Charter school operators scrutinized amid enrollment growth |
In the 2019-20 school year, more than 330,000 students attended virtual schools, roughly 60% of them at for-profits. At Stride Inc., the nation’s biggest for-profit operator of charters, enrollment grew by 45%, to almost 157,000, and revenue in its general education division rose 37%. Equipped with big advertising budgets, the schools have stepped up their marketing during the pandemic, often advertising on social media or other children’s web channels. Overall however, about 63% of virtual for-profit schools — most of which are charter schools — were rated unacceptable by their states in the latest year for which data was available, according to a May report by the University of Colorado’s National Education Policy Center. Online charters also typically lag other schools on measures including student academic outcomes and graduation rates, and have historically experienced high student turnover. Some education advocates are now calling for states do more to hold for-profit charters accountable. A few states, including Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Texas and Utah, have even begun moving toward performance-based funding mechanisms for virtual schools.