Thanks for the great write up Carla.

In addition to the points you make, (as a former leg staffer) I remember trying to deal with OCA/Scio SD/home district/parents and get them to provide de minimus grant money for their students to take local art/music classes that weren't offered by the online school. If a parent enrolls in OCA and that student has any hopes of participating in a local band/choir/art department/etc they can kiss their money goodbye. OCA has it and they aren't giving it back, and they should have thought of that before enrolling. Pretty sad actually. Not to mention that OCA's costs are SIGNIFICANTLY lower than that of an actual school. So someone's making a healthy profit off of our school kids and sticking the taxpayers with a shaft. Glad someone's finally doing something about it.

I'm glad this question is raised for discussion, for I have a number of pedagogical and philosophical questions.

To begin: in what sense is this a "school?" It seems to me that in many senses it has merely appropriated the name. A school has from ancient times (see the examples of the Lyceum and the Peripatetics) meant a group of people, and the essence of the "school" experience is that they learn in a social milieu.

What OCA does, in my opinion, is that it takes the master metaphor of today's age, which is commerce, and then it re-imagines learning as a commercial exchange, which it is not. Knowledge is simply not a commodity. It is not as though the teacher has the lemonade and Socrates wisely pours it from his pitcher into Sally's cup.

So: OCA may be a good thing, it may be useful for some people, it may be therapeutic, but it is not a "school" in the sense that I understand it and in the sense that it can accomplish the better purposes (I know all the bad ones as well) that public schools are charged with. Think John Dewey. If you dare, dream Paulo Freire. (poetry intended)

Dave,as someone who has been fighting the lack of transparency in our local school district, it seems to me that the same issue should apply to virtual schools.

If there is no transparency, I don't see it as a good thing " if we accelerated the transition to virtual, online education".

As long as tax dollars are involved, voters deserve to know the backgrounds of all those involved. I will say that I recall Krummel being a public school substitute teacher, so I have no problem with his involvement.

But Kremer and Kropf?

Wasn't Kremer involved in some sort of charter school in Portland that closed?

There are administrators in our school district whose job performance I would love to see more closely evaluated--get really tired of the idea of frontline workers being evaluated by a microscope, but administrators basically given the benefit of the doubt.

The strict evaluation of those administrators is also what I would like to see about the likes of Kremer and Kropf.

And don't call me an apologist for the "establishment" or some such rot. One of my relatives graduated from an excellent private school. I substituted at a Catholic school. That doesn't mean that either of those institutions is exempt from oversight.

" I'm not in favor of "proprietary" information that the public has no right to access. "

Just as I don't think any private company should "own" voting machines as long as a public entity responsible to the public runs the elections, the same should be true of schools.

If there was a performance audit as well as a financial audit of ORCA and it was found to be doing an excellent job of all aspects of running the school and educating the students, then it should be given a clean bill of health.

But given how involved COSA is in this bill, the rhetoric that "the teachers union opposes online schools" strikes me as trying to hide something about their finances.

We've had an experiment in this country with Republicans telling us that contracting out is always better value for the money than having the government do something.

As the daughter of an accountant and the granddaughter of a prosecutor, I don't believe the record of that experiment is that there was always better value for less money.

People with nothing to hide welcome audits as showing they are doing everything right.

People who don't want audits appear to be hiding something.

Everything I have heard about ORCA this year sounds like "we are doing great things--quit asking questions".

Sorry, Dave, I don't consider this micromanaging. But then, my political persuasion has always been more about the concrete details than about the "principal of the thing".

Lots of educational "innovations" later turned out to be less than the panacea they were claiming to be.

Good point, Kari!

Teachers and child care workers are "mandatory reporters" of child abuse. If these children are never seen outside of their home, what if they live in a situation which might not be healthy for them?

Carla: You have certainly spent a good deal of time deconstructing the online school arena, and for that you should be complimented. I’ll respond here to some of your points and assertions in some detail, but I will try to keep it brief enough not to abuse commenting etiquette. First – yes, the non profit school does enter into a “no-bid” contract, in the sense that it decides which vendor it wants and then contracts with it. This is much the same way every public school district purchases curriculum. It isn’t a commodity, and so it can’t be put to bid. Districts choose texts and then buy them from the publisher. They can’t put Harcourt out to bid with McGraw Hill. They have different products. The section of the contract about curriculum being proprietary is the same as most any software agreement. You don’t own the code to software you purchase. You are NOT reading it correctly if you are assuming that the public has no access to see the lesson plans and the testing materials used in ORCA. Anybody who wants to go review that stuff is welcome to do so at any time. But the materials themselves remain the proprietary property of Connections Academy, just as any software program used by a school is still owned by the software company. On the Learning Coach, you are misrepresenting the document you link to. It clearly says a learning coach is not required, and that the person SHOULD understand English, not MUST. You say ORCA ‘drains money out of districts.” Not sure what that means. Parents choose ORCA, and the money follows the child. Does a “district” have some claim on that money if it isn’t educating the child? Why? Your discussion of my PAC was disingenuous at best. Yes, I have a PAC. Yes, it raised and spent around $300K in the last election cycle. Guess how much Connections Academy LLC gave to my PAC? $1,000. You characterize that as “Your tax dollars going from the schools into a tidy set of accounts to elect conservative Republicans.” That is the ONLY contribution Connections made to any political effort in Oregon. I think you are trying hard to give the wrong impression here, Carla, and it is dishonest. As for the school’s annual reviews – again you shade the truth. The first review conducted by CSDC was not favorable. Thank you for printing the paragraph you did! It shows exactly the tone of the review. OF COURSE the reviewer would be unable to determine if the school was serving students specified in the charter – because it is illegal to even compile that type of information on families of charter school kids! In a charter proposal you say who you want to serve, but you have no control over who you DO serve. And you certainly wouldn’t compile information to prove that you actually DID serve kids who (for instance) “students whose families seek direct involvement in their education..” The review marked down the school for something it not only has no control over, but that it would be stupid and wasteful to compile data on in the first place. Far from an “ouch” it is a great illustration of the kind of thing the review obsessed on. The second review by CSDC was better, as you acknowledge. Then the Scio School District changed who they gave the review contract to. You say “Sources tell me that the evaluator had little to no experience with school evaluations.” GET A BETTER SOURCE! Quite the opposite is true. The new evaluator had a lot more experience at such things than CSDC, which was essentially a one person shop. The new evaluator was Portland State University’s Center for Student Success, which is staffed by folks such as Jim Carlile, a long time public school educator, former Superintendent of Gresham-Barlow SD, former interim principal at Jefferson HS, among other things in his distinguished public school career. The PSU evaluation was very positive, despite, as you point out, the school did not meet AYP that year. ORCA met AYP in every single category except one: testing participation for one ethnic sub group, where it missed by a single student. Every other line item of AYP was met that year. And in 2008-9, the prelim results is that it not only met AYP, but that it again beat state averages in most every category. You call this a mess. It is a success. It is educating almost 3000 students for about 50% of what the other public schools spend in all funds per student. It is the most transparent public school of its size in the state. It is far more accountable than any other non chartered public school in the state. It has not only the annual evaluation, but an annual audit. Can you name any other non-charter public school in the state that has a school level annual head to toe evaluation AND financial audit? I do appreciate you taking the time to look into it as you have. But you got a lot of stuff wrong. ORCA welcomes any and all scrutiny. School is out, but if you have a day in September I would welcome the chance to give you a tour of the ORCA HQ, show you exactly how it operates, give you a chance to talk to teachers, parents, look at the proprietary learning system, scrutinize the budget and audits – anything you want. The fact is this school is succeeding in every single measure of success – financial, academic, satisfaction, transparency. Oh – and more than 50% of the families it serves qualify for free/reduced price lunch. (And it doesn’t even get the Title I funds for it!) Sorry, this did end up being long. If you want, I will just post it on my blog and link to that from here.

As a parent of a Connections Academy student, my experience does not match the information in this post. Carla provides lots of data, but because the few things that I am familiar with are incorrect, it makes me suspicious about the rest of the information provided.

Unless it has been changed in the past year, the funding distribution percentages are not what Carla mentions. Just like for our brick-and-mortar charter school here in my school district, the district gets 10% of the per-student funding, and does not provide any services in exchange for that. Pretty sweet deal. Same thing with the Scio district, which gets a 10% for each student in Connections Academy, an even sweeter deal.

Just like in a non-charter public school, some of the educational materials are non-consumable. If a student uses a textbook one year, that book gets returned to the school so that another student can use it the next year. Just like with other charter schools and non-charter public schools, the textbooks belong to the school (not to the student) so that they can be reused. Same thing with computers (for those students who need one, mine was not one of them). Not sure why that is an issue in this case. It's a public school, and if something belongs to that school, by definition it belongs to the public.

If there is one thing I don't like about Connections Academy is their excessive focus on testing and measuring achievement. If you think that with No Child Left Behind traditional public schools do too much testing, you should check Connections Academy. The idea that there is "no assessment system in place" is not reality-based. As a group, Connections Academy students do better than their non-charter peers, IMHO because Connections attracts quite a lot of TAG and high achieving students whose needs are not met in traditional public schools.

There is no loophole that lets Connections Academy have less than 50% of the students from the Scio district. That rule came after Connections was already operating, and the school was grandfathered in. Personally I don't see any good reason why we need to have virtual public schools organized by school district. Outside of Portland (and possibly Beaverton and Salem-Kaizer), the school districts in Oregon are not big enough to create a virtual school in each one of them. Even brick-and-mortal non-traditional schools (for example magnet schools) are impossible to do in all but the largest 2 or 3 districts in the state.

Personally, I am pro-choice when it comes to pretty much anything, including education. Students and their families should have the opportunity to choose the public school that allows them to achieve their potential. Limiting choice in public education is not the way to go.

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Kremer noted,

"I think you are trying hard to give the wrong impression here, Carla, and it is dishonest. I do appreciate you taking the time to look into it as you have. But you got a lot of stuff wrong."

Yeah she got a lot of things wrong. Deliberately.

I call BS on Carla Rove.

This hatchet piece of hers is the work of the OEA. Her "research" and mischaracterizations were obviously provided by the OEA.
The OEA DNA is so noticeable in her smear that it wreaks of their MO.

Of course Carla and the OEA never apply any of this level of scrutiny, smearing, to any of the debacles the Oregon public school system has experienced over the past several decades. Only when their mission is to shut down competition is their phony concern ginned up.

So never mind the farmed out, statewide (for profit) online testing fiasco, CIMCAM and many other flops that never get either the Carla concern or any accountability.

These charter people must be stopped!

Right on Jack!

But at least now the debate is over facts and specifics, not generalized arguments about whether on-line charter schools are a good idea or not.

Good work, Carla!

Right on Carla! Jack, that is the approach more public figures should take--discussing data vs. opinion or ideology.

It is interesting that no one wants to talk about COSA's role in the legislation. It is all about OEA?

COSA is not an active lobbying group?

It is like the debate on oversight of school district top administrator pay. If someone can provide me evidence that OEA is the reason that 17 years ago (according to our school supt.'s assistant) our school supt. gave all the top administrators in our district central office car allowances on top of salary, let's see it. Now the argument "we've always done it that way" is the reason for leaving that in the budget while reopening union contracts. OEA did that? Where is the evidence, or doesn't evidence matter?

We elected 2 new school board members who are going to be a breath of fresh air because they both mentioned the importance of data in their victory statements.

Pushing ideology or bashing anyone you don't like is not data. Period.

"(RK if you'd put lines between your paras you'd invite reading better. Call me lazy, but consider making life easier for readers anyway.)"

This post and comments remind me of a quotation attributed to Voltaire who was reputed to have included in a letter an apology for it being so long because he didn't have time to make it short.

For the record I'm in favor of public school systems, but they are not perfect and I'm also against monopolies. Parents and their children should have the option of an alternative, but such alternatives may or may not be better. Clearly, if public money goes into any alternative there should be some form of scrutiny by a qualified and unbiased public agency. Otherwise, we might get a less expensive version of the Cheney-Halliburton-KBR way of doing business.

Carla, as usual you have done a very complete job researching the subject. Unfortunately, and again as usual, you allow your pre-concieved notions regarding the best outcome to influence your reporting on the subject. then, once again questions about your style, assertions that you have erroneous conclusions or discussion regarding other outcomes is met with your stonewall approach.

I sincerely hope that you take up the offer to visit OCA in September and get more first hand knowledge and perhaps re-visit the subject. Public education in the brick and mortar model does not serve a good number of students and their families, a virtual environment should be encouraged rather than squelched at the bidding of the OEA and Oregon School Board Association.

According to Willamette Weekly, evidence is mounting that the bill, 767 was written specifically with the intent to crush OCA at the behest of OEA. If true, that is not acceptable. OCA is education several thousand students in our state and doing a better job at less cost. That should be something a progressive would be happy about.

As the father of a child who used "non-traditional learning" to complete high school, I am extremely skeptical about any criticism of those who appear to have discovered a successful method of offering education to those kids who can't or won't participate in a mainstream education.

If your mission is to identify substantive failures in a specific charter school program in order to improve that program, then I salute you and hope that the program(s) in question can be quickly adjusted to bring success to their students. On the other hand, if your mission is to carry the water for the anti-charter school public employee union folks, then I hope you fail. The thousands of kids who can't or won't participate in the traditional senior prom, football team, debate society, mother's tea dance educational experience will otherwise be left to suffer for the sake of union solidarity. That would suck.

Well, this discussion has clearly gone in a different direction than I had hoped, but in retrospect, I suppose that's inevitable. I'll take my more theoretical (LT might say "ideological," I think) concerns to another blog where that discussion might be more at home.

Carla says that "[V]irtual schools are a really cool idea" and LT applauds the fact that "the debate is over facts and specifics, not generalized arguments about whether on-line charter schools are a good idea or not," and I think that fairly reflects the general preconceptions of the group.

These are not preconceptions I share. The people who are ultimately behind the "virtual schools" movement (you do see how the progressive educators that you would admire would insist that this naming is oxymoronic, don't you?) have as their overt aim the destruction of the public school system and its privatization. That's their ideology. Now not every parent and teacher in the movement shares that goal, but that is where the money and energy is. Again, do the research.

So, Carla, although I admire the work you've done on this, I still need to ask a broader question.

Let's make a parallel with the development in the Metolius valley. Let's say that a developer came along and followed all the land development laws to the letter, and was going to somehow create several thousand permanent high paying jobs for Oregonians, and there was considerable public sentiment to let him do so. The only thing is, he would have to pretty much clear cut and permanently despoil that area of Oregon. Would you then favor the proposal?

Perhaps I am wrong, but my guess is no. My guess is that you would say (and forgive me if I am being presumptuous) something like: They aren't making wilderness anymore, and to irreversibly ruin it is not worth any conceivable economic price in our present situation.

The parallel is this. Wilderness, like education, is not a commodity, although late stage capitalism (neoliberalism) seeks to define everything by its market value. One of the things that happens in this environment is a kind of overreaching . . . the capitalists claim that they can measure the costs and benefits of all kinds of things (wilderness, education) that they are really incapable of measuring. They do this because there is a buck in it.

Now I can tell you as an academic that the tests that claim to measure our children's learning do not measure what they claim to measure in any scientific, reproducible way. In twenty-five years we will look back on these practices they way we look back on World War I IQ tests, or the practice of widespread lobotomies.

So my point is this. Of course the charter school people in general and OCA in particular are lying to people and breaking some laws and using "proprietary software" (cough, cough) and generally grabbing all that they can. They're conservative right wing Republicans. It's what they do. It's who they are. They can't help themselves.

But even if every i was dotted, every t was crossed, the opaque made transparent, and the crooked made straight, "virtual schools" would not be a "cool idea" as a "way forward." Think about what you want schools to do. Think about what learning is. Not that no students ever should not take any courses online . . . but "a school?" Think about people that have written and thought about learning the most, the ones that you admire the most, and ask yourself what they would do.

There is no virtual wilderness. There are no virtual schools.

It seems reasonable to presume that modern technology could be incorporated in the education process, but when it comes to making a complete, or near complete, switch to a "virtual" school or classroom, then some skepticism is called for.

A good case could be made for making movies, but not just any movies, part of the curriculum. Exposing students to such classics as "The Grapes of Wrath," "Gideon's Trumpet," "Death of a Salesman," "All the King's Men," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Diary of Anne Frank" and others of similar substance followed by discussions would be of immense help in educating high school students - and, in many cases, their parents.

Hello, folks. I just wanted to share an experience that I was a part of today.

As you may not know, ORCA celebrated it's first ever graduation ceremony today. This week, 50 students have met the graduation standard of Oregon Connections Academy, and have exceed the required current Oregon Diploma standards.

The state of Oregon currently requires 22 credit requirements, with 3 credits in English/Language Arts, 2 credits of Math, 2 credits of science, and 1 credit of Second Language OR arts OR technology credit.

ORCA seniors, meanwhile, must complete 24 credits, including 4 credits of english/language arts, 3 credit minimum of math (with a minimum of 1 credit of algebra and 1 credit of geometry), 3 credits of science (including 1 credit of biology and 1 credit of applied physical science), 2 full credit of humanities (which can include foreign language), 1 full credit of technology credit, 1 credit of health, 1 credit of Physical Education. These standards exceed the ones set forth by the department of education for final implimentation by 2014.

In addition, all ORCA seniors completed the required Career Related Learning Standards, which included a senior project, job shadow, and career education class.

The cross section of students was quite amazing. Our students range from a variety of backgrounds, and include students with severe physical disabilities that hamper their ability to be in the traditional classroom, students from low income single parent households, students with autism and other disorders that make the social interactions of the traditional classroom difficult, a 14 year old honors students that was held back in his previous school due to his age, a young mother who needed to be home with her infant child, and other students for whom this was the best environment for them.

The most common statement that I heard from parents and graduates today was that this online school was by far the best option for their students, and that if it wasn't available it is likely that the student would not have graduated from high school.

I'm not saying that our school is the best option for everyone. I am a STAUNCH support of free public education for ALL students in the state of Oregon. I grew up in Oregon, graduated from a traditional high school program in Oregon, have received a Masters of Art in Teaching from an Oregon university, am a highly qualified Teacher licensed by the state of Oregon, have taught for my entire career in Oregon. And I have NEVER worked for a school that put more emphasis on the success of EVERY student than I have with ORCA. It has the best, most highly trained teachers and administration I have ever worked with. It has by far the most rigorous curriculum I have ever seen. And it provides all of this with LESS funding per student than a traditional bricks and mortar classroom.

Next year, over 150 seniors will be attending Oregon Connections Academy. If SB 767 passes, these students may not have a school to graduate from. And very likely, a large number of these students will give up on working towards their high school diploma. And that's a serious shame.

In addition to the toll that this will have on students, there is the toll that it will have on the 65 highly qualified teachers that are currently teaching for ORCA. These teachers are all licensed by the state of Oregon, and are required to be highly qualified in their education level. If our school closes, we will join the hundreds of teachers that have been let go by their school districts due to budget cuts. Where will we go? Many of us have a large amount of experience, which right now is a strike against us in the current job market.

I urge you to think of the students and teachers that work for virtual schools (not just ORCA, but the other schools as well) as what we are: teachers trying to provide the best education for our students; and students who want to succeed and prosper with their education.

My wife and I have a friend who is among the very small African-American minority here in Central Oregon. Her daughter was given a hard time in high school, presumably because of race or culture, and had to be home-schooled by the mother who had to work from scratch to be a teacher, in addition to working for an income. It appears very likely that ORCA or something similar could have been of help in this and all too many similar situations.

Rob, could you provide a budget and enrollment breakdown for ORCA like you did for the other Columbia County districts? It seems a little odd to provide so much detail for the districts, but not for ORCA.

A big part of Carla's point is that the districts are much more transparent in how they receive and spend money than ORCA, and you're contributing to that.

Is the ORCA budget that opaque that you're not able to find any details?

Bill, I hear you on that. BUT, as a native family mom, I do not believe that shifting the scene is the answer. THe answer is to force the school district to deal with the problem. The parents who opt out leave those of us who simply cannot or really really keep it on the line pushing for action and intelligence frmo the schools... leaves us feeling isolated, and leaves us vulnerable to administrations treating us as if we are making it up, or we are the problem etc.

I'm just not sure that opting out is really the answer. It only creates separate tracks and enshrines the issues that must be dealt with.

Hi, Carla.
I can respond to the "Graduation in Jeopardy" comment that I made earlier. I did not mean that the students cannot take their credits from ORCA to another school and graduate from there, and it was never my intention to infer that. ORCA is fully accredited, and our credits transfer to other schools in Oregon.

What I meant was that the students and parents have indicated to me that if ORCA was not present, they would have CHOSEN note to continue with graduation with their local school system. Because they have a choice in Oregon, they have chosen the online school to meet requirements.

They would have the choice, I guess, to go back to the brick and mortar environment to finish their schooling, with the credits that they have completed from ORCA. However, for my medically fragile students, for my Autistic students where the mainstream classroom does not fit for them socially though they can complete high levels of course work, for my students whose parents are out of work and the income for their jobs that they can work while completing their school work at night, while they can CHOOSE to complete their graduation requirements at another school, that option really isn't a choice at all.

As for response times for learning coaches, I respond to my webmail requests, phone messages, etc. as soon as I receive them. ORCA standards state that teachers have 24 hours to respond to questions from parents and students. Student contact and response time is something that is part of our teacher evaluation. If this standard is not being met by individual teachers, discipline occurs. In years past this has been a problem for our school, and it is something that we are continuously improving.

However, I must offer this: the sheer amount of information that is available to a student and their families is significantly more than is available in a bricks and mortar classroom. The students and family can see the student's grades in real time (they have access to the students gradebook on the learning management system at all times). The teacher's home office phone number and email address are present on the student home page at all times. There are student and teacher message boards that are available. Real time virtual classroom time is available at least once a week for any student that chooses to attend these sessions for every teacher. Face to face contacts with teachers occur throughout the year for parent to meet their student's teachers and speak to them if they choose to participate. The student has their content level teachers, but also have an advisory teacher that can answer a ton of their questions. Can a parent ask to see their student's gradebooks from their brick and mortar teachers in real time from their home computer? Can they access the student's teachers by email or phone during school hours at any time? I have to say that I've never had the parent interaction that I have now when I was in the brick and mortar classroom. It's daily contact if they choose to have it, compared to thrice yearly contact during parent teacher conferences.

Have there been problems with families not getting phone contacts back from teachers? Yes. But like every school, we are improving this. But the most common issue I have had isn't that parents have asked for help and not received a reply, but rather that there are parents that have INTENSE ACCESS TO THEIR STUDENT'S TEACHERS, and don't choose to use it.

I do not have the hard and fast numbers of student/teacher ratio in front of me right now, so I won't comment on that, other than to say that my student load is pretty level to my load at my previous schools.

ORCA teacher, may I contact you offline to ask questions about HS completion and if ORCA can be helpful in that wise? I would appreciate it if I could talk to someone besides the University online sales people who just want my son to spent hundreds on their course... and the school, that did not thoroughly research before they told us to go to, specifically, the expensive and poorly-proctored BYU online course to finish one credit hour.

I would be grateful if I could check to see if you are a resource, or if you can give me straight dope on how to get this over and done with so my son can just move on. It's a long story. SHort one if he can just get the one credit over with - he rejects taking to dope way out and just getting a GED. He wants to finish up. There have been complications. We did not have good options for him during the horrible experience with BSD. Only alternative schools where the acting out situation was only probably worse and would not address the issues my son needed help with.

http://www.skonline.org/ is the site for the Salem Keizer virtual school.

I know they teach the medically fragile (or out on extended sick leave) students.

It is one thing to have such a virtual school directly connected to a school district in Oregon.

The question some people don't seem to want to answer is why it is better to have a virtual school run by an LLC on the E. Coast http://www.connectionsacademy.com/check-availability.aspx

than public school regulated with state laws.

In some ways, this is related to the baseball/soccer debate: If you want to run a totally private entity, more power to you. But if you want public money, then public scrutiny comes along with that.

Let's talk data, people, not philosophical debate about the role of public schools or lobbying groups. Yes, COSA is involved in the legislation, so to say it is all about teachers unions is going to make some people angry, and distrustful that the role of the Confederation of School Administrators is not mentioned.

"At that time, as I remember it, SK Online subcontracted with a regional or national online educational provider for math courses, maybe other courses as well".

Very interesting, because I interviewed at SK Online about 3 years ago and don't recall hearing anything like that.

On another note, our local comm. college does online learning, dep. on the class and the instructor.

As I was saying earlier, either this can be a theoretical discussion regarding "this seems like a good idea" or else there can be data provided on what works where and what doesn't work,

10 years ago I took a technology class for teachers. Part of the class was talk by the prof. But there were 2 term projects which were most of the grade.

In one, we chose (from the papers on a table) the thumbnail biography of one famous person in technology. After all were chosen, the prof. gave out a sheet putting each of our people into teams. The individuals we had chosen were listed on various panel discussions. The people who chose the individuals in a particular team were assigned to bring the points of view of the various team members to the class on an assigned date, and lead the discussion not as ourselves but as our people we chose. As I recall, there were chosen topics for us to discuss. It was an evening class, and people who didn't live near each other had to communicate via email to make decisions about the team presentation.

The other topic was the technology we were assigned. Topics as different as wearable technology and newsbots. Each on a card, and one card given to each student. We had to present our technology to the class in an interesting way and using at least 2 different types of technology in our presentation.

It was a great way to take a class, because it involved student discussion, not just lecture from prof.

On the last evening, we were asked a question: Did we believe this should be an online class, or a classroom class of the sort we had done that term. Most wanted the classroom.

My point is this. Maybe some students are helped (at least in some classes) by online learning.

But does that mean all subjects will work with all students in an online format? And should those students be involved (to the extent possible for healthy students) in activities outside the room with the computer--from field trips to extra curricular to proctored midterms and finals in a location outside their home?

I don't see whatmakes ORCA sacrosanct, and not deserving of the scrutiny given all other recipients of public dollars. And the "but it is all about the teachers union" rhetoric (as if COSA is not a powerful lobbying organization named in the mastead of the bill) only makes me more skeptical.
The attitude of some that ORCA is some miracle panacea for all of public education and thus does not deserve the scrutiny for use of taxpayer dollars that local folks expect of their traditional school operations also bothers me.

Does that make me a Luddite or something? I don't think so.

"Does that make me a Luddite or something?"

No. What you said makes eminent good sense.

Carla, you asked: "Could you talk more about this? What sorts of "discipline" are you referring to if a teacher doesn't meet the 24 hour standard? I'm assuming that this is written policy for ORCA (please correct me if I'm mistaken). Is there a written policy handbook for certified staff?"

There is a written policy handbook for certified staff. I'm sure that if you contacted the main offices of ORCA in Scio, they would be willing to provide you a copy.

During the course of the school year, all ORCA teachers have regular contacts and evaluations from their immediate supervisor. If they are not meeting the standards that are expected for them, a professional improvement plan is put in place. If they do not meet the standards of this plan, they are not renewed for the following year.

As for the question of if a student would not complete his/her diploma requirements if ORCA was not present, let me give an example from this years class. One of my students started the year as a 19 year old single provider of income for his family. His father has lost his job; his mother cannot work for medical reasons. The construction work that this student was participating in required him to work early mornings into the evening. After getting off work, he would then log in and complete all of his required school hours. Not only did he graduate, but he was a member of our honor role. He was able to do this, and still provide for his family, due to the flexibility of the hours for our program. If this choice was not available for him, this student would have had the choice to attend a brick and mortar program to complete his requirements; but who would have worked for his family? Would he have been willing to choose his education ahead of his family?

Carla, I want to thank you for your work to find out more about our program. I also am thankful that you have been civil in your responses to my posts. Tomorrow, I head to the capital, where SB767 will be debated. Joining me will be a large number of ORCA teachers, students, and their families. I hope that you will be there, as well. As a political progressive, I hope that the representatives will look at ORCA for what it is: a public schooling option that has a place in Oregon.

Dear ORCA teacher: I am a parent who asked you a real question. If you have time, would you please make a respone? If you are afraid of allowing or cannot allow backchannel communications with a parent of a child who may qualify for help from you or at least sound advice, will you answer questions I have if I put them here in specific?

As a very perservering and resourceful parent, I've never heard of you before this.

I am determined to help my son complete and not become a permanent deplorable statistic. But I need solid information to do this.

I am genuinely interested in having some questions answered in case YOU or a resource known to you are actually the answer we did not know of until this.

Stephen,

Have you read Kremer's posts about the bill on his website? He's perfectly willing to play the attack game.

I stumbled across this discussion while trying to find out what is happening in the legislature with this bill today. Every day I wait to find out if my kids will have a school after next year. The goal of the bill does not seem to be to fix what they don't like about ORCA, it simply seems to be to close the school. I don't see any comments here from anyone currently enrolled or having experienced the school from the student or parent side of it. Only hearsay from that perspective. As a current, past, and future Learning Coach of two students of ORCA I would like to offer a new perspective to the discussion.

My two children are TAG students who could not be served in our local public school. There is zero TAG program offered which I think is a transparant violation that the state does not seem to care about. I spent 4 years trying to make our local public school work for us, but my kids were being used as peer tutors and teacher helpers until the rest of the kids could "catch up" to them. Struggling kids were constantly being pulled out for special programs, but there is nothing if your kids are above grade level and trust me when I say that those kids are just as much at risk as the struggling ones if they are not being challenged or learning new things. My 5th grade daughter did 7th grade math this year. That is an impossibility at our local school. She would have done 5th grade math with the rest of the students. When I brought my son to Kindergarten he was already reading. The principal told me not to worry, that the other kids would catch up to him by third grade. We left that school and can't afford any of the local private schools which all have a religious focus or are heavily liberal in their ideology. All we wanted was a good, strong, academic education for our kids and we found that at ORCA. We have to take the same state tests that everyone else does, and my kids exceeded on all subjects. They are taken at a local site and monitored by staff, so that child's work is that child's work. When needed, we have been able to contact our teachers instantly, quickly, and easily. The material is similar to what they might get in the brick and mortar schools, only better and more customized to their level. Our local district adopted the "new everyday math" which makes no sense to children who understand math, and actually is confusing to them. With this curriculum we were able to get back to regular, normal, traditional math like what they will be seeing when they go to college one day. In one of our area districts, kids were asked to choose between traditional math and new math when they got to high school after having been taught "new math" for many years. My understanding is that 60% of the kids who chose the traditional math path did not pass because the "new math" did not properly prepare them. But I could go on and on about that, and it is off topic. Enrollment is up every year in this school for a reason. It is working for those people involved and for those people who know. I too, urge anyone who wants to criticize ORCA to first spend some time with kids and families who are participating currently in the program before you make hasty opinions based purely on stats which can be interpreted to mean what you want them to mean. As for the costs and dollars involved..... Nobody is scrutinizing the spending and budgets of other schools as closely as they are ours. Where does every penny of the $10,000 + it costs per child in Portland go? Is anyone asking for a breakdown of that? The fact is that this school runs for less, costs the state less, works for the non-union teachers, works for the families involved, provides a quality education, is required to meet state standards, and is about as green as a school can possibly be. Why on earth would the state be trying to close it down? Could it be that those things are not what is really important to the state? If not, then what is? In my own personal opinion, I don't care that it may be costing my local school for us to leave. This is a way for them to know that we are still here, and we are CHOOSING not to go there. Maybe if enough people leave, the message that this particular school or this particular district is bad will get through, and something real will be done about it. I still pay my property taxes and other taxes for education no matter what school they go to. Now, by one route or another, some of it goes where I am happy to send it. I know this screams of school choice which some people are strongly against. We are from "the rest of Oregon" located outside of Portland, Eugene, and Salem. We don't have several local charter or magnet schools to choose from. We don't even have several local schools PERIOD to choose from. If not for an online school we have zero choice. Is that fair to force us to attend a local school where our needs are not being served?

I have met many kids and parents involved in ORCA at different events. If you are truly concerned with abuse, slackers, cheaters, and students who are not being properly educated, then you are looking in the wrong place. As with any school, I am sure there might be a few, but it is impossible for it to even compare to any other public school. And I have not met ANY in my two years with ORCA. Everyone I have met is at ORCA for academic reasons, disability reasons, or social reasons. Everyone I have met would likely be homeschooling the traditional way if not for ORCA. So in a way, the state actually has more oversight of these kids WITH ORCA than without it. I know I have no other options after ORCA closes. We will try to muddle through homeschooling on our own, and I am not looking forward to having to do that. I will not apologize for going on and on. I will say that I am sorry that some of you may not have the attention span to get through all I have said. Perhaps if you had been educated one-on-one by a personal learning coach, you might have a better attention span??? (I tried to keep it nice, but just couldn't resist that one)

"Somehow in all this battle, the kids seem to be left out."

Of course they are. That's the OEA way.

The OEA has made many inaccurate charges and Carla's many suggestions follow suit.
She's posed rhetorical questions that while mascarading as legitimate concerns are nothing but biased smear merchant suggestions of profiteering, Republican loopholing etc.
It's obvious Carla would like ORCA shut down without ever having visited it or talked to it's district. For the kids of course.

Carla, being so opposed to testing were you fighting off CIMCAM at all?

Have you offered any rhetorical questions about the ODE for-profit online testing used in every public school?

Your concerns over the ORCA operation are nothing but a transparent attack grown out of the OEA.

As far as cost per student, a traditional school costs the state more the $10,000 per student, compared to $6,000 for ORCA, a pretty good savings in my opinion. Your article also mentioned teacher costs per student compared to state schools and said that ORCAs higher cost was a negative, it seems like a good deal to me if we can spend more on teacher to student ratios like ORCA does than on Administrator and Building budgets like our broken down public school system with 35 kids per classroom. With having said that, I am all for more transparency and tougher audits of these schools, and I am for allowing outside organizations to review the curriculum, however prohibiting RENEWALS for two years is NOT an effective option. Since many online school charters are up for renewal every 2 years ORCA and several others will be shut-down before the review period is complete (ORCA will be the summer of 2010). Shouldn't we allow these schools to continue operating until the review is complete and a determination has been made, instead of interupting the lives of nearly 3,000 students?

Richard, this bill went through many versions. This is the masthead.

By Senator DEVLIN, Representative BUCKLEY; Senators BONAMICI, DINGFELDER, MORRISETTE, Representatives DEMBROW, KAHL, WITT (at the request of Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers-Oregon, Oregon School Employees Association, Oregon Education Association) (at the request of Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers-Oregon, Oregon School Employees Association, Oregon Education Association) -- Relating to public charter schools; declaring an emergency.

..... Now, if you can explain to all of us why COSA does things "the OEA way". I'm sure we would all be very interested.

Should there be no task force on governance of these online schools? Or is it that you believe privately run schools have all the answers and state money should go to them without question?

FYI, I have never been an OEA member and have been known to clash with them from time to time.

I am finding it instructive that ORCA teacher is up here to argue and fuss politics, but does not provide a parent who may be in need anything of substance to use to work thru the final travails of a student for whom Beaverton's system utterly failed.

ORCA, looks like you might be a joke. Hum.

RW said: "ORCA teacher, may I contact you offline to ask questions about HS completion and if ORCA can be helpful in that wise? I would appreciate it if I could talk to someone besides the University online sales people who just want my son to spent hundreds on their course... and the school, that did not thoroughly research before they told us to go to, specifically, the expensive and poorly-proctored BYU online course to finish one credit hour.

I would be grateful if I could check to see if you are a resource, or if you can give me straight dope on how to get this over and done with so my son can just move on. It's a long story. SHort one if he can just get the one credit over with - he rejects taking to dope way out and just getting a GED. He wants to finish up. There have been complications. We did not have good options for him during the horrible experience with BSD. Only alternative schools where the acting out situation was only probably worse and would not address the issues my son needed help with."

RW, during the last 2 days I've spent about 10 hours per day at the state capital, baring witness to the legislative sessions around SB 767. Currently, the house of representatives have passed the bill by 2 votes, and it is moving back to the senate for comittee oversite and voting, then back to the house of representatives.

For your specific questions, I would suggest that you contact ORCA at 503-394-4315. Ask for the school counselor. We may be able to help your son to graduate from high school. However, I don't feel comfortable going through a transcript, asking credit questions, etc. on a public forum.

This number is available to any of you if you have any questions about ORCA.

Again, RW, I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. Ironically, now that the school year is officially over (today was my last day for the school year) I may be online a bit more. :-)

As an outsider, this is what I believe:

1) Quality control is important. In many ways, the Catholic school where I once substituted and the small rural public schools where I once subbed were better run than the large public school district where I subbed. But leadership did matter. Those schools were not always the same regardless of who was in charge, and I was at one such school when it underwent a change in leadership. From the outside world, ORCA folks especially sound like "shut up, we are doing the right thing, and if you say otherwise you are an OEA dupe". NOT a way to win friends and influence people.

2) After much struggle over the last 2 years with an inward-looking local school board, we have finally elected 2 new members who used phrases like "data driven decision making" in their victory statements. Something wrong with that approach for all schools using public money?

There have been excellent charter and other new forms of schooling. However, some of us have had experiences in the past where supporters of any sort of new form of schooling (charter school, private school, online virtual school) got very defensive and polarizing, or very vague ("well, that is what I hope would happen").

I looked up the Connections Academy website and it didn't strike me as a group which should not be publicly supervised if they are getting Oregon public money. And for children who are not medically fragile, I believe that they should have testing outside of their home to see what they are learning.

3) I am no fan of Laurie Wimmer or the OEA, but I do believe Rep. Gelser made a dynamite speech today. Does that make me a bad person?

4) During the debate, there was discussion of the 50% requirement. Exactly what is that? Why is it a bad thing?

5) I think Carla's point here is valid:

There are some appropriate questions of accountability and transparency here that deserve scrutiny and answers. Just telling me "it's for the children" isn't an answer, IMO.

What I heard in the debate today was about specific children. OK, such schools should get unquestioned public funding because they help specific children? Verges on propaganda to say it like that. There is still a question, in my opinion, of how this whole thing is constructed. As someone recently said in another context, everyone has the right to free speech but businesses should be regulated.

It is the job of those who support the current online virtual schools to convince skeptics like me. It is not the duty of those who are not part of that world to accept as revealed truth that online virtual schools are the wave of the future, the train is leaving the station, and we should all get on board, shut up, and quit asking questions.

I wouldn't accept that attitude in any other area of life, why should I accept it here?

And why is COSA in the masthead of the bill if this is only about the OEA? Or is that a subversive question?

LT,

You just demonstrated what a total waste of time it is trying to discuss an issue with someone like you. You haven't a clue and fall all over yourself trying to pretend otherwise. You're a moving target of absurdity well out of reach of points and response. You've likely ended this discussion.

Well done. Now tell Carla what a good job the both of you and hve done.

Gee Carla and LT must be concerned about this.

House blocks GOP push for school audits
by In the news Tuesday, June 23. 2009 HB 3331 Establishes Mandatory Financial Auditing for School Districts, ESDs By Oregon House Republicans

SALEM— For the second consecutive session, House Republicans today sought House passage of legislation to increase accountability in education spending. HB 3331 would require mandatory independent financial audits for each Oregon school district and Education Service District. The bill would also help create statewide financial standards to improve how education dollars are spent. As they did in 2007, Democrats rejected a motion to bring HB 3331 and its accountability measures to the House Floor for a debate and vote

LT

<h1>4 The 50% requirement is requiring that 50% of the enrollment of the online schools be from that local school district where the online school is located. That kills ORCA because there is NO WAY that half of the 2700 kids enrolled are from the Scio school district. There probably aren't even that many kids IN Scio total, let alone that many enrolled in ORCA.</h1>

I am extremely sad that this bill pass the house yesterday. And the votes fall almost strictly down party lines. Thanks to those few Democrats who were able to step away from their party's major funder (OEA) and think freely and vote with their brains and not their wallets. Why can't our school be allowed to operate while the powers that be decide how to supervise online schools in our state?? And I am angry that everyone who is against our schools seems to know so little about how it works on a daily, student by student basis. Get your information before you form an opinion next time.

Reading through all of the comments, I never did see a response to the reason why ORCA spends more on assessment per student than traditional schools. Maybe I missed it? If not, I would like to clarify. Every student who attends ORCA, from grade 3 onward, must take the state assessment, just like every other student in every other school. But unlike students in other schools, ORCA's students are spread out across the entire state. Because these assessments must be proctored, ORCA must send its teachers out to every corner of the state. These teachers must be compensated for mileage and have their meals and lodging (if necessary) be reimbursed. It's not a simple issue of calling a group of kids into the school computer lab and having them test. It all has to be coordinated. Adequate testing sites must be located and sometimes rented. This has been traditionally done twice a school year.

ORCA Mom:

I was a substitute teacher for 15 years (no, that does not make me a member of OEA which is only for regularly scheduled, generally full time staff). I believe private schools have the right to their own governance structure, but publicly funded schools deserve public oversight.

Where does Oregon School Boards Assoc. stand on this bill? Any former school board members in the legislature? Where do they stand on this bill? Or would that involve too much research when it is so much easier just to demonize OEA?

I have seen the masthead of the bill. I know COSA is in that masthead. Regardless of what one thinks of the OEA (did you know they endorsed the Republican legislators who ended up sponsoring the bill to end teacher tenure in Oregon?), to say 767 is strictly an OEA bill is, in the words of Ed Rollins, "Not always on message with the truth".

Either the 50% rule was in place when ORCA was founded, or it wasn't. If it wasn't in place, imposing it on ORCA would be "ex post facto" and therefore unconstitutional.

However, if it was in place before ORCA was founded, then all the rhetoric about the OEA may well just be propaganda to distract from that fact.

I believe there should be government oversight of private businesses using public money. Connections Academy is private company from out of state.

In our school district, many of us were thrilled that 2 new school board members were elected and used phrases like data-driven decision making in their victory speeches. What a concept--instead of vague ideology, actual discussion of data!

I become suspicious when questions about data are answered with rhetoric which is often polarizing. Perhaps that is because substituting is no way to make a living (uncertain, often low income) and thus I was a product demonstrator for 10 years on weekends.

People trying to sell an idea or a political cause could benefit from sales training. NO ONE is required to buy anything--a product, a candidate, an idea, etc.

Dave, 'bringing back the pioneering spirit' does not mean not relying on data. Do you really believe pioneers really said "well I guess we have enough food and provisions and we are pretty sure we know where we are going"?

Anyone who believes there should be any oversight at all of any use of government funding has "lost the pioneering spirit"? I remember some educational experiments when I was young, including alternative English grammar in 8th grade. I was about a year too old to experience SMSG math, which one math teacher later told me stood for "Some Math, Some Garbage". Were those part of the "pioneering spirit"?

It may be that online schools are the wave of the future and when my grandnephews (neither is yet 3) grow up, they will all attend online schools and brick and mortar schools will be a thing of the past.

However, I agree with famous management expert W.E. Demings that "in God we trust, all others must provide data".

No one is going to convince me that ORCA deserves public money without any government oversight by saying that anyone who says otherwise is an OEA dupe.

And Dave, the definition of Luddite is

"Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment. One who opposes technical or technological change."

I was a substitute in the years that schools were becoming more and more computerized. I had no problem with that.

My grandfather was a prosecutor, my Dad was an accountant and auditor (both dealt in hard data in their work) but if I believe in oversight of any private business which gets public money I am a Luddite?

Jennifer, I can answer the question of why it costs more for ORCA to do state assessment than other schools.

Because our program is statewide, we go to the students for their testing. That means renting test sites, travel expenses, etc.

This year, I have traveled from the Portland Metro area to Astoria twice. As of right now, ORCA does not have any staff on the north coast, and therefore must travel to that part of the state to do testing.

Hope that helps.

Carla, I wish you would apply the same scrutiny to our tradition "bricks and mortars" public schools as you do to these virtual schools. You make a number of interesting points and factual considerations, but then connect the dots with innuendo and ad hominems. Its the same generalizations I have heard over and over again, but when I asked my legislator who is a co-sponsor of this bill what specific tangible evidence he had to warrant such generalized concerns, he could not provide any. The same could be said about the arguments made on the house floor yesterday. Why is it that the Oregon department of education has not recommended SB767 is ignored and instead our legislators give in to the political strongarming of the OEA. As an educator, I am disgusted that we have sacrificed educational choice at the altar of political power.

"I think much of their data is available and public. "

Yes, they have a website, but it is the Connections Academy website and the tab "school officials" is really advertising to add more schools to their network.

"These opportunities exist because technology-based solutions such as virtual schools enable the creation, management, delivery, and measurement of individual learning. Virtual schools are able to commence operations without many of the encumbrances and historical limitations of their physical counterparts. However, virtual schools face new and different challenges."

That sounds vague to me. But maybe if I were a believer I wouldn't say it was vague because Connections Academy can do no wrong? Reminds me of that line from an old children's story, "Do you believe in Tinkerbell?"

Dave, who is their governing body? Or doesn't that matter because anyone who believes in online education would not ask specific questions?

ORCA TEACHER says of assessment above, "This year, I have traveled from the Portland Metro area to Astoria twice. As of right now, ORCA does not have any staff on the north coast, and therefore must travel to that part of the state to do testing. "

Scio is a long way from either Portland or Astoria. Scio is where the school is chartered, no matter where some of the teachers live and work. Or is that an inconvenient detail? Someone (I hope) is paying travel mileage for those ORCA staff along with meals and perhaps even lodging (that is what outside sales people are paid, and I would hope the business model of Connections Academy provides the same thing).

That is what I mean by oversight. Either the staff who do that travel are compensated for their time and travel, or they aren't. By oversight, I mean making sure the travel is not on the employee's dime. That isn't about OEA, it is about labor rules built up over several decades. If outside sales people are compensated but ORCA staff are not compensated for such travel, it might be something for the Wage and Hour folks to look into. http://www.oregon.gov/BOLI/WHD/about_us.shtml

I would hope that Connections Academy treats their staff as employees and not independent contractors, given Oregon's Independent Contractor Law.

Does every ORCA student test better on a nationally standardized test like NAEP,than any other student in Oregon? http://nces.ed.gov/NATIONSREPORTCARD/

Or doesn't that matter as long as they meet AYP?

In doing a web search, I discovered that the State Board of Education discussed online education. http://www.ode.state.or.us/stateboard/november-08-meeting-minutes-approved.doc

Did they have the right to discuss such a topic? Or is online learning such a "wave of the future" issue that no public body should discuss it?

If online learning is so great, public bodies should be able to discuss it. As I understand it, there will be a conference comm. on SB 767. Is that acceptable to you, or should the topic never even be discussed?

I still believe there should be pay and other working conditions oversight of schools like ORCA, as well as some knowledge of the corporate governance of the E. Coast company. The website looks good with regard to curriculum, but if there is to be public money involved, I believe there should be public oversight.

Apparently, there are other states where the reception for Connections Academy has been something other than "come on in, you're welcome to do anything here and our state will not question your wisdom".

http://www.redorbit.com/news/education/185561/internetbased_charter_schools_may_be_on_way/

I understand people are very impressed with this school. If you want to start a ballot measure campaign to overturn the 50% rule, be my guest.

But the idea I am a "Ludite" because I believe rules are rules for everyone is not the way to convince me that ORCA is the best school in the history of Oregon, we should all jump on the bandwagon and not ask any questions.

This is the state, after all, which has a long history of controversy about educating young people. There is even a Supreme Court case from Oregon. There was an attempt to outlaw Catholic schools in Oregon when there was an anti-Catholic legislature many decades ago.

When a church-related or other privately funded school sets their own rules and raises their own funding, that is fine. Catholic schools have a good record for their educational excellence. But they have a governance model which includes a school board.

It sounds to me like the sponsoring school district is Scio but there are ORCA students over on the coast. If asking questions about the financial and other oversight of such an arrangement is treated as subversive, that makes me even more skeptical. Transparency in educational governance is a virtue, in my opinion.

LT:

In response to ORCA Teacher you wrote: "Scio is a long way from either Portland or Astoria. Scio is where the school is chartered, no matter where some of the teachers live and work. Or is that an inconvenient detail? Someone (I hope) is paying travel mileage for those ORCA staff along with meals and perhaps even lodging (that is what outside sales people are paid, and I would hope the business model of Connections Academy provides the same thing)."

What relevance does the location of SCIO have to ORCA Teacher's comment? They were addressing Carla's comment in her original post about the cost of testing students and noting that ORCAs increased cost is due to teachers have to travel to the students and the related facility and travel costs. If you read ORCA Teacher's entire comment it says that ORCA Teachers are reimbursed for their travel costs. No one on this thread has said that there should be no oversight of ORCA. The problem with this bill is the limited nature of who is on the oversight committee, and the fact that schools would be shut-down by this bill before the studies have been completed. Its fine to have oversight, but build that into the current system and implement changes as needed, but don't just shut the system down and then study it.

LT writes: "That is what I mean by oversight. Either the staff who do that travel are compensated for their time and travel, or they aren't. By oversight, I mean making sure the travel is not on the employee's dime. That isn't about OEA, it is about labor rules built up over several decades. If outside sales people are compensated but ORCA staff are not compensated for such travel, it might be something for the Wage and Hour folks to look into. http://www.oregon.gov/BOLI/WHD/about_us.shtml

I would hope that Connections Academy treats their staff as employees and not independent contractors, given Oregon's Independent Contractor Law."

The Wage and Hour folks have the ability to oversee ORCA without this bill, and from what ORCA Teacher already said, they are compensated for these expenses. Stick to the current debate LT.

LT writes: "Does every ORCA student test better on a nationally standardized test like NAEP,than any other student in Oregon? http://nces.ed.gov/NATIONSREPORTCARD/"

Why does EVERY ORCA student need to be better than ANY OTHER student in the state??? Nobody has claimed that ORCA is better for every student, or that online education in general is better for every student. Online education appears to be better for SOME students, and again, I agree that there need to be studies completed and appropriate oversight to confirm that these progrmas are beneficial for the students enrolled and that the program has procedures in place to identify students that would be better served in a traditional classroom and move those students back to traditional classrooms. Again though, it doesn't make sense to shut the schools down and then perform studies.

Carla, you have pointed out Rep. Wingard lists ORCA/Connections Academy as an employer. Is it ethical then for him to vote on SB 767? (He voted NO, of course!) To my mind even voting on this bill is a conflict of interest for Wingard. What are the rules on this in the legislature?

Simon, Rep. Wingard stated his possible conflict of interest during the vote. That's house rules.

But here is my question: does that mean that the legilators and senators that are teachers should not vote on legislation regarding school funding? Does that mean that any legislator or senator that has students in the Oregon Public School system should not be allowed to vote on the state school budget? What about farmers who are legislators? Should they not be allowed to vote on agricultural bills?

There is conflict of interest everywhere in the legislature.

<h2>What about the legislators who get large campaign donations from the OEA? Should they too be excluded from voting on a bill requested by the OEA?</h2>