There are some good charter schools but they are usually local and non-profit and created to fill a special need. This for profit stuff is for crap.

I have to thank the facebook guy who gave 1 million to Newark to privatize their schools, seems like he had stock in some of these schools. and the wonderful gates foundation that seems to be pushing this as the great answer - buzz words sell some people, others are investing in this stuff and profiting form their own gifts.

bipartisan. There's widespread corruption in FL, OH, WI, etc.- kids not showing up but being counted, inferior facilities & teachers. US world ranking for education is around 17; it used to be No. 1, like our middle class, now No. 2 for the first time, behind Canada.
Eliminating unions, public schools, the postal system, affordable college, the social safety net. Just look at Chile since the mid-1970s, they had all of this including social security. It's the global Neoliberal Mafia system of privatization and profit, terrific for oligarchs, massive income inequality for working families & the rest.

They are too willing to follow Arne's lead in blaming teachers for everything. And to be too critical means to criticize our own party.

So it will be a done deal without too much fanfare.

the full picture from M$M as with many issues, like they live in silos in their communities. And ALEC has been actively working on the state and local level to influence school boards and county govt. positions. I saw independent news coverage of what's happening in NC, and LS on charter schools and re-segregation in LS and the south which is very disturbing. Dedicated citizens have organized and protested in some cases. Mike Papantonio, attny. and radio host of the "Ring of Fire" covers news of inferior school-marts in strip malls with little staff, no caf or bus services in facilities next door to convenience stores and sub shops. And CEOs making off well.

Break unions, demonize teachers and learning in favor of free market, neoliberal privatization for profit, and short term gain by financiers esp. through tech software programs. And it's a buy-partisan effort, by both political parties. Kids and society suffer the most. What it says about a country's values is enormous. It also shows how little an educated populace is needed now with surplus US labor and new automation from recent advances in AI, artificial intelligence and robotic software that will displace many in diverse occupations with 50% job losses in the next 20 years.

In 2012 I watched an education conference, "Reinvesting in Higher Education" on CSPAN. The panel included Educ. Secy. Arne Duncan, one IT Prof. from MIT, a rep from Netflix and another from the Discovery Channel. It was essentially about selling contracts from entertainment cos. to colleges and universities. And providing electronic devices, as one of the reps was sure to add. There was nothing at all about educating in the entire program, no substance whatsoever, just the commercial side and investing indeed, not even disguised. Arne and the others were giddy and juvenile with excitement over the tech talk. It was so strange and immature I could hardly watch it.

There's a good *post now and comments; a Texas Tribune piece, "Signs of Neglect, Wear and Tear in State Govt." listed in 'Greatest Threads' and cross-posted in the 'Texas Group'. (My little device can't handle links). It's about the broad breakdown of govt. regulations and public services and properties in Texas. Neglected parks that after abandonment will be sold off as part of the plan and deteriorating public buildings like a school for the disabled with rodent excrement and other substandard conditions. Unbelievable.

It's part of the privatizing of everything.

You said:

It's about the broad breakdown of govt. regulations and public services and properties in Texas. Neglected parks that after abandonment will be sold off as part of the plan and deteriorating public buildings like a school for the disabled with rodent excrement and other substandard conditions. Unbelievable.

Why has the stock tumbled? For one thing, the corporation lied to its stockholders, claiming its students were doing better academically they were, which, as you might guess, shook stockholder confidence. But even more important than poor student achievement is this: K12 Inc. is beginning to lose some of its schools. For a grow-or-die corporation, that's a potential death knell.

K12 Inc.'s biggest school, Agora Cyber Charter in Pennsylvania, is looking to cut ties with K12 Inc. And it's not alone. Other examples:

• Last year’s loss of a management contract at Colorado Virtual Academies (COVA)—that state’s largest cyber charter—for the 2014 school year after complaints by parents and COVA about the company’s mismanagement of resources and misplaced priorities.

• Last month’s order by Tennessee’s education commissioner for the closure of K12?s affiliate there, Tennessee Virtual Academy, at the end of the 2014-15 school year, citing its dramatically poor academic performance.

• This spring’s formal opinion by New Mexico’s Attorney General that a Farmington, NM-based K12 affiliate is in violation of a state law forbidding a for-profit company’s involvement in managing a charter school.

• April’s decision by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that it would no longer accept coursework from 24 virtual charters that use K12 to provide their online curriculum, including both Agora Cyber Charter and California’s largest online charter network, the California Virtual Academy (CAVA).

that school boards get some "skin in the game", and stand up for public education.

run those charter schools being prosecuted?

The company was founded in April 2000 by former banker Ronald J. Packard.[1] Initial investors in the company included Michael R. Milken and Lowell Milken of education company Knowledge Universe, who along with the Milken Family Foundation, invested $10 million.[1] Andrew Tisch of the Loews Corporation and Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation also contributed venture capital.[1]

William Bennett, Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan was hired as the company's first chairman of the board,[5] resigning in 2005 after some controversial comments on the radioshow "Morning in America" in which he said aborting black babies, although a "morally reprehensible" idea, would result in a lower crime rate.[6] Lowell Milken served on the K12 board of directors until July 2007.[7] Tisch currently serves as chairman of the board and Packard has served as CEO since the company's founding.[8]

It became a publicly traded company on December 13, 2007.[9]

In June 2014, Packard resigned from the board, while purchasing some of K12's assets in postsecondary education and other areas to launch a new business with Kamal Bahamdan's Safanad Limited, a New York- and Dubai-based investment firm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K12_(company)

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- K12 Inc. was heralded as the next revolution in schooling. Billionaire Michael Milken backed it, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush praised it. Now the online education pioneer is failing to live up to its promise.

Plagued by subpar test scores, the largest operator of online public schools in the U.S. has lost management contracts or been threatened with school shutdowns in five states this year. The National Collegiate Athletic Association ruled in April that students can no longer count credits from 24 K12 high schools toward athletic scholarships.

While the company says its investments in academic quality are starting to pay off, once-soaring enrollment at the more than 60 public schools it manages has dropped almost 5 percent. Targeted by short sellers, who benefit from a company’s decline, K12 shares have tumbled by two-thirds since reaching a near-record high in September 2013. Companies controlled by Milken have moved on, shifting their shares to investors.

K12 grew too fast and invested too little in instruction, said Houston Tucker. In 2012, he pulled his two sons out of a K12 virtual school in Tennessee and last year quit his job as a marketing director at the company.

It's pathetic for a state to approve a charter with so many legal problems.