I am wondering what the pros and cons of this sort of school are? I, rather accidentally, looked into K12 months ago thinking they were more of a boxed curriculum site. Then I ended up getting a call from them, but was immediately turned off when they said they were a online charter. Months have passed, and now I am thinking it might not be such a bad option. What are your experiences with these schools, and what are their rules on acceleration, etc? Does this guarantee that your child will be online too much over the course of a day?

If you search here for K12/K-12/k12/k 12 and Connections/Connections Academy, you should find lots of information about both.

We've been with Connections for 7 years now. The reasons why we prefer them to K12:

* differentiation isn't SOLELY limited to acceleration. Yes, it's anemic in many ways, and you will want to offer differentiation and enrichment on your own, but hey-- that's better than nothing.

* teacher contact is MOSTLY greater than in corresponding k12 schools (from what we've seen with good friends/family in three different states)

* acceleration rules are easy and fairly straightforward in K-8, and less flexible in high school.

* how much time online... um... this varies dramatically by grade and by family, but with Connections, K-8 CAN be done with only 1-2 hr of computer time daily, no problem. A HG+ kid can easily get a days' worth of work done in just a few hours, anyway, which helps.

* Connections uses textbooks. While I may not love their choices... at least I can purchase them myself when they aren't provided. I *hate* online-only platform coursework, since the option to provide offline materials doesn't exist. This is the problem with a lot of k12's material (from what I've learned through conversations with family/friends, as noted).


It's not what I'd call "ideal."

If you have a child prone to perfectionism, this system can REALLY fuel that in a bad/multiplicative manner. I think I've detailed that elsewhere fairly liberally already, so I won't rehash it all here.

I'd like to know about acceleration with these options too. I think my state may only offer K12. This is our out if kindergarten is a massive fail next year. I gave DS the K12 grade 2 reading placement exam the other day and he got every question right (I probably should have given him the next one up, but anyway...he did hesitate over a couple). Would they place him as easily as me reporting scores, or is it much more difficult than that?

Drives me crazy how there's always emphasis on K12 website about being "free" public school yet in Illinois (not sure how it's in other states) it is free only in very few selected areas.

It's important to know how these are structured. K12.com and Connections are two competing national for-profit curriculum companies. You can access their curriculum in basically 3 ways, at least from what I know of k12.com.

(1) You can purchase their (or anyone else's) courses separately, with no teacher and no credit, for a modest price (maybe $1k/yr total for all courses, though there are varying pricing options), and basically be an independent homeschooler,

(2) You can go in their private school (expensive, maybe $5k/yr), and have online teachers and get credit for the courses,

(3) Public Virtual Charter School. It's free, and is essentially equivalent to (2) except that the online school itself is not run by k12.com, but instead is run and staffed by a (usually not-for-profit) state or district based public charter school. It is subject to state and local rules, and the same bureaucracy/politics that B&M schools can have.

Also K-8 is somewhat like homeschooling, while in high school the teaching is more done by online (human) teachers.

The national for-profit curriculum companies are definitely trying to get into every state and region, but where they are absent it is due to local obstacles. Also many other drawbacks of the Public Virtual Charter Schools stem from state/local rules.

Our experience has been that we can go at our own pace. In two years, our son has covered 6 grades in maths, and 3 grades in other subjects, though in a couple of cases he was blocked from moving to the next course. Also, there are various strings attached (that an independent homeschooler doesn't have) like logging "attendance", class connects (teacher led online sessions which you may have to waste time watching (live or as a recording) while they duplicate the material already covered in online courses), work samples (submit proof that your actually doing the work and not just faking it, to satisfy the school and the state), and they may make you do stuff on Study Island, etcetera. The advantage, compared to being an independent homeschooler, is that you have more structure, and you officially get credit for courses taken, but the disadvantage, compared to being an independent homeschooler, is that you give up some freedom.

You need to check with your local Public Virtual Charter School to check how they treat acceleration and gifted students, as there is much variation between regions. (And be aware that high school is less flexible.) Our school has allowed most but not all acceleration.

As for daily or weekly schedule, you can pretty much do whatever you want, any time, any day, provided you get the work done. This allows us to travel, if we want, and go to places that aren't busy because most kids are at school. But again, beware that some schools may not allow such flexibility.

Check with your local Public Virtual Charter School (if you have one).

It has worked for us, mostly due to the ability to accelerate, despite other drawbacks.

Option 1 doesn't actually exist with Connections, so far as I can tell.


Calvert would be another alternative, for those who like the ideals/level and want to do K-8 themselves using similar philosophy and materials.

Connections is owned by Pearson, by the way. That has become increasingly evident during the past 18 months.

I am reminded of what an article on MOOC veterans said:

http://chronicle.com/article/What-Professors-Can-Learn-From/139367/
Chronicle of Higher Education
May 20, 2013
What Professors Can Learn From 'Hard Core' MOOC Students
By Jeffrey R. Young

YES.

Exactly. Most teachers (both K-12 and post-secondary) know that text is non-equivalent when presented online versus in print hard-copy, as well.

It's a different learning mode. There are brain imaging studies which have shown this to be the case. It's a different processing pathway.

It's like typing versus writing longhand-- they really aren't equivalent in cognitive terms.

I would like to emphasize the point made earlier that Connections and K12 are both FOR-PROFIT organizations. They are corporations, and they are run like corporations.

In other words, if they can justify using all-online materials and not providing textbooks or workbooks, they will. (And do, in many cases.)

If they can justify "simulations" being "just as good as" hands-on offline laboratory exercises (and they do)-- they WILL.

If you have a child that is interested in the UC system, be very very wary of either provider for high school preparatory coursework. The lab classes offered will not (in most cases) meet UC's a-g prerequisites.

Math/science instruction is where we've had the greatest degree of difficulty. The rigidity of canned instructional materials is highly problematic there because a skilled instructor can see that a student's alternative method is effective and valid... but "the system" only knows that it isn't what "the lesson" taught. That's problematic for HG+ learners, clearly, particularly those with autodidactic, exploratory learning profiles.

In disciplines where students are asked to do tasks at the lower levels of Bloom's taxonomy, this model works fine. I still recommend it for bright students or average ones who can be hard workers, and for gifted children, it's not awful up through about 8th grade.

We were promised that high school, requiring synchronous movement through the curriculum (which is now enforced with fairly Draconian measures from our corporate overlords, incidentally) in order, would also come with more live instruction from teachers. My daughter has had about 40-60% of her courses come with NO live instructional component at all.

The most serious of those problems--

in foreign language, she gets ONE HOUR of instruction each week. ONE.

Math, similarly, ONE hour a week. ONE.

AP science courses-- ONE hour.

AP literature-- ONE hour.

Even in hand-picking the teachers who can make the very best use of the instructional platform (which I highly recommend), this is about half as much instruction as is ideal even for a learner as quick as my DD is.

In math, it's about a third what she needs.

This is a problem that has corporate origins-- corporate sees no problem with this level of "student contact" since teachers are also in contact via phone and will answer e-mails.

Also-- assessments are multiple choice. About 70% multiple choice. In AP coursework, that percentage drops somewhat, but it's still at about 50-60%. I don't think that too many people need to review Bloom's Taxonomy to see the problem with that.

The other big problem with the schizophrenic assessment model is that it can't quite decide whether it wants to be formative or summative. So it asks formative questions of students (think Trivial Pursuit from hell blended with lesson-specific analysis questions and questions that force a student to determine whether or not the question is literally intended or if they are to use previous knowledge-- this is a gamble, by the way, since the answer is usually one OR the other and it varies wildly), and then penalizes them as in summative systems. Even a "perfect" PG learner can count on losing 3-5% off the top of every course grade in multiple choice questions that are so poorly constructed as to have no one "best" answer. Many of the assessments are 3 to 5 question wonders, so this is emotionally devastating for students who are chronologically young and have near-age-appropriate EMOTIONAL maturity. "I failed my math quiz..." "Yeah, but that one question was stupid-- it was asking about that one example on page 83, but you know that the example on that page has a 'trick' component, so you answered the more general question correctly, right?" "Yeah, but I only got 66% on the quiz."

(Like I said-- the system can really fuel perfectionism.)

Oh-- one major difference between k12 and Connections is that Connections usually has VERY hard semester/schoolyear endpoints.

One big bonus with Connections is the literature elective for GT in grades 3-8.

That one is a keeper. It's truly differentiated. Based on the Junior Great Books program, this is a twice-a-week elective that runs from October through the end of the school year and the kids genuinely interact with one another, do fun projects and discuss the reading selections in a kind of fluid format under the guidance of a teacher.

It's been the single best experience of my DD's educational career.

Mass Virtual Academy at Greenfield (MAVA - http://www.k12.com/mava/home#.UbIDYBzXRCc) was the first and only public virtual charter school for MA . It's run by k12. I met a mother who was homeschooling her kids and using it this year. I don't think they're gifted though.

This year, however, MA legislature voted against MVA and it is slated to close this year (http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/03/04/first-and-only-virtual-school-massachusetts-close/fYQeUeLv2cA15Ts9snYW8J/story.html; http://necir-bu.org/investigations/ma-virtual-academy-lags/). There was a lot of opposition to the lack of oversight over it as well as the private corporation taking a lot public money without being overly effective.

I was going to consider MAVA for next year for 2e/pg ds7, but will have to go to the drawing board and come up with something else. We don't have the money to pay privately so that's not an option. Public schools are out. 2e expert said don't even consider the public schools; we'd get nothing. Sigh.

Take heart. There are many ways to educate a child on the cheap and without going through these private programs. It's not easy, but it is possible and perhaps more enjoyable/rewarding too.

Thanks for all the info. I just want to keep options open and informed. There are too many days where I just feel incompetent to teach this kid! And thinking about how things will go in the future make me even more terrified.

Well, ditto for me Phey. Take a deep breath and take it one step, one day, one week, etc. at a time.

Remember, too, your child's needs are likely to change. I find that once you can grasp of what your child's interests/needs are, what makes them tick, and how they learn best, it gets somewhere easier. It also gets easier once the child starts to take ownership over their learning and starts to self-direct it. There are a couple of homeschooling books where parents have managed to encourage this process (e.g. Joanne Calderwood's book, Self-Propelled Advantage), which you might find useful.

There are usually more options once children reach middle/high school material. Of course, there are numerous free MOOCs online today, though I realize the quality isn't always consistent. But who knows what's going to be available within a few years.

That's really good advice, cdfox.

We've approached each year with Connections as "yes/no" for THAT YEAR.

We often don't decide one way or the other about the following fall until sometime in May, and it always involves an assessment of how things have been going in the current year, and sometimes an option to "see how we feel in August."

K12 here is a virtual charter through the local district. So, would their bureaucracy/whatever WRT skipping and acceleration apply, or does K12 allow us to proceed at whatever pace? Or is this something I have to ask the district?

UM, our experience suggests that it often equals some chimera of the three things-- local/state/district policy + local virtual school administrative/board policy + national corporate policy.

The mix is a bit unpredictable, however. The only thing that is certain is that any HARD limits that are in written law/policy can't be easily circumvented. Beyond that it's policy and caprice, I'm afraid.

You don't really know until you ask. Our experience was that it was slightly more flexible than the local standard, which was WAY more flexible than the state as a whole, and moderately flexible at the corporate level (and that has changed somewhat since 2006) and that our local administration has been VERY willing to go to bat for us with corporate players who were obstructionist.

Most, but not all, virtual charters are statewide, so they are not part of a district, or rather, they are there own district. They are subject to state rules, and you must do state testing, for eaxmple. In principle, any acceleration is possible, but in reality you are subject to the rules and whims of school administrators. I'm sure k12.com itself is happy for you to do whatever you want, but they don't run the school, they just provide the curriculum, see my post above.

Despite the faults we have mentioned, both HowlerKarma and I have used virtual charters to radically accelerate our kids, so it can be done. But investigate your local option to try to see what they'll do. It would be ideal if you could find gifted parents in the school to ask.

Also June is late to be checking into virtual charters for starting in August. Usually applications start in March or April, depending on area, and there are more applicants than places. But ask anyway.

Well, he's actually registered at a B&M school and will start there in August. I have been thinking of K12 as our "out" if kindergarten goes very badly. I do NOT want to do K12. It would be a disaster for me professionally to pull him from school. However, we were verging on full-on school refusal last year in preschool. So, if he gets to that point again, we will have to pull him. I had no idea the K12 charter could be like a B&M charter with limited spots and so on. I kind of thought you could just do it. Our district presents it as an option for kids with medical needs, particularly. It's newly implemented here and few people seem to know about it. I guess I need to look into it more.

ETA: No, the website for my district indicate that they're open for enrollment for 2013-2014 with no indication of any limits or anything. I would just have to submit the same stuff I submitted to enroll him in a B&M school. (odd, in a way--proof of immunization??)

It depends on the state-- and state charter laws-- and to a lesser extent upon where the charter is actually housed. If it's housed within a home district, then there is a motivation to have an enrollment cap (so that the district can't gut other public schools by pulling enrollment $$ from struggling districts, especially rural/poor performing ones).

State charter enrollment laws will then dictate whether there is a waiting list at that point, or a lottery, or just what happens when there are more applicants than openings.

Ah, well--I live in a verrrry charter-friendly state...

What is this? "A robust Advanced Learner Program "

Smoke? Being blown... er...

well-- being blown somewhere.

If we deconstruct this statement, then "robust" here generally means "able to withstand the abuse of novice users and hazardous field conditions," yes?


So it means that it can be just fine in the face of divergent thinkers. Doesn't bother the system at all...

"Advanced Learners." Hmmm.

Well, meaning "ready for advanced material" is one possibility. 'Advanced past the level that their peers are working through' is another...

Personally, that phrase doesn't indicate authentic differentiation much-- but that's given what I know. Take a look (if you can) at the specific materials in use in the coursework-- see if the same materials/text are used for multiple 'levels' of a class. If so, then that is a red flag for 'project-based' differentiation-- meaning MORE work, not more challenging.

As I recall, K12 has an 80%=mastery model. So once you get to that performance on assessments, you move on. It's not clear what (if any) other differentiation happens.

Bear in mind, it can be time consuming, just like homeschooling, depending how fast and cooperative your kid is. Some people do manage while working fulltime, but it's a struggle.


Even so, there could be an enrolment cap. You need to get well informed about what it takes to get in, including possibly during mid-year. In it's first year, I believe that ours was letting people in mid-year to replace those who bailed out becuase they couldn't handle it, but then the latecomers couldn't complete a year's work in the available time, so they became reluctant to let people in mid-year.


It's k12.com's hype. But there is some truth to the claim that radical acceleration and self-paced learning (varying across subjects) is possible and does happen.

No, I know I can't do it while working full-time. I work part-time, but closer to full than part. And I work from home, but still. He's 5. But--very fast, cooperative, independent, etc. He completed the reading assessment in--10 minutes, maybe? Not even? (They say allow 20 to 30 minutes.) Sigh...he's actually just a dream to teach...

Still, I definitely do not want to do it and it would cause all kinds of problems to have to do it. It's just that I would rather do K12 (I think?) than independently homeschool. Teaching is not my strength, at all.

If he does end up doing K12 it will only be for K and 1.

These actually sound like fairly ideal circumstances to do virtual school.

Also the lessons are very structured. The major thing you have to do is cut out all the unnecessary activities, just having your kid do what's necessary to master the objectives.

Yes.

I agree-- that is probably a nearly ideal set of conditions. (Ideal, of course, is that you have a NT learner and a full-time stay-at-home parent.)