So the K12 supervisor, undaunted by ethics, simply took it upon herself to sign “Amy Capelle” to the document.

Another email went out to teachers, warning them to expect something similar. “So if you see your name next to a student that might not be yours it’s because you were qualified to teach that subject and we needed to put your name there.”

The state Legislature and the Florida Department of Education has forced local school districts to provide online classes. Every student must take at least one virtual course, Except it has never been quite clear whether Florida’s headlong plunge into cyber education was about the scholarly needs of students or the business interests of well-connected for-profit providers. Certainly, the test scores of virtual students haven’t been nearly as dandy as the corporate profit margins. And state officials, in their enthusiasm to outsource education, didn’t want to bother their new corporate friends with much oversight.

In January, the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, looking into “the rapid expansion” nationwide of online public education, released a report warning that “because the K12 virtual schooling sector is dominated by private corporations,” educators should be concerned about “the relationship that now must exist between these private businesses and government in the area of public education.”

The report warned about the “lack of accreditation agencies in the oversight of virtual schooling,” and the “potential of financial incentives to distort decision making.”

Nine months later, that warning looks like a prophecy.