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wellarmedsheep t1_j9ggra8 wrote

I'll name and shame. I have a friend who works for Agora Cyber Charter. From what he tells me, he usually has only about two or three kids actually active in class. Nearly all of his "students" log in and ignore him. Their software tells him that they don't even have his screen active on their computer.

He was recently reprimanded for saying this in a PLC, suggesting what they are doing is illegal.

Because it 100% is. These charters cost taxpayers obscene amounts of money to educate habitually absent students who graduate after literally doing nothing.

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loganwachter t1_j9hxifo wrote

My mom stuck me in agora for a single school year many years ago. I didn’t do a damn thing that whole year except scroll through the internet and sleep all day. Agora is absolutely useless for an actual education.

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troylight54 t1_ja7afzc wrote

Let's be perfectly frank here. Cyber Charter schools are a huge source of campaign contributions for Republicans politicians in Pa.

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kormer t1_j9h7ygo wrote

> These charters cost taxpayers obscene amounts of money to educate habitually absent students who graduate after literally doing nothing.

And that's different than many other public schools how?

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wellarmedsheep t1_j9haxo3 wrote

Its much different.

I certainly have my issues with public education, particularly social promotion, but the difference in engagement is not comparable.

Quite literally you can log into a cyber charter, walk away, and get counted as present. Counting those kids as present is fraud. You cannot do that at public school.

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kormer t1_j9hbsnj wrote

> Quite literally you can log into a cyber charter, walk away, and get counted as present. Counting those kids as present is fraud. You cannot do that at public school.

I went to school in the hood, you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

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SirShrimp t1_j9j53di wrote

Ok, and? That's still bad, that's still an issue.

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drxdrg08 t1_j9gj0n4 wrote

> These charters cost taxpayers obscene amounts of money to educate habitually absent students who graduate after literally doing nothing.

Tom Wolf got rid of state mandatory testing to graduate.

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theavengedCguy t1_j9gre74 wrote

Confidently incorrect. Senate Bill 1095 that was signed into law 10/14/2018 provided four alternatives to only the Keystone exam deciding a high school student's fate. Not everyone performs well on tests, especially ones that are as high stakes as the Keystone exam and Bill 1095 simply added alternatives to that one test as a requirement for graduation. Those alternatives are all based on either passing the Keystone exam outright or having high enough grades in your regular education with supplemental proof of post-high school education readiness.

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drxdrg08 t1_j9gsvmb wrote

> Not everyone performs well on tests

Bullshit logic that is failing kids.

> or having high enough grades in your regular education

And creates a path for schools to teach nothing and still grant diplomas. Tests is how you test how well a charter school is working.

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theavengedCguy t1_j9gxb5d wrote

Nope, not bullshit logic at all. Test/performance anxiety is a very real thing and is very well documented. People shouldn't be punished for their inability to perform under pressure, especially not kids.

Also, this Bill did NOT create pathways for schools to teach nothing and still grant diplomas. You're thinking of No Child Left Behind which ROYALLY fucked up the education system in the US. This created the "teach to the test" doctrine as a means of ensuring funding for the school which leaves kids with abilities to solve the problems on the tests they're taught, but no critical thinking skills to apply them to anything of value.

Furthermore, if you want to throw shit about political bullshit regarding the Department of Education and how it operates, Republicans are trying to literally abolish the Department of Education entirely. And it isn't the first time they've proposed this idea either. There have been multiple instances of these asshats trying to cripple the education system in the US, even if just for show. Trump, Rubio, Massie, MTG, and more have all shown support for this and DeVos did her best to hamstring it to make it easier to privatize. Oh and Reagan tried to get rid of it, or at least wanted to get rid of it, back in like the early 80s.

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drxdrg08 t1_j9he4k8 wrote

> Nope, not bullshit logic at all. Test/performance anxiety is a very real thing and is very well documented. People shouldn't be punished for their inability to perform under pressure, especially not kids.

We've been doing it wrong for hundreds of years. Tests have been a thing for a very long time.

It's dishonest to even say that it's about "anxiety". It's a recent movement linked to "equity".

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Zenith2017 t1_j9lgoq8 wrote

Education research for the last 40+ years would disagree heavily with you. Standardized testing primarily reflects the ability to repeat rote information you've memorized, and is especially useless on question types like multiple choice or mix and match columns. We also know there are plenty of students who have inhibitions to standardized testing including executive function, attention, and learning disorders - and that most of those kids are not being put into an IEP or special needs program that can fit their needs.

I know it makes sense on paper (heh) that if you can't put it on a test you don't know it. But that's not really an accurate reflection of what a student knows or how they think, there's better ways for us to go about this with evidence-based learning science

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WearySeaTurtle t1_j9h6t4f wrote

The state exams are bullshit. At my school, we did not give a single f, just guessed and put down whatever. The school tried to bribe us with ice cream to care.

All I cared about was passing classes, not some dumb state exam.

For those who have to pass these to graduate, God bless.

What I was being teach before the exams barely pertained to it. Teachers just rush taught a review before.

You're so out of touch if you think passing state exam means you got a quality education.

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