Virginia Education Report

Over at my house blog, my two most recent posts are about online learning. In the first post, I offer a critique of the NEPC policy brief [.pdf] on online learning for K-12 students. In that post, I argue that while I have real concerns about the role of for-profit entities in this realm, I believe Glass & Welner overreach in their policy brief. In my second post, I point to three very recent articles that, collectively, paint a very negative portrait of the role of for-profit vendors of distance learning. Here, again, I share my concerns about these companies, and I conclude that oversight and regulation of this industry is due. [NOTE: in the interest of "independent" reporting, I should also point out that Tom VanderArk has been busy defending against these so-called "hit pieces" (his language). See, for example, this post about the New York Times article.] Today, the Wall Street Journal put its stake in the ground, publishing a fuzzy portrait of online learning through the lens of two families with slightly differing experiences with online learning.

This all amounts to a lot of jockeying and hand-wringing, all of which is understandable for at least a few overlapping reasons. First, Christensen et al. have deemed online learning a key aspect of  innovations that are primed to be disruptive to the institution of public schooling to which most of us hold dearly. Furthermore, the role of for-profit ventures in public education has long been contentious (see e.g. this book and this book. Finally, this is all taking place within a deeply ideological policy arena. Politics, money, sacred institutions…this has all the markings of a hollywood script.

Here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, much like many other states, we have our own little drama unfolding. Back in June of this year, Governor McDonnell said:

No Virginia child’s future should be limited by the walls of a particular school building or the boundaries of an attendance zone. Virtual schools create additional choices and opportunities within our public education system.

Governor McDonnell made those remarks on the day that State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright announced that 13 virtual-school programs had been approved to provide instruction to students in multiple school divisions across the Commonwealth. This announcement was a major development as part of Governor McDonnell’s overall educational policy platform for increasing educational opportunities for students. Called “The Opportunity to Learn,” the Governor’s legislative package included expanding online learning offerings as one of its pillars.

While Virginia is no real forerunner and is not particularly notable for innovation in this area, there is evidence that Governor McDonnell’s push for online learning is impacting policy and decision-makers across the Commonwealth.

I recently completed a statewide survey of school divisions to begin to paint a portrait of the landscape of online learning in the K-12 arena. While the results of the survey are not generalizable to the population of school divisions across the Commonwealth, there is good reason to believe that they are reasonably representative and informative of the landscape of online and blended learning in Virginia. The results are consistent with national trends and sensible given the current educational and economic policy climate. There are some major themes that emerged from the survey:

• Enrollments are growing – while documenting actual enrollment numbers is nearly impossible, there are clear indicators that the number of students in Virginia taking online and/or blended learning courses is rising and will continue to rise. Enrollments just in Virtual Virginia (VVa) were up 20% between 2008-09 and 2009-10. Combine that with the results of the survey where over half of the respondents reported that they expected enrollments in online and/or blended learning courses to increase by at least 20% in the near term, and the upward enrollment trend is quite evident.
• More “opportunities to learn” – Governor McDonnell’s educational policy platform and its associated legislative package were aptly named. Across much of the data from the survey, a major theme that emerged was the perception that online and blended learning courses expand learning opportunities for students. This is particularly evident for two distinct groups of students, likely at opposite ends of the academic spectrum. At one end, students who have failed courses or failed to obtain credit for a course for any reason at all are increasingly being afforded opportunities to “recover” lost credits via online learning. On the other end, online learning affords high-achieving students opportunities to take Advanced Placement (AP) courses that would not otherwise be available to them. Also, for those same students, there are new opportunities to free up time to take more advanced courses during the day by taking other less-demanding courses, including physical education, in an online format.
• Cost and personnel concerns – upward enrollment trends notwithstanding, there are still clear barriers to additional growth in online learning. Survey respondents cited cost concerns as well as personnel issues that need to be overcome before moving more fully down the online learning path. Cost issues are complicated by the Standards of Quality funding formula and how funding for online courses works within that formula, and until the Virginia Department of Education addresses those complications, cost will necessarily be cited as a barrier to offering more online learning opportunities. The personnel issues are essentially about preparedness; there are simply not enough educators, from classroom teachers to building- and division-level administrators who possess the necessary skills and dispositions to implement online and/or blended learning courses or programs.

It is the very intersection of those findings where for-profit entities have seized an opportunity. In other words, it has become abundantly clear that online learning provides opportunities for students, especially those who may have limited options due to geographic and/or economic concerns. Yet, state and especially local education agencies lack the capacity to provide those opportunities “in house.” Thus, into this void steps the heroic vendor.

Therefore, I believe it is time that key stakeholders come together to make sure that we can provide new and meaningful learning opportunities for the children of the Commonwealth while also making sure that we do so in efficient and effective ways. Here are some important steps that can be taken at the state level:

• Create a non-partisan, independent oversight board – if it’s possible to be non-partisan and/or independent on these sorts of matters, then either the Secretary of Education or the Virginia Department of Education should appoint a board of overseers to develop and enforce regulations around online learning. My colleague, Dr. Justin Bathon at the University of Kentucky, has developed model legislation for states to consider. This document provides a great starting point for this future Board of Overseers.
• Fund research on online learning – there are a number of very important research questions to be answered even as we move forward with online learning. The most significant areas in need of continuous and comprehensive analysis are around finance and student learning. We need to bring together experts on educational technology and school finance to generate the evidence we need about the cost-effectiveness of various models of online and blended learning courses and programs. Also, beyond just student achievement as defined by test scores, there are important student outcomes to consider in relationship to online learning. For example, online learning in the service of credit recovery is a large and growing market for online learning providers. However, there is still an open empirical question about whether this ultimately has an impact on graduation rates and other indicators of educational attainment. Additionally, attention needs to be paid to social and emotional considerations. There are legitimate questions being raised by caring educators about the socialization of young people who, as a result of online learning, have fewer opportunities for face-to-face socialization with other young people. Finally, there are serious equity concerns that need to be researched. For example, if in the current landscape there are additional costs associated with providing online learning opportunities, then we need to be concerned about the divide between the students served by local education agencies that can afford those costs and those students served by more financially strapped schools and districts.
• Create and seed a consortium of universities and university personnel…  - to prepare personnel to run and teach in online learning programs. For almost as long as schools have been in existence, state and local education agencies did not have the capability to produce textbooks. Therefore, we have long relied on private, for-profit publishers to provide these materials to our schools. We currently have another capacity problem, but not one that cannot be overcome. We have a lot of amazing educators around the Commonwealth, many of whom are willing and able to take their talents to the world of online learning. We also have a lot of young, eager students and recent graduates of colleges of education who might do well to jump fully into teaching online. This is an opportunity for our colleges of education to work together to figure out how we might best prepare and/or certify cadres of educators who can work for and with local education agencies looking to field their own online learning courses and programs of study. This would allow local education agencies to provide new and meaningful opportunities without having to outsource teaching and learning where they don’t have to.

Online and hybrid learning is here to stay as a part of our educational landscape. It behooves us to collectively figure out how we can best serve the children of the Commonwealth.