Senator Andy Berke (D-Chattanooga) speaks at a town hall meeting in Chattanooga, Tenn., in this file photo.NASHVILLE — The political equivalent of a school-yard brawl has broken out between one of the nation’s largest for-profit providers of online learning programs, K12 Inc., and a state legislator from Chattanooga who is proving to be one of the company’s toughest Tennessee critics.
In an Aug. 28 column published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Sen. Andy Berke, D-Chattanooga, labeled the Virtual Public Schools Act as “possibly [the] most destructive” bill to pass the Republican-controlled General Assembly this year.
The new law’s passage, Berke charged, was aided by K12’s lobbyists and “funnels thousands of Tennessee public education dollars to a convicted felon, high-profile Washington figures and millionaire executives who live around the world.”
Calling K12 “partly the brainchild of Michael Milken, a convicted felon who served time in prison for his role in the 1980s as the ‘junk-bond king,'” Berke said Tennessee taxpayers “are now on the hook for K12 executives’ salaries.”
“What K12 hasn’t proved is that it can help your child learn,” Berke contended.