Are big corporate profits driving ‘virtual education’?

Yes.

State Sen. Andy Berke is featured in a New York Times op-ed that explores the profit motive behind “virtual schools.”

In Tennessee, about 2,000 kids have enrolled at a cost of more than $9 million to the taxpayer. Who gets the money? A big, for-profit corporation in Virginia.

If it wasn’t bad enough that our tax dollars are boosting the wrong state’s economy, there is also no accountability mechanism in place and, as the article points out, there’s no guarantee that “virtual academies” produce actual results for students.

From The New York Times:

If I had managed to envision a lot of students going to school online, I’d have imagined them being home-schooled by a diligent middle-class parent. But, lately, the target seems to be low-income families. Andy Berke, a state senator in Chattanooga, Tenn., says that when an educational company named K12 Inc. held a meeting to publicize its online taxpayer-funded academy, it chose “one of the poorest neighborhoods” in his district.

via Virtually Educated – NYTimes.com.