Isn’t this just another perfect example of money trumping education. It seems that a judge has decided that K12, Inc. can open another for-profit cyber charter school, even though the State Board of Education had rejected the idea.
- Virtual charter school pressure falling on state education board
- Hearing today for N.C. virtual charter school (with update)
- Virtual charter moves forward after judge rules against State Board of Education
For my non-American readers – and even for some of my American readers who may not be that interested in who makes up their state boards of education, in the case of North Carolina:
The State Board of Education consists of the Lieutenant Governor, the Treasurer, and eleven members appointed by the Governor. The Governor’s appointees are subject to confirmation by the General Assembly in joint session. Eight of the appointed members represent the eight education districts of the state. Three members are appointed from the state as at-large members. The State Superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction serves as secretary and chief administrative officer of the Board. The State Board also has seven advisors (non-voting): two high school student advisors (a junior and a senior, appointments made in the junior year for two-year service) appointed by the Governor; the NC State Teacher of the Year (serves two years; overlapping terms); the NC State Principal of the Year (serves one year); a superintendent appointed by the Governor (serves one year), and a local board of education member (serves one year; held by the NCSBA Raleigh Dingman award winner).
So you have this group of folks that are mainly interested and experienced in the field of education who have been tasked with making decisions to create the best educational opportunities for the students of North Carolina. This group decided against allowing this for-profit corporation to operate a cyber charter school, but a judge decides to overrule the education folks and let the business operate because we all know that businesses know best when it comes to public services. Only in America!!!
Note to readers, this may be a good time to re-visit my entry on What Charter Schooling Is Really About!
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Not only in America — this is trending globally
Comment by Regina — May 11, 2012 @ 10:25 am |
Mainly in America! We don’t see this kind of thing north of the 49th parallel!
Comment by mkbnl — May 11, 2012 @ 10:51 am |
Maybe this is just semantics, but you state, “This group (the North Carolina State Board of Education) decided against allowing this for-profit corporation to operate a cyber charter school.” Yet in the first article you referenced it states, “The state board had gotten a request in February from the proposed school for approval, but did not take any action on it.” The article goes on to say that the basis for filing the objecton was the assertion that state law required the board to consider the application.
To me there is a difference between deciding against allowing something and simply not taking action, although in both cases it results in the charter school not being able to operate.
Comment by Matthew Wicks — May 11, 2012 @ 3:02 pm |
Matt, if you look at all three articles you discover that the reason they decided not to take action at this time was “because of a number of questions about the quality of education the schools offer” and also because “the state education board also wanted to figure out how much funding virtual schools should get.” The bottom line is that the board did not want to approve this charter at this time (and, incidentally, for these reasons). The basis of my argument is consistent with this, a board designed to make decisions based on the best educational interests is usurped by the power of the almighty dollar. God bless America!
Comment by mkbnl — May 11, 2012 @ 3:36 pm |
[…] Last week I wrote an entry that talked about how a state board of education, appointed to make educational decisions in the best interests of the students of the state, had decided to not consider an application for a cyber charter school because they questioned the quality of educational opportunity the for-profit corporation provided. That state board of education was overruled by a judge. […]
Pingback by More Cyber Charter Decisions Being Overturned « Virtual School Meanderings — May 15, 2012 @ 12:06 pm |
The State Board of Education may have had very good reasons for not wanting to approve the charter (the sneaky back door way that K12 pushed their way in would do enough for me), but they did fail to meet a mandatory March deadline for responding to the application. This was foolish, as a judge would could take no other course than to rule in favor of the applicant. I believe they get 30 days to appeal. If they want to keep K12 out, they’d better get their act together.
Comment by Chris — May 29, 2012 @ 1:05 am |
Chris, I believe they felt they were responding to the application when they decided to wait until they could get more information about student performance in the full-time online environment and to investigate how full-time online learning should be funded. A its basis, it is a response. Not a straight yes or no, but it is a response.
Comment by mkbnl — May 29, 2012 @ 8:10 am |
Michael, I’m sure you are correct. And I can imagine the difficulty of the position they were in to respond to an application without enough information. Unfortunately, that approach isn’t backed by NC Law. I took a minute to actually look at the legislative text and this is what I found: “The State Board shall act by March 15 of a calendar year on all applications and appeals it receives prior to February 15 of that calendar year.” The law does not indicate that ‘no response’ is a valid action, which makes the decision a judicial one. I think the wiser course of action would have been to deny the application. Look at 115C-238.29C, paragraph b: “The chartering entity shall give preliminary approval to the application if the chartering entity determines that (i) information contained in the application meets the requirements set out in this Part or adopted by the State Board of Education, (ii) the applicant has the ability to operate the school and would be likely to operate the school in an educationally and economically sound manner, and (iii) granting the application would improve student learning and would achieve one of the other purposes set out in G.S. 115C‑238.29A.” Given the reservations stated by The Board of Education, I think satisfaction of criteria ii and iii are in doubt. This would have been grounds to deny the application (at least delaying the approval for another year), and could have opened the door to additional fact-finding sessions that would provide K12 Inc with an opportunity to clear these hurdles. Instead, we now have approval without a satisfactory response to those questions and the Board has less than 30 days to complete research and file an appeal. You can bet that K12 was fully aware of the law and already had responses prepared for the possible actions that the Board would take. Think of it as a chess match. In this case, the Board just accidentally handed K12 their queen.
Comment by Chris — May 29, 2012 @ 10:18 am
Chris, I’ll be honest and say that I don’t know how the board requested more information about student performance and funding levels. If the response was formal or informal. If there is a paper trail that shows that they actually did something, as you indicate the legislation simply reads “shall act.”
Comment by mkbnl — May 29, 2012 @ 10:47 am
Michael, if the Board has a paper trail on requests for more information, they should have no trouble overturning the decision on appeal. I guess they have until June 7, so let’s see what happens. You haven’t seen any notice of appeal already, have you?
Comment by Chris — May 29, 2012 @ 11:26 am
No, but I haven’t been actively looking either. Unless it gets pushed to me, during the summers I don’t often go searching for this kind of information unless I’m more directly involved or if it is a research kind of thing.
Comment by mkbnl — May 29, 2012 @ 11:35 am
[…] while back I wrote about Cyber Charter Schooling In North Carolina. A week or two ago, a colleague sent me this… FYI from a friend in North Carolina… […]
Pingback by Update On Cyber Charter Schooling In North Carolina « Virtual School Meanderings — June 27, 2012 @ 10:20 am |
[…] and get this cyber school in place. If you have read my earlier entries on the subject – Cyber Charter Schooling In North Carolina and Update On Cyber Charter Schooling In North Carolina – then you already know the story. […]
Pingback by An Ending In The North Carolina Cyber Charter Saga – At Least For Now « Virtual School Meanderings — July 2, 2012 @ 11:10 am |
[…] which had been preceded by Update On Cyber Charter Schooling In North Carolina and Cyber Charter Schooling In North Carolina. Watching the reaction from the neo-liberals in the days that followed was quite interesting to […]
Pingback by EDTECH597 – Commentary Entry: Examining The Neo-Liberal Response To The North Carolina Cyber Charter School Case « Virtual School Meanderings — July 25, 2012 @ 8:01 am |