K12 Inc.'s Public Status and Growth Attract Scrutiny

Ronald J. Packard, center, the chief executive of K12 Inc., and his son Chase celebrate the company’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 2007, along with John F. Baule, the chief operating officer of K12.

—Business Wire-File

Virtual ed. company faces critical press and a recent lawsuit

By Jason Tomassini

In a scant few months, K12 Inc. and its fluctuating performance on Wall Street are proving that the combination of being a publicly traded company and operating in the school marketplace can lead to heightened levels of scrutiny in a growing but controversial sector of education.

On Dec. 12, the common stock price for the company, the nation's largest for-profit operator of online K-12 schools, sat healthily at $28.79 per share, a dip from highs of $39.37 earlier in the year but a $10 increase from two years before.

The following day, The New York Times published a front-page article casting K12 Inc. as the center of a broken for-profit online school movement. K12, the newspaper said, yielded big profits despite data suggesting its students were...