Parents: State Superintendent Must Embrace Cyber Charter Schools as Part of New State Digital Learning Initiative
Families Encourage House to Embrace Digital Learning, Pass Senate Bill 619 to Expand Opportunities for 10,000 Students on Cyber Charter Waiting List
LANSING—As state Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan this week announced the state’s new partnership with Digital Learning Now, parents today reminded Flanagan, the state Board of Education and members of the House Education Committee that policymakers have the opportunity to fully embrace digital learning by passing Senate bill 619 and expanding digital learning opportunities for thousands of Michigan students currently languishing on waiting lists.
Flanagan unveiled the new Digital Learning initiative yesterday when he announced that on Wednesday Michigan will observe “Digital Learning Day,” kicking off the state’s “Year of the Digital Learner.” Digital Learning Now is an organization that has publicly called on the state to remove the enrollment cap on cyber charter schools.
“We are pleased that Superintendent Flanagan appears to have had a sudden change of heart when it comes to digital learning,” said Michigan Chapter of the National Coalition of Public School Options Board Member and parent of a digital learner Brian Kevelin. “Parents across the state are thrilled Flanagan and his department are now partnering with Digital Learning Now, an organization that has repeatedly called for removal of the state’s cyber charter school enrollment cap. What better way for the House Education Committee to join Flanagan and parents across the state than to commemorate Michigan’s first “Digital Learning Day” by passing Senate Bill 619.”
More information about cyber charter schools can be found online at http://www.publicschooloptions.org/michigan/.
This is nothing more than an attempt to privatize the public education that has made this country great and find another cash cow for corporations. You should read the report released last month by the National Education Policy Center called “Profiles of For-Profit and Nonprofit Education Management” that found only 27 percent of for-profit companies operating cyber schools met the adequate yearly progress (AYP) standards of the federal No Child Left Behind law; compared with 48 percent of traditional brick-and-mortar charter schools.
A good example is 1980s junk-bond king Mike Milken, who was convicted of felony securities fraud. He is making large sums of money on cyber schools. Milken is part-owner of the largest U.S. operator of taxpayer-funded online schools, and his company “expects to generate $500 million in revenue this year—it earned a $21.5 million profit last year—and its stock has doubled in value since the company went public in December 2007.” That’s all taxpayer money.
National Education Policy Center? That left wing Progressive institute of inaneness? OF COURSE they think that. These new options take meat off their table. It takes propaganda spreading money out of their coffers over time.
Useless citation.
I guess when you can’t dispute facts you play that tired, worn out false card. You prefer standing up for felons like Mike Milken getting rich off of tax dollars.
That, my challenged friend is called a “non sequitur”
First, I’m not your friend, and it’s your typical cowardly copout not a non sequitur.