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Here’s another tidbit about K12, Inc., the publicly-traded company trying to open up a virtual charter school in North Carolina.

K12, (NYSE:LRN), the largest virtual education company in the nation, spent $21.5 million in the first eight months of 2012 advertising the online public charter schools it operates in 29 states, according to an article that ran yesterday in USA Today. (My colleague Chris Fitzsimon also made mention of that in his Friday Follies column today).

That’s a decent amount to spend on advertising, especially considering that 85 percent of the company’s revenue comes from public sources. Click here to read more about the ad buys, and how USA Today calculated the estimates.

Lots of ads ran on kid-friendly media outlets, including Nickelodeon, The Cartoon Network and MeetMe.com, a social media site used by teens (and tweens).

The company also may be trying to tap into the disaffected youth market – it spent $3,000 to advertise on VampireFreaks.com, which bills itself as “the Web’s largest community for dark alternative culture,” according to the USA Today article.

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K12, Inc., a for-profit virtual education company looking to open a statewide virtual school in North Carolina, took a fairly major hit yesterday on Wall Street when a stocks analyst downgraded the company’s performance outlook.

A Wells Fargo analyst took the stock from a favorable “outperform” stock rating Monday to a more neutral rating of “market performance” based on ongoing questions being brought up about the quality of education it offers at Colorado Virtual Academy, according to KUNC, a public radio station in Colorado.

The company (NYSE: LRN) has the largest reach of for-profit online providers in the country, and runs virtual public schools in 29 states. Students from kindergarten to 12th grade can take their entire school curriculum from their home computer, at the expense of public taxpayers.

The Colorado online school had a graduation rate of just 12 percent in 2010. To compare, North Carolina’s statewide graduation rate topped 80 percent for the first time last year, a number that political leaders of all stripes say is still too low.

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A Florida school district refused an application for a virtual charter school contracted with K12, Inc., the for-profit online education company that’s come under fire for management and education quality issues.

From the Ocala Star-Banner:

The board voted unanimously Tuesday to deny the application.

“I’m concerned to go with a contract in the light of the investigation,” said School Board Chairwoman Judi Zanetti.

School Board members Ron Crawford and Angela Boynton agreed they could not support the virtual school because of the state investigation.

Superintendent of Schools Jim Yancey’s urged the board to deny the charter school because board members are not local and he believes K12 is only interested in turning a profit.

If the new school had been approved in Marion County, it would have started as a K-8 school in 2013-14 and would have expanded to all grade levels by 2018-19. At the school’s peak, the enrollment was projected to reach 296 students.

The company is currently under investigation in Florida, a leading state in the push for online education via for-profit companies,  for covering up its use of non-certified teachers for programs that required teachers certified to teach in Florida.

The company is seeking a spot in the North Carolina education market, and is appealing a Wake superior court judge’s decision in an attempt to open up a statewide online school, that would allow students from kindergarten through 12th grade to take classes over their home computers.

 

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K12, Inc., the Virginia-based company in the midst of a court battle to open up a virtual charter school in North Carolina, is facing more scrutiny in Florida, this time over caseloads of up to 275 students per teacher.

The high caseloads are for high school grades and were revealed in a confidential K12, Inc. memorandum obtained by Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and StateImpact Florida, two non-profit news agencies.

The caseloads vary based on how much compensation K12, Inc. gets per student, with one higher ratio set for $3000 per student and another for districts that give K12 $4,000 per student.

But those caseload range from 275-to-1, to 225-to-1, much higher than the 150-to-1 ratio that the state-run Florida Virtual School maintains.

From the StateImpact article: Read More

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A for-profit virtual school company fighting to open a public school in North Carolina isaccused of violating state law in Florida by having teachers falsify attendance records.

K12, Inc., a Virginia-based company that runs online-based public schools in 29 states, is under investigation by the Florida education department after several K12 teachers refused to sign class rosters with students the teachers had never taught.

From the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, which reported on the Florida investigation Tuesday:

The Florida Department of Education has launched an investigation of K12, the nation’s largest online educator, over allegations the company uses uncertified teachers and has asked employees to help cover up the practice.

In one case, a K12 manager instructed a certified teacher to sign a class roster of more than 100 students. She only recognized seven names on that list.

“I cannot sign off on students who are not my actual students,” K12 teacher Amy Capelle wrote to her supervisor. “It is not ethical to submit records to the district that are inaccurate.” Read More

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