What are non-traditional educational centers?
Non-traditional educational centers are places that help educate students who are being homeschooled or students who failed a class and need assistance getting course credits. The centers must meet guidelines set by the Georgia Accrediting Commission (GAC) in order to operate. The requirements include operating classses 180 days a year, offering national exams such as the SAT and they hold classes at least 4 1/2 hours a day. The GAC inspects these centers each of their first three years to ensure its curriculum and staff meets its standards.
If TNT Academy were a public school or traditional private school, the punishment for Nancy Gordeuk's racial outburst during graduation would have likely been swift.
At commencement ceremonies May 8, the school founder scolded the audience for walking out and not listening to the valedictorian's speech. Her emotions rose until she finally said, "Look who's leaving. All the black people," causing more families and graduates to exit in disgust. It was all caught on video, which has been seen around the world.
But there is no superintendent to put Gordeuk on administrative leave. No education agency with authority to investigate the Stone Mountain school. And TNT's board of directors, an unnamed group that supposedly dismissed Gordeuk as principal Thursday, has yet to say how operations will change since she is the owner.
This is because TNT Academy isn’t really a school in the eyes of accreditation agencies and the state. It’s defined as a “non-traditional educational center,” a private company intended to offer tutoring, social activities and select courses to children being schooled at home.
Georgia has at least 140 educational centers recognized by accrediting agencies. Many are top-notch organizations, say parents and accreditors who've visited dozens of them. But they are subject to few state regulations and their quality varies, according to accrediting agencies. There's no way to know the standard of instruction each provides, yet students from the centers can compete with public and private school children for access to state scholarship funds, including the popular HOPE grant.
Students home-schooled in Georgia are required to take a nationally standardized test every three years, but they don’t have to report the results to the state. In fact, the state can’t say how many students are enrolled in these centers or in home school because it stopped taking count in 2013.And it’s impossible to know how much education centers receive in private school scholarships, fueled by tax credits, because the state Department of Revenue doesn’t collect the numbers.
Bob Boyd, who spent 30 years as an educator in Fulton County Schools and the last 17 accrediting independent study programs, said the quality of the school usually depends on the parents involved. Some leaders from higher-quality centers around the state bristled when news the TNT graduation video went viral, and fear it will cast them in a bad light as well.
“When I started with non-traditional programs I kind of felt like they were substandard, but over the years I’ve come to realize they’ve produced some good kids, some terrific education is going on in these facilities,” he said. “Here’s where some of problems come in: There is sometimes not a lot of oversight. In some situations, the people who direct the program own the school, sometime they actually own the building and facility.”
Boyd said all education center must have a board to be certified, but in some cases the board consists of the school's owner and a couple of family members. The accrediting agency does not require the schools submit a list of board members. In TNT's case, no board members are listed on the website, and Heidi Anderson, the chairwoman who issued an unsigned statement about Gordeuk's dismissal, describes herself on LinkedIn as an "extraordinary healer, master teacher and visionary."
Multiple calls and e-mails to Anderson and Gordeuk were not returned for comment.
These centers evolved out of the homeschool movement, and are places where parents can pay a fee to get access to curriculum, tutoring, and social activities without having to enroll in public schools or pay for a pricey private school. Many start by offering tutoring and grow bigger as they accept more students. Most of the centers are operated by churches or faith-based organizations.
Some students are aspiring athletes, so they need more flexible school schedules. Others have failed a class or two and need help catching up. Some, like TNT, target failing students and offer a pathway to a high school diploma.
Nationwide, states govern these centers and homeschool education differently, said Robert Kunzman, managing director for the International Center for Home Education Research at Indiana University. In some states public school systems act as the support center for home school students along with private centers. In others, home-schooled students enroll in "umbrella" organizations to simplify the homeschooling process. In some states there are little to no rules over what students learn.
With skepticism about public schools among someand concerns over frequent testing, the home-school movement is gaining momentum and states are loosening — not tightening — the rules, Kunzman said. Occasionally lawmakers will propose regulations after concerns are raised, but those almost never gain traction because home-school groups are particularly vocal and there isn’t enough momentum on the other side pushing for regulation, he said.
Kunzman believes states should require testing for basic literacy and numeracy and intervene where a child’s education is being neglected.
“There is certainly a balance to be struck between oversight and regulation and providing families freedom and flexibility to shape their child’s education in certain ways,” he said.
The standards for educational centers in Georgia are mostly set by accrediting agencies, the Georgia Accrediting Commission being one of the largest overseers. The agency doesn't police schools and reviews accreditation only after complaints or for renewals.
Phil Thomas, a consultant for the commission, visited TNT Academy in August. In three years, the center grew from about 30 students, where Gordeuk ran the academy from her basement, to about 100 students in a larger space. Students said they were charged about $200 a month to pick up assignments once a week and receive occasional instruction from Gordeuk.
Austin Bean, who graduated from TNT in 2012, credited Gordeuk with helping him and other family members graduate. She accepted him into TNT when no other facility would, and she spent extra time with him in the classroom.
“I give her a lot of credit for what she’s done,” said Bean, 20, who works as a loader at a manufacturing company.
Gordeuk wanted to make the academy a private school, but accreditation consultant Thomas said it needed more teachers certified to teach high school students. It had about five or six teachers, he said.
“I didn’t feel (Gordeuk) was quite ready because…you have to meet a different set of standards,” Thomas said.
State Rep. Brooks Coleman, who chairs the House education committee, said the committee will likely discuss TNT Academy. He and committee members may even visit TNT to see how it operates.
Paula Horne and Belinda Keenen cringed when they learned about the TNT Academy controversy. They run Vantage Point Education, another non-traditional education center, located in Duluth, which was singled out by accreditors as a high-performing model.
Vantage Point operates with about 85 students who study Advanced Placement courses and can learn French, Spanish or Japanese. The Vantage Point experience is much like attending college: students attend class a couple of times a week and do coursework on their own.
Students pay up to $90 a month for classes. The center has 14 teachers, some of whom they share with other non-traditional centers. Each course is accredited and the center maintains student transcripts and assists with college applications.
Horne and Keenen home school their children and started Vantage Point because they noticed there weren’t many places where high school students could study in a setting with a low teacher-student ratio that gave students flexibility to learn in ways that best fit their academic needs. The founders, who run the center on a meager budget, fear TNT may have a negative impact on their center and others.
“The recent events at TNT are unfortunate and are not an accurate representation of all NTECs,” Keenen said.
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