Online K-12 Schooling in the U.S.
Study raises questions about virtual schools
Over just the past decade, online learning at the K-12 level has grown from a novelty to a movement. Often using the authority and mechanism of state charters, and in league with home schoolers and other allies, private companies and some state entities are now providing full-time online schooling to a rapidly increasing number of students in the U.S. Yet little or no research is available on the outcomes of such full-time virtual schooling. The rapid growth of virtual schooling raises several immediate, critical questions for legislators regarding matters such as cost, funding, and quality. This policy brief offers recommendations in these and other areas, and the accompanying legal brief offers legislative language to implement the recommendations
The fully study is downloadable at the link listed above.
The study webpage listed above points to Washington Post news coverage links (both listed below)
By Lyndsey Layton,
As an increasing number of cash-strapped states turn to virtual schools — where computers replace classmates and students learn via the Internet — a new study is raising questions about their quality and oversight.
In research to be released Tuesday, scholars Kevin G. Welner and Gene V. Glass at the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado assert that full-time virtual schools are largely unregulated.
Once used by home-schoolers, child actors and others in need of a flexible way to learn outside a classroom, virtual schools have grown in popularity in the past several years. Cyber-schools generally operate as charters, outside the traditional system but funded with taxpayer dollars.
Nationwide, more than 200,000 students are enrolled in full-time virtual school programs, in which students have no face-to-face contact with teachers. And virtual schools are the fastest growing alternative to traditional public schools, the study found.
Supporters say they allow students to learn at their own pace and provide access to teachers and subjects that may not be available at traditional schools. Critics say they siphon resources and deprive students of socialization.
Their spread comes despite a lack of any data about their impact on children from kindergarten through high school, the researchers found. “We’re going whole hog into something that we don’t have research on,” Welner said.
Many supporters trumpet a 2009 analysis by the U.S. Education Department, which looked at published studies and concluded that online students performed “modestly better,” on average, than those getting face-to-face instruction. But the federal report compared traditional students with those who received a “hybrid” education combining online courses and face-to-face instruction, Welner and Glass said.
The lack of data on full-time virtual education far outstrips other areas of American education, Welner said in a recent interview: “Without evidentiary support, I would not say, ‘Try this out.’ You’re basically becoming a guinea pig.”
Although often embraced by policymakers as less expensive than brick-and-mortar schools, virtual schools often receive the same per-pupil funding from governments despite having a much higher student-to-teacher ratio and no costs for transportation or classrooms, the researchers said.
“Private operators are gaining access to large streams of public revenue, but the public is not getting full information on the actual costs of these programs, so it’s not clear if taxpayer money is being used properly,” Glass said.
Five for-profit companies account for most full-time virtual schools: K12, Educational Options, Apex Learning, Plato: A+LS and Connections Academy.
Welner and Glass’s suggestions include:
●Authentication: Because it’s possible for others to complete students’ work or take tests, schools should take measures to confirm identity, such as using a trusted organization to administer in-person exams.
●Accreditation: Virtual schools should be accredited by independent firms or agencies.
●Audits: States should conduct financial audits of the firms that run virtual schools to determine actual costs and whether the per-pupil payment is reasonable
Report details problems with full-time virtual schools
With millions of public high school students taking at least one course online, a new report says that virtual schools are too often subject to minimal oversight and that there is no-high quality research showing that cyber education is an acceptable full-time replacement for traditional classrooms.
Virtual education is expanding. Forty states now operate or have authorized virtual classes for public K-12 students, and a growing number of states are mandating that public school students take at least one online course, including Florida. In 27 states, the report says, full-time “cyber schools” are now operating, including scores of virtual charter schools. More than 200,000 students are enrolled in full-time virtual schools, and more than 30 percent of the country’s 16 million high school students have been enrolled in at least one online course.
Virtual schools will clearly be taking a larger role in public education, and it is important that state and federal governments ensure that they are high-quality.
The report, called “Online K-12 Schooling in the U.S.: Uncertain Private Ventures in Need of Public Regulation” and released by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, lists steps needed to improve online education that include:
*There should be financial audits of these schools to figure out how much it cost to educate each student so states can reimburse them without being ripped off. Some privately run virtual schools, the report said, ask states to reimburse them for tuition at the same per-pupil funding rate as traditional schools even though they don’t have the same building and transportation costs as well as different student-teacher ratios.
*Because many schools have no way of knowing for sure who is doing the student’s work when a student is taking a course online, arrangements should be made so that students have to take exams in person, administered by a trusted organization. A few virtual schools now do this.
*Traditional accrediting agencies as well as departments of education in the states and the federal government should create a rigorous accreditation process for all cyber schools.
Of course it would have been smarter if state and federal governments had thought about this before virtual education started to explode, butrushing without much thought seems to be a hallmark of school reform these days. There are some high-quality cyber schools so there are models out there with practices that can be replicated.
Five private companies dominate the field, providing the large majority of content and services that are sold to full-time virtual schools that enroll public school students, the report says. They are K12 Inc., Education Options Inc., Apex Learning, Plato: A+LS, and Connections Education (acquired by Pearson in September 2011).
Professor Kevin G. Welner, a co-author of the report and director of the National Education Policy Center, said in a release, “There’s zero high-quality research evidence that full-time virtual schooling at the K-12 level is an adequate replacement for traditional face-to-face teaching and learning.”
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