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Questions about virtual schools’ effectiveness

November 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Sunday’s newspaper featured a story about full-time public virtual schools, a new model of education that’s growing fast even though critics say there’s scant evidence that it is an effective way to teach kids.

The story focused on Herndon-based K12 Inc., the nation’s largest operator of virtual schools. Its schools (which educate about 95,000 students in 29 states and the District) tend to have lower state test scores and graduation rates than brick and mortar schools.

Company officials say the low numbers don’t accurately reflect the success of their approach. Many of their students struggled in traditional schools, K12 executives say, and were drawn to virtual schooling as a last resort.

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Kent schools named Washington State Innovative Schools

November 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Kent Phoenix Academy is comprised of four small schools:

  • Kent Gateway – Students in grades 9-10 work with the same core group of teachers in both grades focusing on increasing academic and social skills.
  • Kent Performance Learning Center – This program for credit deficient students in grades 11–12 blends digital and project-based learning with community mentors and partnerships.Kent Success – Operating later in the day, this program offers credit deficient students an onsite, self-paced and computer-based education with the support of highly qualified staff.
  • Kent Virtual High School – A self-paced, rigorous set of courses that are approved by OSPI and the NCAA. Students have the ability to learn at any time from any location.

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Report details problems with full-time virtual schools

October 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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.

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Study raises questions about virtual schools

October 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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.

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Excellence for All–Getting Past the Minimum-Standards Mentality

October 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In the past decade, philanthropists, researchers, and education innovators have also kept a laser-like focus on serving the least proficient students and improving the worst schools. The best-known charter-school brands, for instance–ventures such as KIPP Academies, Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, and YES Prep–are unapologetically committed to gap-closing.

These schools are terrific, but their recipes aren’t designed for proficient, independent learners. For those students, alternative forms of innovation might be more valuable: for example, online tutoring geared to mastery of advanced subjects, computer-assisted instruction for second-language learning, or distance learning that makes it cheaper and easier to offer high-quality Advanced Placement courses, even in schools where there are only a few interested students (a terrific example is Florida Virtual School, which has served hundreds of thousands since its launch in 1997). The handful of innovators and charter operators already seeking to serve proficient students are often mocked for catering to “students who don’t need any more help,” and have difficulty winning the support of funders and federal agencies. The consequence is that the most interesting innovation in this area is happening outside of our public system–through the efforts of such profit-seeking ventures as the language program Rosetta Stone, the online tutoring outfit Tutor.com, and the nascent private-school chain Avenues: The World School.

Those who argue for reform that’s about overall excellence and improving the opportunities for all students have been tarred in recent years as anti-reform or racist. But laudable efforts to help our least fortunate students need not come at the expense of the rest. We can do much better by all our children–and the first step is escaping the pinched confines of the achievement-gap mentality.

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McDonnell to focus on education in 2012

October 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Education will be a focal point for Gov. Bob McDonnell’s administration in 2012 and that could mean opening the door for a school voucher-like program.

During his monthly radio appearance on WNIS, McDonnnell said Tuesday his administration would continue to look at options for Virginia students and parents outside of the public school system.

“That’s why we’ve been bullish about having charter schools and college lab schools and virtual schools,” McDonnell said. “I’m strongly supportive of tuition tax credit scholarships to be able to give young people opportunities to go to other schools.”

McDonnell’s statements provide a glimpse into the Republican governor’s agenda if the GOP can win back the state senate in the November elections. Democrats now hold a 22-18 majority in that chamber and Republicans can gain control by netting just two seats.

Republicans already carry a strong majority in the House of Delegates.

Earlier this year, Democrats blocked a bill giving tax credits to companies that provided scholarships for low-income students to attend private schools. McDonnell favored the approach and admitted Tuesday a more traditional voucher system — giving public dollars to students for tuition to attend private and parochial schools — may not be constitutional in Virginia.

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Education Savings Accounts: A Promising Way Forward on School Choice

October 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Customization. One of the greatest benefits of Education Savings Accounts is the ability to customize a child’s education. Unlike a voucher, which enables parents to send their child to a private school of choice, the dollars in an ESA can be directed to multiple education providers simultaneously. A family could, for example, use part of the funding to pay for private-school tuition, some of the dollars for tutoring, and a portion of the money to defray the cost of textbooks. A family could use part of the money in an ESA to pay for virtual classes for their child and choose to roll over the remaining dollars to the next academic year. Policy analyst Dan Lips, who outlined the concept of ESAs in 2005, noted that the accounts “would give families greater flexibility to use education dollars to best suit their children’s needs, spurring innovation among education service providers, including virtual and online learning programs.”[12]

More than 1.5 million children took courses online in 2010, contributing to the school choice groundswell.[13] Virtual education is growing in popularity among families who want access to the best teachers and coursework available, regardless of zip code, and who want the educational flexibility and customization online learning provides. As Terry Moe and John Chubb write in their acclaimed book Liberating Learning:

[Technology] replaces the dead hand of monopoly with the dynamism of diversity and competition. It replaces the sameness of the traditional classroom model with a vast range of innovative learning alternatives. It replaces the “one-size-fits-all” approach to students with powerful new ways of customizing schooling to the needs and interests of each individual.[14]

Education savings accounts can facilitate the growth of online learning and create a dynamic education system that is prepared to adapt to new modes of delivering instruction in the future.

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Online teacher connects with her students

September 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As online programs have become more popular, states have been working to determine how best to regulate them. Schools operating in Washington must be approved by the Office of Superintendent for Public Instruction and teachers must pass the same requirements as any other teacher. Legislation passed this year cuts the per-student funding by 20 percent unless online teachers have at least one hour a week of virtual classes, termed “synchronous digital contact.”

Caldwell lets her students vote on which day they’ll be in session together.

Donning a headset, she opens a window into her virtual classroom.

Three-quarters of the screen is filled with either a slide or video from the lesson.

To the left is a list of which students are logged in and a chat window where students can ask her or other students questions publicly or privately. Caldwell can see everything they’re typing and sometimes has to remind distracted students that she can see their whole conversation.

However, Caldwell said, “It’s not for everybody.”

Students need to learn time management and how to stay on task.

The students who choose to go to online school do so for a wide variety of reasons: to continue learning at home, to escape the torment of bullying, to take care of an ailing family member, to give birth, to train for the Olympics or to take advanced placement courses not offered in their local school.

“We get a lot of students that mainstream schools can’t serve,” she said.

Caldwell’s own children attend regular schools, though her son takes math and German courses he couldn’t take at his school.

Those wary of online schools say students lose the benefit of interacting with a group and making a connection with a teacher.

But Caldwell says she gets to know her students better than she did when she taught a regular class.

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Few Tacoma students switching to different districts amid strike

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The cost of private schools could prove daunting for many parents. South Sound Christian Schools tuition ranges from $2,926 to $7,410 per child, depending on how many children in a family attend. New families receive a 25 percent discount.

“We can’t say we’re surprised that families are starting to look into possibilities,” Taylor said.

Another option for families is enrolling in an online program such as Tacoma Virtual Learning or Steilacoom-based Washington Virtual Academy. At this point in the strike, those programs say they have not seen a surge in interest.

Michael Farmer, director for Tacoma Virtual Learning, said enrollment is still open. But he pointed out his program is a hybrid with teachers from Tacoma Public Schools, who aren’t working, as well as Spokane Public Schools, who are.

“If (students) have a Tacoma teacher, they just kind of need to wait and do the best in the meantime,” Farmer said. “We’re just in a weird predicament because of our contract with Spokane.”

Celeste Johnson, executive assistant to the superintendent for Steilacoom Historical School District, said enrollment at its online school and traditional brick-and-mortar schools have not been affected by the strike.

“We actually haven’t received any phone calls at all,” Johnston said.

However, the district has fielded inquiries from a few college-age student teachers looking for classroom placements because they can’t currently student-teach in Tacoma.

“We’re more than willing to try to accommodate them,” said Jan McCrimmon, principal at Steilacoom High School. “At this point, it’s temporary, in hopes the strike will settle.”

Holly Norquist, executive director of ACTS South, a local home-school resource organization, said no one has tried to contact her group for assistance. But she said the strike could have an effect on families who have been weighing their options.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the last piece of the puzzle that nudges people toward home schooling,” Norquist said.

For the rest of the article, go to Few Tacoma students switching to different districts amid strike 

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Virtual Academy in full swing at Naselle

September 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

NASELLE — Veteran teacher Eileen Williams says, “The best thing about Columbia Virtual Academy (CVA) has been working with the caring families.” Teacher Cristina Hoyt adds, “I also enjoy talking to the students and seeing how they are progressing.”

They are talking about Naselle Grays River Valley School District’s new enterprise into helping families with Alternative Learning Experiences through schooling at home. There were already 192 students enrolled in CVA at Naselle Sept. 12. By the end of October Principal Jon Tienhaara expects between 350 and 400 students from throughout Washington in the program at Naselle.
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CVA statewide already has an enrollment of about 4,800 students in Alternative Learning and they expect over 5,000 students for the 2011-12 school year.

CVA has allowed Naselle School District to employ three more teachers, two more secretaries, and a part-time principal.

“Alternative Learning students had been funded by the state at the same rate as ‘brick and mortar’ students, but the state cut the funding to 80 percent to save over $46 million due to last year’s budget crunch,” said Tienharra.

The money goes into the Naselle District’s general fund, but every Alternative Learning student has their books, materials, online, and other educational expenses paid for through the program.

Teachers and secretaries help every student and their families write student course plans and then the students are monitored for their progress throughout the school year.

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