Virtual charters: An ‘F’

Politically, the ground has shifted in recent years. While support among conservatives remains strong, progressive opposition has intensified out of fear that charters will undermine public education. That opposition hardened during the presidency of Donald Trump, whose education secretary, Betsy DeVos, was a staunch charter school advocate. In 2016, the NAACP called for a moratorium on the expansion of charters. In Los Angeles County, the board of education has called for a moratorium on new charters. In New York City, where 235 charter schools serve 123,000 students, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he “hates” charters and is trying to restrict their growth. On the campaign stump, President Joe Biden declared himself “not a charter school fan,” and in a 2018 poll, only 36 percent of Democrats supported charter schools. Sociologist Eve Ewing, who studies education, says the analysis of charter school performance “has become more of an ideological debate, split neatly into opposing factions, than it is a policy discussion informed by facts.”

The pandemic created a boom for the most controversial sector of charter education: virtual charter schools. Such schools account for a small segment of charter students, enrolling about 300,000 full-time students in the 2017–18 school year. But that number has spiked over the past year, as parents have sought alternatives for children shut out of traditional classrooms. K12 Inc., a major operator of virtual charter schools, saw its enrollment grow 57 percent, to 195,000; Connections Academy, which operates 46 schools across 29 states, reported 41 percent growth. That’s unwelcome news for critics who say the virtual schools—many of which are run by for-profit operators—have been dismal performers, producing high student turnover, low scores and graduation rates, and accusations of fraud and profiteering. A CREDO study of online charter students’ performance between 2008 and 2013 found they lost 72 days of learning in reading compared with students in traditional public schools—and a staggering 180 days in math. “It is literally as if the kid did not go to school for an entire year,” said CREDO director Margaret Raymond.