Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/994766
CAVA teacher and CVEU President Brianna Carroll is based in Livermore. Photo: Scott Buschman " CVEU members are committed to making the changes needed so students have the best learning experience possible." — Brianna Carroll, CVEU president outstanding issue — teacher-student caseload — was finally resolved after a two-day state fact-finding hearing, and the ten- tative agreement was signed April 4. e historic contract made headlines in national news outlets, among them The Washington Post and The Atlantic, portending unionization efforts by other online charter teachers. The success of their organizing and first contract has dra- matically expanded CVEU 's membership. A pre-ratification recruitment drive (only union members were eligible to vote on the contract) has seen membership grow from 20 to 85 per- cent, by any measure a stunning increase. " We are so proud of the hard work and commitment our teachers made in ensuring that our core values on work status, caseloads and workload were recognized," says Carroll. "We now have a first contract that begins the process of fixing CAVA and ensuring the success of our students and teachers. "We believe that there is an important place in education for alternatives such as online learning. at is why CVEU members are committed to making the changes needed so students have the best learning experience possible." 38 cta.org Advocacy K12 and CAVA: A Profitable Business Model K 12 I N C . I S a publicly traded Virginia-based company launched in 2000 by former Gold- man Sachs banker Ron Packard and former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett using capital put up by Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and "junk bond king" Michael Milken. Other investors have included Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Using California's charter school law to find local authorizing public school districts, K12 set up its first CAVA schools in San Diego, Kern and Tuolumne counties in 2002. CAVA rapidly expanded to other counties and grew from an enrollment of several hundred stu- dents to over 15,000 at its peak. Each of the individual CAVA schools was opened under a charter authorized by a school district in the county where the school is based. Those authorizing districts, in turn, have received millions of dollars annually for "oversight," which usually means just a cur- sory review of CAVA budgets and, if pressed, an attempt to address or at least listen to public concerns. CAVA and other virtual schools have no classrooms and no physical campuses. Students log on at home from computers (loaned to families by the school) to receive course work, view lectures, and interact with instructors. There are opportunities for occa- sional online group work, but for the most part the process is designed for students to work on their own. Parents sign off on logs to verify that time requirements for subjects like PE have been met. Depending on subject and grade level, student caseloads can run into the hundreds for teachers. Despite the lack of physical classrooms and the related maintenance and other costs asso- ciated with brick-and-mortar campuses, CAVA receives the same level of taxpayer support for its students as other California schools. CAVA schools, although claiming to be independent entities, are deeply tied to K12 financially and administratively. CAVA con- tracts with K12 for software, curriculum and administrative support services. What this means is that roughly half of the hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding CAVA receives has left the state and gone to K12 and its investors.