Craig Barrett, BASIS and K12 Inc.

by David Safier

I wrote a column appearing in today's Explorer discussing a topic I've posted about often: Craig Barrett's regular bragging about BASIS schools, where he is president and chairman, and his omission of any mention that he sits on the Board of Directors of K12 Inc.

Barrett swells with pride when he talks of his association with BASIS, which is successful with students who guarantee a high level of success: the brightest and most motivated. But he appears to be less proud of his relationship with the nation's largest provider of online education. Maybe it's because its Arizona school, Arizona Virtual Academy, attempts to educate a cross section of students and is on academic probation with the state, just a few bad test results away from having its charter revoked.

An excerpt from the column:

According to ex-Intel CEO Craig Barrett, 90 percent of our children are “stuck” in terrible schools.

“Only 10 percent of the kids in Arizona are in charter schools,” Barrett said during a television news interview. “Ninety percent are stuck in the public school system.”

Stuck in the public school system? Really? The Arizona Department of Education apparently doesn’t agree. It gave its highest “A” rating to Amphi’s Ironwood Ridge High, to name one of 35 “A” rated traditional public schools in our area. No charter school is rated higher. That doesn’t sound like “stuck” to me.

Two other Amphi schools also earned an “A” rating.  So did three schools in Flowing Wells, three in Marana, six in Catalina Foothills, eight in Tucson Unified and 12 in Vail. I wouldn’t say students attending those schools, or other highly-rated schools in the area, are “stuck.”

[snip]

Even though Barrett thinks the schools are doing a lousy job, he doesn’t want to spend one more dime on education. He says it doesn’t matter that we spend less per student than any other state in the nation. What we need, he says, is more charter schools.