"Grades, grades, grades…is that what we should be focusing on?" asks Randy Best, founder and board chairman of Voyager Expanded Learning. Mr. Best's company, which operates an after school program in some fifty area schools, bills itself as an innovative, educational, for-profit venture. Well, one out of three ain't bad.
      Voyager's curriculum is described as "experiential," meaning that children learn by doing things such as drawing maps, modeling hot-air balloons, and taking nature walks. Parents of Plano Independent School District students might find these things familiar. They're all part of the district's much-ballyhooed integrated curriculum, which, in turn, incorporates many of the most wide-spread curriculum fads. The approach is hardly innovative, and even its advocates shy away from trying to demonstrate its success with any direct evidence. After all, direct evidence generally includes "grades, grades, grades."
      Another Voyager learning activity is starting a small business, and developing a budget. They ought to use Voyager's own budget as a learning tool. If there is anything innovative about the program, that's where it can be found.
      Voyager's presence in public school classrooms is largely underwritten by the host district. With all the blather Voyager offers about the program's benefits to participants, it is the non-participating taxpayers who need to know what they're getting for their money. The short answer is nothing. Voyager's "in-kind contributions" consist of training and paying their own employees, and storing their equipment (temporarily) in their host schools.
      In fact, Voyager contends that the added expertise that PISD teachers will attain by working part-time for Voyager imparts $10,000 in added value to each of their classes. They have further determined that the entire allowance for Voyager class supplies is really an in-kind contribution, since some supplies may be left over for regular classes to use.
      Perhaps most questionable, and least laughable, is Voyager's claim that "scholarships" granted by the non-profit Voyager Foundation, to be used exclusively for Voyager tuition, should be credited as contributions to the district. In fact, what the scholarship program really amounts to is a funnel, through which contributions to Voyager's non-profit foundation are pumped directly into their profit-making side.
      Yet Superintendent Doug Otto has already approved waiving all facility costs, in exchange for these questionable "contributions," and in direct violation of the duly adopted directive of our elected Board of Trustees.
      With all facility costs thus paid by taxpayers, participants in the program pay only $45 a week. Maximum weekly revenue is $1,125 per class, of which the teacher is paid $240. That leaves $885 to cover a teaching assistant, computers, supplies, administration, worker's comp, payroll tax and training. Whatever remains is used to lure opportunistic Superintendents, like Chad Woolery and Vernon Johnson, away from their six-figure public salaries, so they can lend credibility to Voyager with their resumés. It's no wonder Voyager has yet to show a profit.
      Voyager's plan is long-term. Having convinced gullible school districts to under-write their program's development phase, Voyager intends to return to these districts in a few years and bill them directly to incorporate the program during the regular school day. Not coincidentally, Mr. Best foresees his company turning a profit at about the same time.
      But who is using whom? One reason districts such as Plano may be so eager to welcome Voyager is that they see it as a useful tool to expand Outcome Based Education, also called Mastery Learning.
      For those unfamiliar with it, Mastery Learning emphasizes process (critical thinking) over content (actually knowing things.) Facilitators replace teachers, lifelong learners replace graduates, and self-esteem replaces "grades, grades, grades."
      Close observers of the PISD recall that administrators proposed in March of this year to replace final examinations in Middle School science and social studies classes with free-form, subjective evaluations called "authentic assessments." The initiative was narrowly averted, but will certainly re-surface when the district finds new allies to support such lunacy.
      And what better allies could there be than parents? Clearly, parents who choose Voyager's brand of babysitting because it was sold to them as education will find it difficult to object when their district proposes to make the same investment. That's bad news for public schools, because Voyager is bound not by an objective standard of academic achievement, but by a child's standard of satisfying entertainment.
      Voyager's "entrepreneurs" will easily meet that standard, building a base for future profits through insider connections, rent-free classrooms, and exemption from legitimate regulation. They offer nothing of value in return, but stand to gain a great deal for themselves. As businessmen, their wile is perhaps unequaled. As educators, they do not make the grade.