Debt Collectors Cost IRS Millions: Agency expects to lose more than $37 million by using private collectors to pursue tax scofflaws.

Happy Tax Day.

Posted by John at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'll confess that I have at times thought WAY too much over the past six years or so about SES -- supplemental educational services (mostly after-school tutoring) supplied by for-profits and nonprofits under No Child Left Behind.

As I noted last week, AFT's Nancy Van Meter wrote about SES at edbizbuzz recently.  Now, the edbizbuzzer himself, Marc Dean Millot, has followed up with a smart post of his own.  The whole thing is well worth reading, but, if I had to choose a favorite passage, it might be this:

The history of evaluation in SES was hardly inevitable, but has been entirely predictable. With one plausible exception, it has followed the course of every market-based school reform since 1990. Over time, advocates and leaders of independent charters schools, Education Management Organizations (EMOs), Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) and SES providers have employed precisely the same set of talking points: “Please let us get started before asking how we are doing;” “You know, this is hard, there are no silver bullets;” “We’re about to start a study, but what’s the right measure of effectiveness for our unique offering - and do test scores truly capture our real value?;” and finally, “Evaluation doesn’t really matter to our future; it won't be interpreted fairly, and it won't change anyone's mind.”

Millot is a smart guy who is open, even favorably disposed, to the idea of a role for private companies in education, but he doesn't think they should get a pass on accountability.  Gotta respect that.

Posted by John at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AFT's Nancy Van Meter, guest-bloging at edbizbuzz, combines snarkery and wonkery as she looks at whether SES providers are on the up and up when they ask that student achievement, not politics, be the only criterion for the program.

Dismissing skeptics of SES as zealots is an easy way to get around the lack of evidence six years in to the program without responding to legitimate issues. The law states that SES must be “high quality, research-based, and specifically designed to increase student academic achievement” (Title 1, Section 116 (e) (12) ( C )). In NCLBworld, every thing is judged on whether it improves student achievement; SES doesn’t get a pass on the accountability because it’s a “market-based reform.”

For much more good stuff, see the full post here.

For the scene from Casablanca that Nancy refers to in her post at edbizbuzz, click below.

Posted by John at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Former Education Secretary and K12 Inc. CEO William Bennett was among the insiders who sold shares of stock in K12 during its recent IPO, according to documents* filed with the SEC. 

Bennett, you'll recall, officially parted ways with K12 in 2005 after he made remarks about abortion and African Americans on his radio show.

I'm far from expert at reading SEC filings, but Bennett Family Investment Limited Partnership appears to have sold roughly $4 million (some 200,000 shares sold at ~$!8-$25?) in K12 stock and still holds about four times that much.

K12 made a big deal about putting distance between Bennett and the company in an apparent effort to continue to sell its snake oil to serve communities with large numbers of African Americans.  But it appears that Bennett has maintained a multi-million-dollar stake in the company all along.

*Here's the prospectus.  It's long but searchable.

(Special message to Nady Samnang, who commented on an earlier post about this company: Next time you comment about K12, please let us know you're a former K12 employee. You told us you were "looking to invest in this company and looking at all insights."  But you told a Google chatfest you "used to work for this company about 3 or 4 years ago.  Nothing but great things about this company all over the board.")

Posted by John at 05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

AFT's Nancy Van Meter, guest-blogging Friday at Marc Dean Millot's edbizbuzz blog, wrote about K12, Inc.'s recent initial public offering, noting that it fell short of the company's expectations.

This week’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) by K12, the Herndon, VA-based operator of virtual charter schools, generated much less attention than the buzz surrounding Edison Schools’ much-heralded IPO nearly ten years ago. Edison’s pioneering IPO was greeted with predictions that innovative reforms, improved student achievement and economies of scale would follow the private sector expansion into operating public schools. By contrast, K12’s IPO received scant notice beyond newspaper business sections. AP reported that investors “embraced” K12’s offering while The Washington Post reported that K12’s shares rose 36%. However, the offering raised only about 63% of the $172.5 million sought by the company, according to their prospectus filed this summer.

For a K12 skeptic like me, this suggests the company offers not only a poor basis for school improvement but also a dubious business model.  And, apparently, I wasn't the only one not calling my broker about K12's IPO.

UPDATE:  I should've made it clear that I've taken just an excerpt from Nancy's edbizbuzz piece.  The full piece, include an important reminder of Edison's history, is here.

UPDATE II: The Columbus (Ohio) Education Association blog thinks locally about the K12 IPO, noting that, while the Ohio version of K12, Inc. pays it teachers an average of $32,341, there is, "[n]o word on whether or not the company will share the estimated $108 million from the IPO with non-unionized Ohio teachers."

Posted by John at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)