I'm leaning in favor of the online charter school.

For some students an online environment is better than a traditional face-to-face instructional model. As an online instructor in the past, I had some students that would absolutely love the model and about as many who absolutely hated online instruction.

An additional group that would be helped by the online charter are the students who because of a variety of issues including insufficient response by the administration to bullying are not having their full educational needs met by public schools. In an ideal world, some balance of online charter and classroom experience would be able to keep the students engaged with their brick-and-mortar community.

I hate to think of teens taking online driver's education. Online choir? Online auto shop?

Competition for the dollars would encourage the school board and administration to be on a similar page.

I have a question, and this is not meant to sway one way or the other, I do not know the answer, perhaps someone out here does. We are usually ranked in the teens among developed nations when it comes to schooling, in surveys I have seen. If we look at the #1-5 countries on these "lists", do they use the online model?

A company running this with no prior experience (virtual learning solutions) and in contract with a company this is a for profit company with law suits pending and other issues along with paying large sums of money out to lobbyists and politicians. What possibly could go wrong here?????

A whole lot can and will David. I really hope they don't vote for this using our tax dollars.

"A report by NBC5 in Tennessee says the K12 ***for-profit*** charter school that could be coming to the Fox Valley area next year tried to delete grades of failing students in order to make results look better." Sounds like a no-brainer to deny these guys. Yeesh. common sense-itics.

I don't know if this company is good or bad. But I do know that the summary provided above is distorting the information provided by the school.

If you actually read the response from TNVA (the online school) you'll see that they are adjusting the way in which they measure the progress of students. They're simply giving the most emphasis on students' most recent achievements. That gives them a real-time picture of how someone is progressing, regardless of how they did in the past. So if a student started off the year poorly, but then improved, then are more interested in knowing that the student is finally understanding the subject matter regardless of the fact that they didn't understand it initially. You might agree or disagree with that grading method, but it's logical and not really controversial.

If you kid had a tough time in math earlier in the year but finally understood the subject then how would you report your child's progress if somone asked? Would you be more likely to tell someone that you kid is doing well in math or that 'overall' they were getting a "C" because you rolled in their initial progress? You'd likely be more satisfied that your kid now is understanding math and that their more recent grades are more reflective of where they are at this point.

If it's necessary to go all the way to TN to find something bad about this company then let's do the same for the public schools. Take the same geographic radius and find all the teachers who have changed and deleted test scores along with all the sexual assaults, alcoholics, drug abuse, etc. There'd be no comparison as to how poorly the public school system has done with kids versus these various alternative methods.

What's always interesting about these conversations is that there is plenty of data out there that shows the comparison between various charter schools, online schools, homeschools, etc., and in almost every situation these alternative methods are providing better results. But the teacher's union thinks that they deserve taxpayer's money regardless if a taxpayer's kids utilize the public school system. And therein lies the problem- they want your money for their members even though you may choose to not use the public school system for educating your kids. If you understand this bias then you'll understand why you will rarely see a good article about alternative schools because the teacher's unions have a very strong PR machine.

How many 308 students in 5th grade or above can not add, subtract, or read and write complete sentences and yet they still receive passing grades? Get back to basics and pass when they pass and you will not have charter schools.

snip "The e-mail asks each teacher "to take out the October and September progress [reports]; delete it so that all that is showing is November progress."

snip "Maureen Lemon, District 308's attorney, said recently that the Charter School is, "Suggesting a cost of $8,000 per pupil per year".

Mike Ellison , how many kids do we have in 308 again ? at $8g a head ?

@hunt club, wow - if they get pushed though, and I agree they shouldn't if they're not ready, isn't the manager of the school they get bumped up from just as responsible as the teacher teaching it ? ask yourself Who's orders or policy do they follow ? who says "go ahead" to that ?

How about the actual parents who are paying the expenses to educate their child have the final say as to whether or not they want to enroll their child based upon the policies that a particular provider has? Why does government always have to be involved?

Eh - no matter what, the pressure to change grades exists in public schools, too. You don't have to talk to too many teachers before you find some that have had pressure from administrators (usually because of pressure from the crazy parents) to reconsider grades. That doesn't even factor in the teachers who are so tired of getting hammered by parents and little or no support from administration that they are automatically tempted to give that C instead of a D because they know what's in store for them the minute that grade hits the parents' radar.

This situation wasnt one in which they were changing grades. They were changing the way in which those grades were created in the first place. They chose to look at where the students were at the most recent time, not where they were in the past. That coincides with their outcome based education. They are ultimately most concerned about the final outcome, and the most recent grades are more indicative of that.

That may not be the way in which everyone wants to see grades, and that's understandable. But it's a long way from 'deleting' grades just for the sake of deletion.

Ironically, the ACT and SAT grading scale has gotten easier over the years and you don't see a similar accusation against those testing organizations.