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Sunday, August 5, 2012

Do Cities Need Virtual Schools? « Diane Ravitch's blog

Do Cities Need Virtual Schools? « Diane Ravitch's blog:


Do Cities Need Virtual Schools?

Carly Berwick writes about K12′s plan to establish a virtual charter school in New Jersey. It was turned down, but only temporarily, to provide a year of “planning” time.
The poor academic results of K12 cyber charters are well known. They were written about in the New York Times and the Washington Post. They were reviewed negatively by the National Education Policy Center. The most startling statistic –of many–is that K12′s Colorado Virtual Academy had a graduation rate of 12 percent in 2010, compared to 72 percent statewide in regular public schools.
And let’s not forget the money! K12 had revenues of $522 million last year, and its CEO was paid $5 million of

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One Reason Why Merit Pay Fails

The assumption behind merit pay is that teachers are not trying hard enough.
The assumption is that a cash bonus will make them care and prod them to work harder and get those test scores up.
For 100 years, school boards at the state and local level have tried merit pay and it has always failed to produce