online Charter Schools

By CAROL POGASH
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/us/04bccharter.html
Laura Drews has converted a corner of her San Jose dining room into a public school. Every weekday, she guides her first-, fifth- and eighth-grade children through their class assignments, delivered through textbooks and desktop computers.

The Drews’ unorthodox education is paid for by taxpayers, but created and operated by a for-profit company based in Virginia. The California Virtual Academy at San Mateo is part of an expanding network of virtual public schools, including 10 in the Bay Area, that provide much of the instruction online with the help of a parent.

The schools are a manifestation of the charter school movement, which gives parents and students more choice in public education. Proponents say the virtual schools give students the intimacy of home schooling while maintaining the structure of a public school. Nationally, there are an estimated 200,000 full-time virtual charter school students, said Susan Patrick, chief executive of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning.

Behind the blue screen, however, is a host of unanswered questions about a system that seemingly requires little overhead. There are no libraries, cafeterias, playgrounds, coaches, janitors, nurses, buses or bus drivers — but can cost taxpayers per student as much as or more than traditional public schools.

This year, the San Mateo virtual school attended by the Drews children is expected to receive $5,105 per student in state and federal money — $375 more per student than what children in their authorizing school district of Jefferson Elementary in Daly City are expected to receive, said the district.

The school, California Virtual Academy at San Mateo, is a creation of K12 Incorporated, a publicly traded corporation started in 2000 by Ron Packard, an economist and engineer, and Bill Bennett, the secretary of education under President Ronald Reagan. Initial financing came from Knowledge Universe, a creation of the financier Michael Milken. Mr. Milken, who served time in prison in the early 1990s for securities violations, has bought or started dozens of for-profit education companies, including day care centers.

K12 operates virtual schools in 25 states and abroad. It lends students computers, printers, software and books and pays a part of their Internet connection costs. K12 materials include print as well as interactive learning.

K12 signs 3-year-to-10-year management contracts with its charter public schools to provide virtual education. These contracts, according to the company’s annual report, “provide the basis for a recurring revenue stream as students progress through successive grades.” The company protects its “intellectual property” by having teachers and students sign confidentiality agreements, according to information filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“A virtual education is expensive,” said Katrina Abston, the head of schools for CAVA, and a K12 employee.

The nine K12 California schools share the cost of a 10,000-square-foot office and storage space in Simi Valley. “There’s back-end support and computers and the type of curriculum we use is expensive,” Ms. Abston said. “They make sure we’re cutting edge.”

More than half the San Mateo virtual academy’s budget last year was owed to K12, including $642,304 for management fees to oversee the 900 students in their homes and $2.7 million for instructional materials and technology.

Diane Ravitch, a leading educational historian who until recently favored charter schools, is strongly critical of the virtual charter system. Ms. Ravitch said the system eliminated “brick and mortar schools and it bypasses the unions,” mainly for the benefit of for-profit companies.

Twenty percent of California’s 872 charter schools now conduct some or all of their classes online. CAVA has 11,000 students in California; 900 are students at CAVA San Mateo, where enrollment is growing at a rate of 20 percent per year, according to K12.

The CAVA curriculum gives “an adult a script on how to teach a student,” Mrs. Drews said. She said she consulted with elementary teachers only about her children’s compositions. K12 offers “mastery-based curriculum,” with assessment tests that must be passed before a student can move to the next lesson, though at the elementary level those decisions are left to the parents.

High school students can talk to their teachers in voluntary weekly online conferences — but not in person, since their teachers are scattered across the state. They communicate through e-mail and through K12’s Web sites, messaging and internal e-mail system.

Elementary school students learn at their own pace and are graded by their parents. They meet their teachers for a half-hour or longer, three or four times a year at a library or church.

CAVA schools rely on the honor system because, short of fingerprint or facial recognition, there is no way to be sure who is tapping at the keyboard. Students in physical education classes — a class that is required by the state — are graded in part on self-reporting of regular exercise.

K12 reports that its students test “near state averages,” according to documents filed with the S.E.C. Last year, at CAVA’s San Mateo school, 57 percent of students achieved proficiency or above in English; 33 percent were proficient or advanced in math. Nearly 30 percent of the high school students drop out, which is higher than the state average of 24 percent.

Many parents, especially those with younger children, have expressed satisfaction with the curriculum.

“CAVA is beautiful,” said Leigh Austin-Schmidt, whose sixth and seventh graders attend school at their home in Pleasanton. “There’s a wonderful section on teacher tips, how to prepare for a lesson if I didn’t know something.”

The San Mateo school attracts families dissatisfied with their public school and seeking a more independent learning environment, flexible hours or more support for students.

Linda Brown said her ninth-grade son, who is in special education, “is doing way better than he would have in public school.” But she added that for her fifth-grade daughter, “the social aspect is the thing we miss the most.”

On their own, San Jose parents have organized and take turns teaching weekly art, music and science programs at a local church.

Oversight for California public charter schools falls to the authorizing districts. Although the Jefferson Elementary School district reviews CAVA’s curriculum and its budget, it lacks the manpower to verify the records.

“We have to take their word for it,” said Enrique Navas, assistant superintendent of business services at the district. “It’s a paper review.”

Despite the fact that K12 plans to open more schools in the state, Ms. Abston, CAVA’s head of school, said all nine California schools operated at a loss.

“K12 provides CAVA a full, turn-key education solution, a complete comprehensive education at a cost less than the average total cost of a student in traditional public schools,” Jeff Kwitowski, K12’s vice president for public relations, said in an e-mail message. He added that online public schools received about 30 percent less in total financing than traditional schools.

Luis Huerta, an associate professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University and a nationally recognized scholar on charter schools and school finance who has researched virtual charters for 14 years, disputed that, saying of Mr. Kwitowski, “he is unequivocally incorrect.”

“Nationally, cyber charters on average receive the equivalent amount of funding as traditional schools,” Professor Huerta said.

He added that there was minimal overhead and minimal accountability.

If virtual charter school costs are lower, Professor Huerta said, “then where is the money going?”

“It doesn’t add up,” he said.