From China to Chicago, K12 Inc. markets more than virtual schools

Stephanie Simon’s second article highlights how K12 is branching out, finding new ways to serve (or bilk) students (and, often, taxpayers). The new Insight schools are particular appalling:

The bipartisan education reform movement sweeping the nation calls for opening up public schools to free-market competition. That has meant sending billions of tax dollars to private, for-profit companies to educate kids.

But the companies do more than pay teachers, develop curriculum and buy supplies with all that revenue.

They use it as a launchpad for new products, new brands and new markets.

Consider K12 Inc., the nation’s largest private operator of public schools. It runs 54 online schools in 33 states and Washington, D.C. But it also runs a tutoring center in the United Arab Emirates. It sells courses to the Cook County correctional system in Chicago. It’s making a big push to get its new online curriculum for toddlers into Head Start preschools for low-income kids.

…Websites for Insight Schools, a network of tuition-free, online public schools, serve up a five-question quiz, “Is an online high school right for you?”

Respond that you don’t care about earning a high-school diploma and don’t like studying at home and you’re still told: “Based on your answers, Insight Schools may be a good fit for you.” The sites also feature video testimony from two students who emphasize that studying at Insight leaves them with ample free time for video games, music and hanging out with friends.

Insight is a division of K12 Inc. and represents a key element of the company’s diversification strategy: Developing new brands of schools in addition to its trademark Virtual Academies.

K12 now runs nine Insight Schools, which use a less rigorous curriculum, offer more intensive tutoring and are meant to appeal to struggling or indifferent students. It also manages several Flex Academies, which bring students to a brick-and-mortar school building to take some of their classes with live teachers, in addition to working through online lessons in cubicles. K12 is also testing online Preparatory Academies, targeted at college-bound students.

The multiple brands let K12 attract a broad range of students. They may also help the company weather controversy over its poor test scores.

Nathaniel Davis, K12’s executive chairman, said he would like to get some Insight schools certified as “alternative” campuses for at-risk kids. Such schools often get more leeway to continue operating despite low test scores. And states often fund education for at-risk students long beyond the traditional high school years, so if K12 can keep those students enrolled into their early 20s, it can keep collecting tax dollars to teach them, said Allison Cleveland, an executive vice president at K12.

As for the Flex Academies, Davis said they’re not as profitable for K12 but they generally post stronger test scores, which tend to impress politicians and regulators — who may then be more favorably inclined to approve other online models, including K12’s more lucrative Virtual Academies. “That’s one reason to do it,” he said.

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From China to Chicago, K12 Inc. markets more than virtual schools

By STEPHANIE SIMON | Politico, 9/27/13 5:09 AM EDT

www.politico.com/story/2013/09/china-chicago-k12-inc-virtual-schools-97414.html

The bipartisan education reform movement sweeping the nation calls for opening up public schools to free-market competition. That has meant sending billions of tax dollars to private, for-profit companies to educate kids.