Plunderbund

K12 has every incentive to educate the children. The company turns a profit by persuading parents to send their kids to the school. They persuade parents by doing a better job of educating than the public schools do. If the school doesn’t outperform the public schools by a big enough margin to justify the tuition, parents will pull their kids out.

As for the teachers’ salaries, there must be a reason that explains the teachers’ willingness to work for less at this school than they’d get at a public school. They agreed to work for less.

Everybody’s a willing participant, and everybody’s free to bail. In the meantime, education costs less. What’s not to like?

1. The charter school in question is NOT performing better:

Both the Ohio Virtual Academy and Columbus City Schools earned a Continuous Improvement rating for the 2006-2007 school year, but that is where the similarities end.

Columbus City Schools made AYP as a district; OVA did not meet AYP and is now in School Improvement, year 2.

And charter schools in general are not performing better.

2) Education cost the same for the taxpayer. The charter schools get the same per-student funding as public schools- but charter schools spend less than the public schools.

But spending less DOES NOT mean the charter schools are more efficient.

It means that charter schools are trading the quality of our children’s education for profits.

It translates to larger class sizes and cheaper (i.e. less qualified/lower quality) teachers.

[…] For-profit charter school shenanigans - do Ohio taxpayers really not care? Some complain so much about the money in public schools, […]

Actually, you have it all wrong. The reason why the teachers make less money, is that this is a charter HOMESCHOOL, which entails the PARENTS teaching their children. The teachers help parents when they have questions, and they primarily review student work and administer state testing, creating a win-win situation for homeschoolers, who otherwise would need to make these arrangements privately. We have three children in the program, and will eventually have five total students. We have also been with OHVA since it started in 2002, and have never had a problem with either our children having access to high-quality education or with the way it is structured. We do not appreciate the repeated attempts to discredit and attack this school, which makes it possible for our children to be homeschooled in a way we are comfortable with. As for it being for profit? Lets put it this way…..if OHVA didn’t have our kids enrolled, we would spend almost 4,000$ a year in box set curriculum purchases, something that would be difficult for us to afford right now. Trust me, if the school gets shut down, we will NOT be putting our kids in public schools. It will just make it harder, more expensive, and more time consuming for us to educate our children, who will STILL be homeschooled. Wake up teacher’s unions…it isn’t about YOU. We will fight for the right to educate our children however we wish, regardless of how you attack this school. Homeschooling is a choice that every American citizen has the right to, since last time I checked, we parents reserve that right, considering that we still do have (some) rights left in this society.