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A Virginia company leading a national movement to replace classrooms with computers - in which children as young as 5 can learn at home at taxpayer expense - is facing a backlash from critics who are questioning its funding, quality and oversight.

By almost every educational measure, the Agora Cyber Charter School is failing. Nearly 60 percent of its students are behind grade level in math. Nearly 50 percent trail in reading. A third do not graduate on time. And hundreds of children, from kindergartners to seniors, withdraw within months after they enroll. By Wall Street standards, though, Agora is a remarkable success that has helped enrich K12 Inc., the publicly traded company that manages the school. And the entire enterprise is paid for by taxpayers.

If a well-heeled neighborhood of Los Angeles wanted better police protection, would it be OK for the residents to donate money to their local police station so it could assign an extra patrol car to their streets? Most people would rightly say no. Law enforcement is a public service; taxpayers support it for the safety of all, to be deployed as needed to provide the best protection for the city. Residents might hire a private security guard for their neighborhood, but they cannot reshape public allocations of resources to benefit themselves through private donations. So is it all right, then, for parents to lavish donations on one school, providing it with art and music classes, instructional aides and extra library hours, while a neighboring school in the same district might have none of those?

...what makes us a society is a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most clearly in public institutions - public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.  Public institutions are supported by all of us as taxpayers, and they are available to all. If the tax system is progressive, those of us who better off (and who, presumably, have benefitted from many of these same public institutions) help pay for everyone else.  "Privatiize" means pay-for-it-yourself. In an economy whose wealth and income are more concentrated than any time in 90 years, the practical consequences is availability to fewer and fewer. The story of our time is a decline of the public good. 

Clearly, Cuomo has an agenda here. What that is, who knows, but it is not the betterment of public education in New York. His continual bashing of those who are the front-line troops of education is having an enormously corrosive effect. It is richly ironic when he called himself the lobbyist for students during his budget message, because he is anything but. Or for their parents, either. A one-size-fits-all teacher evaluation plan, a la Cuomo, will be one more unfunded state mandate for taxpayers, and the destruction of a key foundation brick for successful education: local control.

It's time to put the entire issue of rankings in proper perspective. They distort educational quality, leading taxpayers to make flawed judgments about how young people are educated. This plays right into the hands of privateers who want to undermine confidence in public schools.

By almost every educational measure, the Agora Cyber Charter School is failing. Nearly 60 percent of its students are behind grade level in math. Nearly 50 percent trail in reading. A third do not graduate on time. And hundreds of children, from kindergartners to seniors, withdraw within months after they enroll. By Wall Street standards, though, Agora is a remarkable success that has helped enrich K12 Inc., the publicly traded company that manages the school. And the entire enterprise is paid for by taxpayers.

This report compares the pay, pension costs and retiree health benefits of teachers with those of similarly qualified private-sector workers. The study concludes that teachers receive total compensation 52% greater than fair market levels, which translates into a $120 billion annual "overcharge" to taxpayers. Built on a series of faulty analyses, this study misrepresents total teacher compensation in fundamental ways. First, teachers' 12% lower pay is dismissed as being appropriate for their lesser intelligence, although there is no foundation for such a claim. Total benefits are calculated as having a monetary value of 100.8% of pay, while the Department of Labor disagrees, giving a figure of 32.8%-a figure almost identical to that of people employed in the private sector. Pension costs are valued at 32%, but the real number is closer to 8.4%. The shorter work year is said to represent 28.8% additional compensation but the real work year is only 12% shorter. Teachers' job stability is said to be worth 8.6%, although the case for such a claim is not sustained. In sum, this report is based on an aggregation of such spurious claims. The actual salary and benefits for teachers show they are in fact undercompensated by 19%.

An epic battle is shaping up that will determine the course of education in this country for years to come, and Pennsylvania is one of the fronts on which this battle is being waged. After rejecting voucher legislation in last year's legislative session, the Pennsylvania Senate at the urging of Gov. Tom Corbett, passed by a 27-22 vote a landmark school bill reflecting much of the governor's education agenda of taxpayer-funded vouchers, expansion of charter schools and a corresponding expansion of a school tax credit program.

"A new report details their excesses -- including an average CEO salary of $7.3 million."

A number of charter schools have moved to block the youngest students from enrolling in kindergarten even though they're eligible to attend under city rules - a policy that's backed by the city's Department of Education. Despite city rules that say any child who turns 5 by Dec. 31 of a given year is eligible to enroll in public school, charter authorizers - including the DOE - have allowed some schools to quietly push up their cutoff entry date to as early as Aug. 31. The move leaves the youngest batch of 5-year-olds - who education experts say often struggle the most academically - to either sit out a year or attend traditional district schools, even though charter schools are fully taxpayer-funded.

As the debate rages on I suggest that teachers ask themselves one simple question: Should my professional work be reduced to a number that is public and thus will affect my relationship with my community, students and their families? If the answer to that question is "no," then let your elected representatives know that you are a taxpayer and a voter, as well as a teacher. Educators must not "Race to the Top" of a hill only to find we are lemmings going over a cliff, with our public schools and our students falling behind us.

This report highlights the perceptions of parents, whose opinions are rarely sought and whose voices tend to be lost in decisions about how assessments are developed, administered and used. Parents are key consumers of assessment information-and, as taxpayers, they pay for assessments. Classroom teachers and district administrators have the most practical and personal experience with the day-to-day impact of assessments and accountability. Their perceptions matter.

"The 2013 Attack on Teachers included the vicious slow impoverishment of elderly retired teachers. By attacking the earned delayed compensation (pensions) of active and retired teachers, the corporate led war against public education hits a terrorist level of ruthlessness. Who wishes to teach if they are assured of having their paychecks cut and plundered by corporate controlled legislators when they become old? Yes, this is The Shock Doctrine applied to teachers in state after state. Teachers, students, parents, taxpayers and the future of America are victims on the sacrificial altar of Insane Profit."

"Although Teach For America began twenty years ago as a well-intentioned band-aid, it has morphed into what is essentially a jobs program for the privileged, funded by taxpayers and wealthy individuals."

"New Jersey's Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf, while testifying before the State Senate Budget Committee on Monday, May 9, 2011, told Senator Barbara Buono that the New Jersey electorate should not have the opportunity to vote for Charter Schools or the monetary appropriations that support them. Senator Buono remarked that, given that charter schools are funded with public dollars, the decision to provide such funding should be made by taxpayers."

Despite the lack of popular and legislative support for vouchers in New Jersey, the so-called Opportunity Scholarship Act (OSA) just won't go away. Strong pushback against vouchers last winter from public school parents and advocates provided encouragement for the many legislators who do not support the bill. Deep opposition, coupled with polls clearly showing a majority of NJ residents oppose vouchers and the uproar over spending taxpayer money on private and religious schools, has stopped the OSA in its tracks.

For too many years, tenure was granted to teachers almost automatically. Although critics charged that this practice undermined taxpayer confidence about the quality of education in public schools, their complaint never went anywhere. But things are finally changing.

Over the past several months, there has been much discussion and controversy surrounding the passage of a millionaire's tax in New Jersey. There has also been much talk from our governor about dismantling the public school system by creating private, for-profit, charter schools that will be managed by business people, but will be funded by taxpayer dollars.