The linked weblog simply quotes from this more objective news-story in the Willamette Weekly.

https://www.wweek.com/news/schools/2020/03/26/oregons-virtua...

Relevant quote: "Because online charter schools already have fully developed curricula that can serve idle students right away, parents of children who attend brick-and-mortar schools might be inclined to transfer their students to the virtual schools. That could have budget consequences for traditional schools because they are funded based on enrollment. If enrollment goes down, funding goes down as well."

Essentially they don't want competition, because their product sucks and they know it.

I guess their funding doesn’t scale? Someone break this down, how are education systems funded?

Per student in attendance (daily) for state base funds, and the same per school in locality. Most school funding is from local property taxes.

That’s the super rough answer - and no funding doesn’t scale, they don’t have the money. Schools will do almost anything to keep kids in attendance because that’s what their budget is determined on.

An important clarification that came out after the linked article:

"Earlier in the week, we had some misinformation come out that made it look like we had to close, and then we had formal guidance come out yesterday evening that said, 'no, we can continue to operate," Nicholaus Sutherland, ORVA's executive director, said. Although normal classes can resume, the virtual school has been told it won't be able to enroll any new students as of March 26.

https://www.kptv.com/news/some-oregon-schools-face-challenge...

That's still shitty, isn't it? Telling parents they can't get their kids a better education because of bureaucratic knee jerk defensive measures against competition?

Oh definitely. It’s just a little less bad then shutting down current students, which would make no sense at all (they’re already not in the brick-and-mortal system so there’s no funding moving).

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

But it is really hard to imagine that Oregon’s governor is this stupid.

So either there’s some political gains, or she simply just hates charter schools, their students, or the student’s parents.

You can't get elected governor in Oregon without the support of teachers unions. Thats the exact answer.

According to the original article, the governor's order did not state that virtual schools had to close. Rather the state superintendent interpreted the order to include virtual schools specifically so that the brick and mortar schools don't lose funding.

Selfishness > incompetence > evil

Portland doesn't flouridate its water it is far larger than Eugene.

Even though I'm baffled by this obvious case of throwing out the baby with the bath water, on the upside, the explanation is only kind of backwards. Protecting families from the cyber war torn online spaces with their fraudulence, leaks and other goings on is not entirely unreasonable outside of this context.

This isn't about protecting families. It's about protecting public schools and teachers unions from competition.

Adapt or die just doesn’t apply to really big government funded stuff. I’m a bleeding heart liberal and understand the undercurrent of current pushes for Medicare for all, but I also worry about this kind of shit. State schools don’t have to compete?

Anyone know how the funding works in Oregon? If the state closes the school, does that mean they don't need to pay for those days of instruction?

A lot of Online classes require students to come on to campus for proctored exams and lab time. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.