Going Virtual: How Will Virtual K-12 Education Look at Scale?
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.
By Michael R. Ford
May 10, 2020
Like so many parents, my spouse and I are attempting to navigate the sudden transition of our kids’ schooling from brick and mortar to a fully virtual learning environment. Our local public school district is doing its best to make content available, and the teachers have been amazing, but what we are seeing in Wisconsin and elsewhere is not truly virtual education. Districts are, with various degrees of expertise and resources, muddling through to summer break out of necessity. The current experience and potential for disruptions in the Fall has me pondering what we know about virtual education, and the extent to which it can be applied at scale.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there were 478 virtual schools in the United States as of 2014, comprising less than one half of a percent of the total number of public schools in the country. A disproportionately high percentage of virtual schools, 36 percent, are charter schools authorized by a school district or other approved entity. Many states have zero virtual schools. The bottom line is that virtual schools are an extreme outlier in the United States’ public education system. Even where the technological infrastructure to deliver course content exists, the knowledge barrier is huge.
Perhaps more troubling is the general underwhelming results of virtual schooling to date. A 2017 study of Ohio’s online education programs, for example, found that students attending virtual schools perform worse than their peers attending brick and mortar schools. My own work shows Wisconsin virtual schools have extremely high rates of student turnover, and middling impacts on students’ academic outcomes. Given what is known about the performance of virtual schools, it is easy to assume the lasting impact of a complete shift to online course delivery for K-12 students in the near future may not be pretty. But, there are still a lot of unknowns regarding widespread virtual schooling.
The evidence we do have comes from a very small segment of the public school population. Just as the schools themselves are outliers, virtual school students are likely outliers that are atypical of the general student population. Currently, a parent must self-select their child into a virtual school. So, right away, we know that there is some proactive reason that a student is being placed in a virtual learning environment. That may be a special need, past issues at the student’s brick and mortar school or unique home environments that make a traditional school option difficult. It is entirely possible that the mediocre performance of virtual schools to date is a function of student characteristics beyond the control of a school. If schools do not reopen in-person next year, virtual schools will have a very different character than they have up to this point.
So what should school districts and policymakers be doing to prepare for the possibility of virtual schooling at scale? First, they should be cautious about attempting to simply replicate or expand current virtual offerings. While there are lessons there, the student population for compulsory virtual education will have very different needs and expectations. Second, they must consider the ability for families to supervise their child in a virtual learning environment. No, K-12 education is not daycare, but it is a place for kids go to while their parent or parents work. The virtual schooling life occurring now is disrupting professional productivity in many households. What will the disruption be with a fully implemented online curriculum? Third, and perhaps easiest in concept, is ensuring every child has access to the internet, a computer and the skills to navigate in a virtual learning environment. I say easy in concept, because actually ensuring these things happen requires resources and connectivity that do not exist in all places.
Lastly, the most challenging, and most important thing, is to plan curriculum and pedagogy. Switching to virtual schooling is a total retooling of how the largest most expensive public service in the United States is delivered. And if done, it will be out of necessity, not preference. Teachers trained in a physical classroom will need intensive retraining on how to run a virtual learning experience. Families unfamiliar with virtual education will need to learn what the expectations and workload for their students should look like. School districts also must consider how they will deal with students and/or families that are simply not doing the work. What will truancy from virtual schooling look like?
There is no playbook for what virtual schooling at scale should look like. My initial expectations are low. We will make mistakes, and we should not expect the start of this experiment (if needed) to look much like what we know. Regardless, this crisis is a moment for us to try new things in public education, learn from what does and not does not work and hopefully build capacities that will be useful in the future.
Author: Michael R. Ford is an associate professor of public administration at the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh, where he teaches graduate courses in budgeting and research methods. He frequently publishes on the topics of public and nonprofit board governance, accountability and school choice. He currently serves as the president of the Midwest Public Affairs Conference.
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Going Virtual: How Will Virtual K-12 Education Look at Scale?
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.
By Michael R. Ford
May 10, 2020
Like so many parents, my spouse and I are attempting to navigate the sudden transition of our kids’ schooling from brick and mortar to a fully virtual learning environment. Our local public school district is doing its best to make content available, and the teachers have been amazing, but what we are seeing in Wisconsin and elsewhere is not truly virtual education. Districts are, with various degrees of expertise and resources, muddling through to summer break out of necessity. The current experience and potential for disruptions in the Fall has me pondering what we know about virtual education, and the extent to which it can be applied at scale.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there were 478 virtual schools in the United States as of 2014, comprising less than one half of a percent of the total number of public schools in the country. A disproportionately high percentage of virtual schools, 36 percent, are charter schools authorized by a school district or other approved entity. Many states have zero virtual schools. The bottom line is that virtual schools are an extreme outlier in the United States’ public education system. Even where the technological infrastructure to deliver course content exists, the knowledge barrier is huge.
Perhaps more troubling is the general underwhelming results of virtual schooling to date. A 2017 study of Ohio’s online education programs, for example, found that students attending virtual schools perform worse than their peers attending brick and mortar schools. My own work shows Wisconsin virtual schools have extremely high rates of student turnover, and middling impacts on students’ academic outcomes. Given what is known about the performance of virtual schools, it is easy to assume the lasting impact of a complete shift to online course delivery for K-12 students in the near future may not be pretty. But, there are still a lot of unknowns regarding widespread virtual schooling.
The evidence we do have comes from a very small segment of the public school population. Just as the schools themselves are outliers, virtual school students are likely outliers that are atypical of the general student population. Currently, a parent must self-select their child into a virtual school. So, right away, we know that there is some proactive reason that a student is being placed in a virtual learning environment. That may be a special need, past issues at the student’s brick and mortar school or unique home environments that make a traditional school option difficult. It is entirely possible that the mediocre performance of virtual schools to date is a function of student characteristics beyond the control of a school. If schools do not reopen in-person next year, virtual schools will have a very different character than they have up to this point.
So what should school districts and policymakers be doing to prepare for the possibility of virtual schooling at scale? First, they should be cautious about attempting to simply replicate or expand current virtual offerings. While there are lessons there, the student population for compulsory virtual education will have very different needs and expectations. Second, they must consider the ability for families to supervise their child in a virtual learning environment. No, K-12 education is not daycare, but it is a place for kids go to while their parent or parents work. The virtual schooling life occurring now is disrupting professional productivity in many households. What will the disruption be with a fully implemented online curriculum? Third, and perhaps easiest in concept, is ensuring every child has access to the internet, a computer and the skills to navigate in a virtual learning environment. I say easy in concept, because actually ensuring these things happen requires resources and connectivity that do not exist in all places.
Lastly, the most challenging, and most important thing, is to plan curriculum and pedagogy. Switching to virtual schooling is a total retooling of how the largest most expensive public service in the United States is delivered. And if done, it will be out of necessity, not preference. Teachers trained in a physical classroom will need intensive retraining on how to run a virtual learning experience. Families unfamiliar with virtual education will need to learn what the expectations and workload for their students should look like. School districts also must consider how they will deal with students and/or families that are simply not doing the work. What will truancy from virtual schooling look like?
There is no playbook for what virtual schooling at scale should look like. My initial expectations are low. We will make mistakes, and we should not expect the start of this experiment (if needed) to look much like what we know. Regardless, this crisis is a moment for us to try new things in public education, learn from what does and not does not work and hopefully build capacities that will be useful in the future.
Author: Michael R. Ford is an associate professor of public administration at the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh, where he teaches graduate courses in budgeting and research methods. He frequently publishes on the topics of public and nonprofit board governance, accountability and school choice. He currently serves as the president of the Midwest Public Affairs Conference.
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