Translator: Cristina Bufi-Pöcksteiner Reviewer: Ivana Korom
Thank you so much for having me, I'm here today to talk to you
about the new frontier, education's wild west.
I want to talk to you about cyber charters.
It's a movement, that I believe exemplifies a shift in society.
Away from understanding public schools as a public good
and toward understanding public schools
as a a private commodity, or a private choice.
I want to start by asking you,
what do you think public schools ought to look like?
In your mind, when you think about it, maybe you think about this.
Actually, that's what public schools do look a lot like, right?
We go according to bells, we move from class to class,
we learn how to be laborers.
We don't learn a lot of creativity.
This a sort of factory model,
that has been around for a long time, and it's held on for a long time.
Maybe we should have other models.
Maybe we should think about things that are field trips, hands-on or outside,
playing in the recess time.
Or maybe we need to think about this image.
Now the question is:
is this image OK with you?
Single child, single computer.
Because that's how thousands of children will log on, tomorrow morning -
Monday morning - for their education.
It's a very different image, than what we're used to.
I believe that schools should change.
I've spent my career focused on how schools can change.
I've talked about reengaging boys in the elementary level by using games.
I've talked about how to engage stakeholders
in broad conversations about school change.
I believe that schools need to change.
Cyber charters may be a big shift
away from the factory model of schooling and the industrial revolution.
This is a big change.
I do understand the need to save every child.
I'm very much understanding that schools need to change,
because we each need to be able to see advancement.
I understand that for my own three children.
I want them to have the best education they can,
and they are very different children.
I understand the desire to want
to be able to choose the best education for my child.
But what is left behind, when we make those choices?
When we make those personal, private choices
instead of thinking about the public good.
In the Wild West, Pa Ingalls used to play the fiddle for Laura
and it was a wonderful folk song, that said:
"For other nations must remember, Uncle Sam is not a fool.
Where the people do the voting and the children go to school."
We understood at one time in our history
the need for the public school to serve the public good.
Social equality, social advancement and mobility.
These were the issues, that we understood were central to public schools.
Cyber charters are a new frontier.
They are a big departure from what we've been doing.
There are a lot of questions about them and I want to talk about
where they come from, who's attending them,
how the money is moving through them,
what questions I'm really struggling with.
Cyber charters - for those who have never heard of them before -
are public schools.
Anyone may attend and they are delivered 100% online.
This means, while you may have a class
that starts at 09:00 am on Monday morning, in Social Studies,
that has a real teacher and you're all networked together,
most of your material is delivered through the Internet.
You will be taking these classes at home, primarily.
This means that somebody at the elementary level,
who wants to cyber charter,
must have a parent, who is able to stay home with them.
This eliminates some options, for some of us.
Cyber charters must follow all legal guidelines
and be accredited in the state that they exist in.
They have to follow state testing.
There are both local and national cyber charters.
They usually have a curriculum, that runs anywhere from K to 12.
so we're talking about K to 12 education.
They are paid for by our tax dollars.
The growth in cyber charters has been astronomical.
In the year 2000, 40,000 students were taking at least one course online.
These 40,000 students are not all in cyber charters,
they were taking at least one course online.
Maybe they were in a rural school district,
and they needed a Latin class
but didn't have a Latin teacher.
Or they wanted an AP course.
In 2002, that number jumps to 300,000.
In 2009, that number jumps to 1,5 million
nationwide,
taking at least one class online.
In 2010, four million students logged in to some form of online learning.
Of those four million, 250,000 in this country,
are enrolled full-time in online cyber charter from K to 12.
250,000!
If you have never heard of this movement before, you will.
Of those 250,000, 40,000 come from the state of Pennsylvania.
We have struck out across the Wild West.
We are pulling out our covered wagons.
We're ready to go for this new frontier.
Pennsylvania has 12 cyber charter schools.
One, I believe, is defunct; other 11 are all in various stages of accreditation.
We have more students in Pennsylvania, that most other states.
Out of 250,000 students, 50 states, you do the math, we've got 40,000.
Pennsylvania is on the leading edge.
Who are these children?
They tend to be sort of what we call a bi-modal distribution, two groups.
They tend to be students, who are struggling.
Perhaps they are easily distracted in the classroom.
An online setting seems like a good choice for them.
They might be Olympic hopefuls, or actors, or actresses.
Or children, who are very highly gifted
and aren't getting what they need from the public school.
There are a lot of questions, that remain unanswered, about cyber charter schools.
Cathy Cavanaugh is perhaps the best-known scholar in this area.
But the most recent study
that came from the Educational Policy Research Institute,
indicated that we do not have answers to the most fundamental questions
of whether cyber charters are as good as, better than, or worse
than traditional schooling.
We don't have answers
to whether these schools have more or less cheating happening in them.
We don't know whether this is a way
to use public funds, to allow us to insert religion into education,
to eliminate the separation of church and state.
There are a lot of questions.
The one that I'm most interested in is the money.
When we went across the great Northwest, and we settled the Plains,
there was also a gold rush.
A lot of people got there very wealthy.
A lot of that is happening now, in cyber charter schools.
When you sign up for a cyber charter school
you're sent several boxes of materials:
a computer, an internet connection.
You get a check, a stipend every month, for your internet connection.
All of your materials are provided
including a wide variety of markers, pens and pencils.
For those of us, who went out in the fall and bought $100 of materials for students,
this may seem unfair,
but it's a public school, all children must attend.
Because cyber charters have such a wide reach,
they have to take into account
that many people may not be able to afford anything.
So they send them everything.
That's how they use part of the money.
Where does the money come from?
It comes from all of us.
It comes from our tax dollars.
More specifically, it comes from the district
that actually the child was originally attending.
When they leave to go for the cyber charter,
then that district has to send a check for the cyber charter.
I'll give you an example, I think this will make it more clear.
This is Sunnydale School.
Susie starts Sunnydale School and she goes the first two or three years:
Kindergarten, First and Second grade.
She decides she's not really so happy with Sunnydale,
her parents decide to pull her out.
Her mother quits her job, decides to stay home with her,
they're going to join a cyber charter.
It costs about $10,000 a year to educate a child like Susie at Sunnydale.
When Susie makes this decision,
a $10,000 check is written from Sunnydale to the cyber charter.
It might go to K-12, Inc.,
or it could go to the Pennsylvania Leadership cyber charter,
or it could go to Agora, Connections Academy.
These are all large cyber charters in the State of Pennsylvania.
It's a public school, so the money follows Susie.
The State gives $3,000 of that back to the school district, saying that,
"We're going to incentivize you, to allow these cyber charters to exist,
by giving you $3,000 back."
About 30% of every dollar that's sent, goes back to the district.
All right, now some people would say,
"That's fair to Sunnydale, because Sunnydale has failed her."
The problem is: think about the kids that are left behind.
At Sunnydale School, now, they can't turn off the lights,
they can't stop busing kids into school, they can't fire a teacher,
because Susie is not there.
They still have to pay for Art, Music, Gym etc.
They really haven't saved anything, they've lost a lot of money.
OK, how big a problem is this?
It's an enormous problem.
In 2008, $600 million left Pennsylvania schools,
who are already struggling with budget deficits of their own.
That $600 million went to cyber charters.
In 2010, that number will go up
to $1 billion, that's the estimate.
You can imagine that the superintendents are screaming about this.
Our governor has decided, that he no longer wants to chip 30% back in.
What do the cyber charters do with this money?
They send all the materials and they hire teachers.
But cyber charters are run by CEOs, as opposed to superintendents.
While they have to remain non-profit, they do like to show profit and loss,
because they are part of a grand experiment in marketplaces
and the way that marketplaces work
in large governmental, bureaucratic organizations.
They want to prove that it can be done more cheaply.
It is a non-profit,
but it's very important they show these profits and losses.
Here's the little secret that nobody wants you to know.
Cyber charters must remain non-profit, but curriculum developers are for-profit.
The same organization can run a cyber charter
and a curriculum development company.
That's where the money is.
That's were the gold rush is.
They are shipping off the materials to the cyber charter
and they are locked into this.
They don't get to choose Scholastic, Houghton Mifflin.
They take a particular cyber charter developer's materials.
Best example of this is K-12, Inc.
K-12, Inc. as a corporation, no, it's a non-profit cyber charter,
but as a corporation, made $400 million last year.
Their CEO made $2.6 million.
The next time you're angry at a teacher,
for having a $40,000 salary and a cushy union contract,
think about this fellow, who's got $2.6 million of public money
for his salary,
from the curriculum development portion of this enterprise.
They try to maintain a 50:1 student-to-teacher ratio.
They are taking the labour out of a labour-of-love.
The money is leaving the system.
We need to think about the ways
in which we are not privileging the public good,
in our public schools.
This money needs to be very carefully accounted for.
We need better oversight and understanding
of how all the money is moving through there.
We'd better circle our wagons
and figure out what we want schools to be.
Are they to serve our highest aspirations as individuals?
Or do we want them to serve our greatest ideals?
Our greatest ideals as a whole society.
For about a month, I've been trying to figure out
what image do I use to convey public good?
It's such an abstract concept.
How do I get people to understand what I mean?
On Friday night, it came to me.
We took our children to the vigil, on Friday evening,
and I realized: this is the public good.
These are people coming together for the betterment of everyone,
not for their own individual gains.
(Applause)
You know, we all brought our own candles that day,
our own diversity, our own selves.
For each of us had one candle.
That's what the public good is about.
Please, I ask you today,
as you leave this hall, take with you our sacred trust,
to make sure that public schools continue to stand for the public good.
Thank you.
(Applause)