The online learning companies have planned this for years, and now they are making their moves. Many states are requiring online classes, and these groups have put much money and marketing into getting ready. They have people in high places, ready to go.
One of them, K12, was started by Bill Bennett. Bennett famously told an FCC commissioner that he wanted public schools to fail so they could be replaced by other types of schools. More on that below.
A blogger covers some of the recent activity of buying and selling.
K12 Inc. buys Inc.'s high school online programAs I read these articles about the ownership of these companies, I am reminded that accountability is only required of public school teachers. Note that Kaplan has been "riddled" with loan problems and mismanagement. Yet it is still a top testing company.
Kaplan has been the Washington Post's main profit center. But in the past year, the company has been riddled with student loan scandals and mismanagement. Kaplan remains one of the biggest testing companies and has a distance-learning component which makes it compatible with the Republican connected K12 Inc. Kaplan Virtual Education, which provides online education for grades six through 12, bought Insight Schools Inc. from Apollo Group Inc. (APOL) in February. It is now selling that brand, as well as the schools branded under Kaplan Virtual Education, to K12.
..."K12 has been expanding rapidly, using it's political connections to win lucrative contracts, as online schooling gains in popularity across the country. In November, the company bought American Education Corp., a provider of instructional software, and it snatched up KC Distance Learning Inc. in July. The company reported enrollment of 101,030 in the latest quarter.
K12 was started by Republican operative and former Sec. of Education William Bennett but the company was forced to remove Bennett as chairman of its directors following a series of racist remarks and gambling scandals which threatened the company's marketability. K12 Inc. has been under investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, which has been looking into K12's involvement in a project that received an improper multimillion-dollar grant from the Department of Education during Bennett's tenure at the firm. Meanwhile, during some of his television appearances, Bennett has continued to comment on administration education policy and the No Child Left Behind Act without mentioning the grant..
Here is Media Matters great write-up of Bill Bennett's verbal indiscretions. They were really bad gaffes.
From 2006.
Despite controversial comments and GAO investigation, Bill Bennett reportedly joining CNN as political analystThe weblog TVNewser has reported that CNN has hired radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett as a political analyst. Specifically, in a December 30 post, TVNewser reported that "conservative talk show host Bill Bennett will become a CNN political analyst early in 2006." CNN's hiring of Bennett would come despite Bennett's controversial September 28, 2005, comment on his radio show, when he said that "it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime ... you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." CNN would not "confirm Bennett's new role at the cable news channel," according to a United Press International report.
K12 Inc., a company from which Bennett resigned in the wake of the controversy over his comment, is currently part of an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, which is looking into K12's involvement in a project that received an improper multimillion-dollar grant from the Department of Education during Bennett's tenure at the firm. Meanwhile, during some of his television appearances, Bennett has continued to comment on administration education policy and the No Child Left Behind Act without mentioning the grant, which was awarded while Bennett still was part of the company.
It's quite long piece on Bennett, but this paragraph about the GAO investigation was interesting.
According to a July 28, 2004, Education Week report, (noted by The Carpetbagger Report weblog) the department's "decision to award $4.1 million over the past two years ... to a project involving Mr. Bennett's company raises questions about whether the privately held, for-profit K12 Inc. benefited from political connections." The report quoted an unidentified employee "who has knowledge of how the department decided to make the grant to K12" stating, "Anything with Bill Bennett's name on it was going to get funded."
But the worst is yet to come. The company Bill Bennett founded and had to leave....still has credibility no matter what. From a Daily Kos blog in 2005:
Bill Bennett..worse than you could imagine.Reed Hundt was Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission between 1993-97. During that time he was seeking legislation to implement a strategy to place computers and internet access in classrooms and libraries around the country. A good idea, no?
A provision was put in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to accomplish just that. Mr. Hundt called on Bill Bennett, who had been Secretary of Education, to help support the bill when Republican allies were needed for its passage through Congress. Silly Mr. Hundt. He thought that a Secretary of Education might actually support education. So what did Mr. Bennett, that moral philosopher of virtue, tell Mr. Hundt? According to Hundt:
He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers,charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education.
In spite of the lack of accountability that is required of owners of charters and owners of internet schools or private schools...in spite of investigations going on..these companies have enough political power to make deep and quick inroads into public education. Nothing wrong with the internet in the classroom, it should be in every classroom.
However it should be by companies that are responsible and held accountable.
Many of us have written about the treatment of teachers lately by both parties. Many of us have written about the shame being brought to librarians in Los Angeles who are being interrogated by school district lawyers with police standing by.
The majority of those threads are overrun by those who excuse this behavior and defend it.
It is a dangerous thing not to speak out when both parties are working to dismantle public education for profit.
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