Those few who DO matriculate.

It’s all about the money. It always is.

As for the experimentation in K-12, the interesting stuff isn’t happening in the for-profit sector for the most part. There’s some cool cooperatives that are offering what are basically independent studies opportunities for students by matching faculties with students even if they aren’t on the same campus. Thus if my Environmental History elective doesn’t fill, in the future I might be able to open it up to students at other independent schools who could participate virtually for parts of it, and work independently for other parts. More work for me (sort of), but better than taking a pay cut when I’m down a course.

There’s some other stuff in the pipeline I’ve only heard rumors about so far, but if it works it will be good. What it won’t be is cheap.

“PARENTS GET CONSTANT STREAM OF E-MAILS. FEEL MORE ‘INVESTED.’ INDICTED SPAM BOSS SAYS ‘Seee?!?”

How does four days a week in the parking lot, two days a week in the classroom, and three days a week at home add up? Maybe some unauthorized drag racing or truck pulls going on?

At Hoosier, four days a week, the queue of small sedans, SUVs, and trucks waiting to drop off students forms a wide circle around the parking lot. The academy leases space in the unused wing of a Catholic school on the city’s south side. Under its “blended” model, children go to their classrooms two days a week for face-to-face instruction. Three days a week, they work at home with a parent or other adult while connected electronically to the high-tech school. Teachers and coaches meet at least once a month to review each child’s progress. “Everybody is on the same page all the time,” Whitehead says.

Coordination with parents is a given. “It took me a whole school year to see he wasn’t keeping up” in public school, says Jamie Leffel of her second-grader. Frustrated, she too moved him to Hoosier. What he got there highlights where the public schools have gone wrong. Hoosier students receive a passport to the digital age: Everyone who qualifies for a free or reduced-price lunch is eligible for a free desktop computer and printer, as well as an Internet stipend. Pupils still need to take government-mandated standardized tests, but the academy’s computer-driven metrics allow teachers and parents to track how well the kids are doing in real time. (They record the grade for every assignment, confirm that work is completed on time, and inform teachers that students need special attention when they can’t exceed 80 percent performance after the first few attempts.) It’s a high-tech education for a high-tech world. Parents get a constant stream of e-mails and, therefore, feel more invested. With Hoosier’s approach, “the partnership with the parent and teacher becomes crucial,” says Melissa DeWitt, the academic director of Hoosier Academies, the parent company based in Indianapolis.

I guess what public schools “got wrong” is the idea that every child is entitled to a quality, free public education, whether or not she has a parent who can devote three days a week tutoring her! What would our public schools look like with THAT kind of parental investment and civic engagement? I guess it’s just easier to pi$$ on the public schools for trying to work with everyone, rather than discriminating against those whose parents don’t have the requisite skills and/or must work for pay all week long.

o.k., I guess if a healthy percentage of your admits starting being tutored at three by unemployed Ph.Ds in order to get into the right pre-school in order to get into the right K-12 prep school in order to get into the right Ivy, they can sort of grade each other. (Although I’d watch out for the sharp elbows to be flying in the lanes and the sticks to be high in the corners). By the time this generation gets old enough to need them, the way things look, they’ll be putting stents into each others’ arteries, so they might as well get started now. But will these peer-graders also be angling for the best desks in the t.a. lounge?

Or wait, maybe these peer graders will unknowingly be grading “product” sent over by Pearson that has been assigned out here in the provinces. That would put a different twist on the concept of an academic sweat-shop!