User:Agmacq/K12 article draft

K12 Inc. (nyse: LRN) is a for-profit education company that sells online schooling and curriculum to state and local governments. Its educational products and services are designed as alternatives to traditional "bricks and mortar" education, from kindergarten through to 12th grade. K12 is a publicly-traded education management organization (EMO) that provides online education services to charter school students. It is paid for from taxes. K12 is the largest EMO in terms of enrollment.

History
The company was founded in April 2000 by former banker Ronald J. Packard. 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. Andrew Tisch of the Loews Corporation and Larry Ellison or Oracle Corporation also contributed venture capital.

William Bennett, Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan was hired as the company's first chairman of the board, resigning in 2005 after some controversial comments. Lowell Milken served on the K12 board of directors until July 2007. Tisch currently serves as chairman of the board and Packard has served as CEO since the company's founding.

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

Products
K12’s product line includes 600 courses spanning elementary, middle, and high school grades, proprietary online learning systems, and educational software. Since its inception, K12 has invested more than $240 million in developing its curriculum, software, and online learning platforms.

Accreditation
K12 is fully accredited by AdvancED and many K12 schools are further accredited by other accreditation bodies. The K12 curriculum meets all state and national content standards.

Curriculum development
K12's methodology is based on the research of the non-profit Core Knowledge Foundation, where John Holdren, currently K12's Senior Vice President of Content and Curriculum, served as a vice president and oversaw the development of the Foundation's Core Knowledge Sequence. K12's curriculum emphasizes strong literacy skills and is cumulative and specific to build on student knowledge and skills grade by grade. The K12 curriculum builds and expands on these recommendations with a mastery-based program designed to gradually build a framework of understanding around key learning objectives and subject areas.

The K12 curriculum is distributed through various channels. These include online public and private schools managed by K12, sales to public and private schools, and school districts, and sales directly to consumers.

Curriculum
K12 manages virtual charter schools and hybrid schools in 32 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. These state-funded schools use K12's online learning systems and curriculum to offer distance education. The company also operates 3 online private schools. In fully online public and private schools, students complete all coursework online, rather than in a brick and mortar classroom. Instruction is facilitated by the “learning coach” (typically a parent or guardian) with the assistance and guidance of a state-certified teacher assigned by the school. Teacher interaction is accomplished through virtual classroom environments, telephone, and face-to-face meetings. In hybrid schools, students complete the same curriculum but attend a physical building and participate in classes with other students and teachers.

Schools and districts wishing to offer full-time online programs, blended programs, or individual courses can purchase curriculum and training services to implement their own programs. Homeschooling families or students who wish to supplement their education with an individual course can purchase the curriculum directly. Consumers can choose to purchase course materials only or a teacher-supported course.

The curriculum for grades K–8 includes courses in seven subject areas: math, science, language arts/English, history, art, music, and world languages. The curriculum is supplemented with videos, animated interactives, CDs, printed textbooks, and hands-on activities and experiments and includes tools for viewing lesson plans, managing schedules, tracking attendance, and communicating with teachers.

The high school (grades 9–12) program is broader and students have more choices in terms of the courses they complete. In addition to core courses, students can choose remedial, Honors, Credit Recovery and Advanced Placement options. Unlike the flexible nature of the K–8 courses in which the parent follows a suggested lesson plan, high school courses follow a set weekly schedule of assignments. Students have more communication with teachers in high school as each subject area is overseen by a teacher certified in that subject.

Parental involvement
The parent or guardian who oversees the students work in a K12 virtual school is referred to as the "learning coach." In grades K–6, the learning coach is expected to spend 3–5 hours each day instructing the student; as the student advances, the learning coach's hands-on time diminishes to 2 hours per day in grades 7–8. In high school, the role of the learning coach transitions from direct instruction to providing support as the student is expected to manage his or her own schedule and have more interaction with teachers and other students. At all levels, the learning coach is expected to log attendance.

Assessment
The program is mastery-based, meaning the student must demonstrate mastery of the lesson objectives before he or she can proceed to the next lesson in the course. The program uses frequent assessments to evaluate students' understanding. Short answer or multiple choice assessments are given at the end of most lessons in K-8 and are administered and recorded by the learning coach. In high school, assignments and tests are graded by teachers. In order to ensure academic honesty in high school, a browser plug-in called ExamGuard is used during tests and assessments. The plugin disables other applications and prevents the assessment screen from being minimized or additional browser windows opened.

Controversies
Virtual schools have been the subject of some controversy, in part due to articles and studies questioning the educational value of online learning and political debate over the role of for-profit companies in public education. A November 2011 Washington Post article questioned the effectiveness of virtual schools and whether a for-profit education company should receive taxpayer money. A December 2011 New York Times investigation raised similar questions, concluding that K12 "squeeze(s) profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards." K12 disputed many of the findings in the report and published a rebuttal to many of the issues raised in the Times article.

Adequate Yearly Progress
Research from Western Michigan University and the National Education Policy Center found that only 27.7% of K12’s schools reported meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The percentage across all private EMOs operating full-time virtual schools is nearly identical (27.4). K12 responded that the study neglected to provide data on student academic gains before and after enrollment, arguing that many students enter virtual schools already behind grade level in math and reading and that AYP is not an accurate measure of a school’s performance, a view held by other education reformers such as United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who estimated that under NCLB, as many as "82 percent of America's schools could be labeled 'failing'".

Socialization
Some school officials have raised concerns that students in full-time online programs miss out on interaction and collaboration with other children and may fail to develop appropriate socialization skills. Proponents of online education argue that the majority of online school students are engaged in social activities involving peer interaction outside of the school day. One study which compared the social skill development of traditional school and online school students found that online school students scored the same or higher than those in traditional schools. The study attributed these findings to online students’ tendency to interact socially within mixed-age groups, consisting of both peers and non-peers.

Funding
Another criticism is that online schools have lower operating costs than traditional schools, yet receive almost the same amount of state funding as traditional schools, spending the excess on advertising and lobbying state officials. One study found that K12 spent more on instruction costs, but less on teacher salary and benefits. In response, K12 pointed out that while online schools lack the costs associated with operating a physical school, (maintenance, transportation, food service) there are other costs associated with an online program, such as shipping curriculum materials, securing physical locations for state testing, software licensing, and reimbursement of teachers’ internet and phone costs, and that as a vendor, they do not make decisions regarding allocation of salary and benefits that are made instead by their customers.

Lobbying
The company has also come under scrutiny for its lobbying efforts on behalf of online education. K12 responds that their lobbying efforts are smaller than those of teachers' unions and other interest groups which have contributed millions to promote their efforts.