Note that I am a volunteer member of the Board of Directors of the Michigan Connections Academy (MICA), however, my comments here are as a private citizen and NOT in any official capacity as a board member!
Earlier this week I posted the entry Funding Virtual Schools – Georgia Edition (Part Four). In that entry, I mentioned that later in the week I would post an entry that looked at the public information provided about cyber charter school budgets. For that examination I wanted to use the two new cyber charter schools in Michigan (see the disclaimer above).
The public budget for the Michigan Connections Academy (MICA) is available at:
The public budget for the Michigan Virtual Charter Academy (MVCA) is available at:
http://www.k12.com/filefolder/BudgetResolutionFY2010-11MVCA.pdf
Having spoken to the folks at Connections Academy in an effort to try and understand the budgeting process better, the categories you see on both budgets were provided by the State of Michigan and both cyber charter providers attempted to place items where they felt they made the most sense (and my understanding is this was done after consulting with the Michigan Department of Education).
Not to try to dissect these two documents, but just to point out one of the reasons why people outside of the cyber charter school community have a hard time figuring out what level of funding is needed to provide an equitable level of education to students.
If you look at the “General Administration” and “School Administration” categories for both programs. MICA reported $87,600 for General Administration and $313,217 for School Administration. On the other hand, MVCA reported $440,508 for General Administration and $4,000 for School Administration.
Another thing to note is that MVCA had an equal amount for revenue and expenditures, while MICA has a fund balance of $265,316 (which I’ve learned is a reserve in case of low enrollment or unexpected expenditures).
Either way, you can see why folks are confused when you take these two administration categories – which are almost a reverse of each other. Anyway, I don’t want to dissect these two documents in a meticulously way, just to point out why many question equal funding for cyber charter schools when the funding information available to the public is so difficult to figure out.
It leads me back to the question I continue to ask… How much does it cost to provide an equitable education a student online full-time?
Note that I have specifically not dissected these two budgets because I have a greater knowledge of the MICA budget
than the MVCA because I sit on the board (and some of that knowledge is because I sit on the board and, while
the meetings are public, I honestly don’t know what documentation is designed to be shared in a venue like this blog).
Again, a reminder that while I am a volunteer member of the Board of Directors of the Michigan Connections Academy (MICA), however, my comments here are as a private citizen and NOT in any official capacity as a board member!
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K12 is refreshingly honest – all the money goes to the corporation outside of the State of Michigan. Whether it is well spent or not is another story. Not knowing MICA’s story, I would think that Michigan should focus on its Virtual School. mivhs.org.
Comment by Dennis Ashendorf — December 23, 2010 @ 1:56 pm |
Dennis, I did not suggest either program is anything but honest, and I would argue about your assertion that all of the money goes to a corporation outside of the State of Michigan (as one would expect they have an administrator, teachers, a physical space, and many other thing within the state). The point of this entry, which I think you may have missed – based on your comments, was that it is difficult for both those who are not that familiar and those of us who are quite familiar with K-12 online learning to figure out exactly how much it costs to provide an equitable full-time online education. The major differences that these two programs have in their interpretation of the brick-and-mortar budgetary categories, along with the vagueness of details in general, is one of the major problems facing this segment of the field. Simply put, many people don’t trust things they don’t understand, and the cyber charter school companies do not have a history of providing a lot of detailed information.
Comment by mkbnl — December 23, 2010 @ 5:16 pm |
[…] If you look at the budgets for these cyber charter providers (at least in states where they are required to post public budgets), it is difficult – if not impossible to figure out how much of this increase in stock prices can be attributed to profits made from their administration of cyber charter schools? I discussed this very issue previously, or most recently, in Funding Virtual Schools – Michigan Edition. […]
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