I try to make sense of what’s going on in education, and I can generally find a good explanation for current trends, or at least tell myself I’ve found a good explanation. But for the life of me, I don’t understand why virtual schools, where kids sit at home and get their educations from a computer, are as popular as they are.
According to a 2017 study by National Education Policy Center, 279,000 students attend virtual schools in 34 states. To put that number in perspective, Arizona has about a million K-12 students, so the national virtual school enrollment is less than a third of Arizona’s school-aged population. It’s less than half a percent of all public school students in the country. But still, 279,000 is a lot of students sitting at home in front of a lot of computers. I don’t understand why the number is that high.
It’s true, for some students, virtual schools make a lot of sense.
Some students are involved in activities that take up large amounts of time, like intensive training or work in sports, music or drama. It’s great for them to be able to fit their educations into their schedules. When I taught in the Portland area, I had a few high school students who were training for olympic-level skiing and spent months every year on Mt. Hood. I would send lesson plans with them and tutors would help them out, but they probably would have been better off with a good online curriculum.
Some parents who home school their children for religious or other reasons like the idea of using the set curriculum provided by virtual schools rather than being responsible for finding or creating the curriculum, then teaching it to their kids.
Some students have illnesses which keep them at home. Others have been bullied mercilessly at school, and getting their educations at home is a way of avoiding further emotional trauma.
For students like these who are motivated enough to follow through on their work without the physical presence of a teacher, or have enough parental pressure to keep them motivated, virtual education can work well. But they make up a relatively small group. There’s no way they’re a large percentage of the 279,000 virtual school students.
One more category of student might think a virtual school makes sense for them, though it rarely works out well. It’s the high school juniors and seniors who have either dropped out or see no reasonable way to graduate from their brick-and-mortar schools. For them, virtual schools are a last resort, a last chance to earn a high school diploma.
The problem for last-resort students is, if they weren’t successful sitting in a classroom under the watchful eye of their teachers, there’s not much chance they’re going to muster the will to log in daily and do the assigned work at home.
The motivation problem goes beyond the juniors and seniors who are potential high school dropouts. The fact is, lots of virtual schools get D and F state grades because their students don’t learn much. Some have been so unsuccessful for so long, they’ve been shut down by state order.
That should be no surprise. It’s tough for anyone, let alone K-12 students, to keep their minds focused on daily lessons sent to them via computer, or learn difficult material with minimal guidance from a teacher they’ve never met and rarely connect with. Since the teachers usually have 50 or more students to look after, they don’t have much time to offer individual attention even if they want to. Unless students have an attentive parent keeping them on task, chances are they’ll slip and slide through the course work, if they bother to do it at all.
Virtual schools are well aware of the problem. They often tell their teachers to hold onto students as long as they can even if they don’t log in regularly, even if they don’t turn in assignments. If the schools can keep students on the books for a hundred days, they collect the per-student money from the state. After that, they can cut their non-students loose.
Between students who are dropped for lack of work and others who leave on their own, virtual schools lose a third of their students every year. That’s their “churn rate.” So every year, the schools have to replace a third of their students just to stay even. That’s gotta be tough.
That’s why virtual schools spend so much money and effort advertising and recruiting new students. They actively pursue anyone regardless of that student’s chances of success, convincing parents to enroll their kids with promises the schools know they can’t deliver.
Maybe the answer to the question, “Why are virtual schools so popular?” is they really aren’t all that popular. They’ve just got a great sales pitch, and parents who don’t know much about the schools and want their children to be successful are easy marks. A third of them will leave at the end of the year, but the schools just fire up their sales pitches and go after a new batch of students.
This article appears in Aug 2-8, 2018.
There are several good reasons why parents should consider other means of education for their children other then the public school system. The most popular reason for parents to send their children to public school is they want them to socialize with others kids. The parent must first of all consider the fact that children bring to school what they are taught at home. I’m some cases the children have absolutely no guidance, discipline is not a priority. Sometimes the only education they receive at home is found in their television set. Parents are just too busy in this modern age to do their job. So they have no other alternative then to allow the public school system to do it for them. However, there are other alternatives for parents who are concerned about the type of education their children are being fed. There are schools in the area that still believe in morality , American history, love for our country , respect for the rule of law. This schools will most likely have children whose parents value the importance of whom their children interact with and the type of education their receiving.
Here are some reasons for your consideration
1. School model of 7 hours per day of sitting is not developmentally appropriate to many children, especially boys
2. School model of teaching via authority/punishment/reward model is not great for many (really any) children.
3. Social/discipline problems found at most schools not good for many children
4. Secular model not preferred for religious families
Virtual schools provide an alternative for lower income parents who can’t afford private school and want more parental control over their children’s development and can’t find it in the public school system.
Public schools (brick and mortar) are going the way of the dinosaur. And it is so exciting to watch. The leaders of tomorrow will possess many learned traits as opposed to regurgitating the personal ideology of a teacher with inherent biases.
The will move the country towards a smarter self sustaining 22nd century.
Make America Smart Again. “MASA”
Since I have a son who was enrolled in a virtual school for a year, I feel I have something to say. My son was bullied throughout elementary school, we changed to a different Jr. High than the one the elementary schools kids attended. Bullied even more ( they are everywhere. My son has ADD and liked to be friends with the girls more. He grew up with sisters. Of course every boy called him “gay”
which he was and is not) At the Jr High A terrible teacher (about to retire) who totally dismissed his pleas for help when an older boy would torment him. It was during
that “no tolerence” time so when he did something stupid to try and get attention to stop the bullying, (wrote a threatening letter and put it in his own locker) they were going to call the police on him!
I had enough of the school and enrolled him in a virtual school. It was the only thing I could do to keep him safe. I couldn’t afford a private school (he had gone for K-1) and there were few physical charter schools at that time.
The next year was High school. He limped through, and finely was able to attend for one year, and graduate from the districts alternative high school. Thank God for them. He would not have graduated except for the encouragement and attention he received.
It was the 3rd time he had taken Algebra 1, and he told me it was the first time a teacher had explained it to him where it made sense.
There did all the work at the school on computer/ classroom. No homework which was always his downfall.
So I encourage support for Charter, Virtual, Private, Alternative Public, Regular Public schools,
You know your child. If they are having trouble don’t assume that it has to continue that way. Explore your options and what is best for him/her.
I have 2 daughters that did just fine in Public school. They were high achivers. But there were times I had to get in there and fight for some issues.
I have another child that was diagnosed late with a developmental disability, another really depressing story about public schools…but anyway this was about virtual schools.
A virtual school would not have worked for me when I attended H.S., because my main interests were basketball and girls. I attend class because it was required, not because I was particularly interested in the subject matter, and in most courses, the teacher was of little consequence, except to keep order in the classroom. Of course in those days there was no virtual school, because there were no computers. The printing press had been invented so we did have books. Wowee.
Gilbert residents are taking one last stab at saving their public schools.
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2018/08/13/educate-gilbert-says-no-politics-in-our-schools/
This could be a cure for the fraud we call TUSD. Give it back to the parents and the citizens of the community and stop using it for personal political gain.