June 14, 2016
Reports
& results raise the question: are online charter schools working?
The State Board of Education and
Colorado policymakers and educators can now review sufficient data to question
whether an online school, especially for elementary students, is a model that
is working well. This newsletter will
focus almost exclusively on online charters, although I believe much of the
troubling evidence to date, as presented here applies to the online model, not its form of governance. (See Addendum
A - It’s more than a charter school story.) And yet this charter school
advocate—well aware of the debate as to whether charters offer students and
families simply another choice—or a
choice of a good school, wants to
highlight the issue for online charters.
Advocates for quality schools must
speak up when the results of one model—after over a decade—are so poor.
That conclusion appears to be the
emerging consensus, based on what I see in national studies, decisions by
charter school funders, and state reports. This newsletter sums up what we have learned
this past year; next week I will follow-up with a close look at a half dozen Colorado
on-line charters.
1. “On-line Charter School Study - 2015,” by the Center
for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, https://credo.stanford.edu/pdfs/OnlineCharterStudyFinal2015.pdf
Advocates of online charter
schools should find much to agree with in CREDO’s presentation of why online school
leaders hoped they could serve students who had not been well served by traditional
schools (see box). Even if the niche is
small, online supporters insist their schools can meet a real need.
However, CREDO’s report of online
charters in 17 states[1]
(including Colorado), is ultimately quite damning. That’s my take, anyway. A
few excerpts follow; if interested, you will want to read more.
“Online
schooling options have the potential to provide students a flexible,
student-centered educational option. One of (their) desirable attributes is
their adaptability for atypical students…. (those) who work to provide for
their families … other students who are
already active in their chosen profession such as actors, artists, or Olympic
hopefuls. … For migrant students or those in unstable households, the ability
to sustain a consistent schooling environment could greatly boost educational
outcomes. Likewise, students who learn at a greatly different rate from their
age peers might benefit from the self-paced nature of many online programs”
(1-2).
From
Introduction, “On-line Charter School Study – 2015”
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The study focused on one key question: “What is the average impact of
attending an online charter school on the academic growth of students?”
Its finding: Compared to the control group in traditional public
schools, “online charter students have much weaker growth overall”(23). “… these average measures of academic growth reveal that the general case for online charter students
is not a positive one” (24).
CREDO’s report broke out academic growth for online charters “compared
to the state’s average student academic growth” in each of the 17 states in its
study. The online charter effect in at
least 13 states was negative in both reading and math. In Colorado’s on line charters, in reading,
the effect size was a negative .07; in math, the effect was negative .19, which
equated to over 130 fewer days of
learning (26-27).
CREDO’s
director, Macke Raymond, made many of these points at the Donnell-Kay
Foundation’s Hot Lunch on May 13, “Online Schools: Superheroes or
Cybervillains”- http://dkfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/CREDO-Hot-Lunch-2016-May.pdf
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CREDO makes a key point I will return to next week when I look at a
couple of elementary online charters in Colorado.
“The qualifying
argument of some online school providers is many of their
students would have otherwise dropped out of school
entirely. Thus any educational gains no matter how small are of benefit to the
students and society. This argument may be justified when applied to high
school students, of which online charter schools have a higher percentage, but does not take into account the outcome for
elementary and middle school students enrolling in online schools” (36). (Bold mine)
The quotes above
do not capture the nuanced interpretation of more narrow questions in the study—impact
of family, teacher pay, the breakdown of outcomes by race, gender, poverty,
etc. I point to one specific concern
that Colorado policymakers should keep in mind: the impact of “fees from large
online schools (that) can come to represent a large proportion agency operating
revenues and may create a disincentive to regulate and close consistently low-performing
online charter schools” (Pazhouh, Lake & Miller, “The Policy Framework for
Online Charter Schools,” Center on Reinventing Public Education, 58-59).
I include here the opening sentence
from the three “implications” at the end of the report:
1. “Current online
charter schools may be a good fit for some students, but the evidence suggests online
charters don’t serve very well the relatively atypical set of students that
currently attend these schools, much less the general population.”
2. “Current
oversight policies in place may not be sufficient for online charter schools.”
3. “States should
examine the current progress of existing online programs before allowing
expansion…. (It is) critical for authorizers to ensure online charter schools
demonstrate positive outcomes for students before being allowed to grow ...”
(63).
2.
Walton Family Foundation’s “rethink” of online
charters
I have worked on numerous
projects over the years funded by The Walton Family Foundation, all of them in
support of charter school efforts in Colorado and in three other states. The Foundation was also the principal funder
of the CREDO study. When an organization
so committed to expanding choice weighs the evidence on one model—namely online
charters—and publicly states its doubts about this option, we should take
notice. Here are excerpts from a Commentary in Education Week by Marc Sternberg, director of education giving at the Walton Family
Foundation, and Marc Holley, the foundation's evaluation-unit director (Jan.
26, 2016). http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/01/27/walton-family-foundation-we-must-rethink-online.html
Walton
Family Foundation: We Must Rethink Online Learning
The Walton Family
Foundation has invested more than $385 million in creating new charter schools
over more than two decades to seed educational innovation and improve U.S.
education at scale. The foundation has allocated a small fraction of that
investment—about $550,000—to virtual charter schools, which teach full-time students
exclusively online.
… In recent years, we
have hoped that online charter schools could provide a lifeline for some
students. But while we were enthusiastic about supporting online education
entrepreneurs, our first priority is always making sure that students are
served well.
As the largest private
funder of charter schools and as strong believers in making fact-based
decisions, we wanted to see the hard evidence on virtual charters: What would a
dependable measure of the impact of these schools show about their students'
academic growth? We funded three research studies—by the Center for Research on
Education Outcomes (or CREDO), at Stanford University; the Center on
Reinventing Public Education, at the University of Washington; and Mathematica
Policy Research—to investigate this
question. …
The results are, in a word, sobering. The CREDO study found that
over the course of a school year, the students in virtual
charters learned the equivalent of 180 fewer days in math and 72 fewer days in
reading than their peers in
traditional charter schools, on average.
This
year: Colorado had 18,664 students in online programs. See Kids Count.
|
This is stark evidence that most online charters have a negative
impact on students' academic achievement. The results are particularly
significant because of the reach and scope of online charters: They currently
enroll some 200,000 children in 200 schools operating across 26 states….
As a result of these
findings, we at the foundation will ask new, more rigorous questions of online
charter operators when we review their funding proposals …
To be
clear, our comments about online charter schools are not an indictment of
instructional technology or online learning more
generally, nor how these stand to help create more high-quality educational options…. There are many examples
of technology being
used in conventional classrooms in ways that enhance learning.…
But the data from this study do not lie: Online education must be
reimagined. Ignoring the problem—or worse, replicating failures—serves nobody.
3.
Kids Count in
Colorado 2016 – Colorado Children’s Campaign http://www.coloradokids.org/data/kidscount/2016kidscount/
I do not wish to speak for the
Colorado Children’s Campaign (CCC). But going back to 1992 and 1993, when I
worked at a local foundation, we found CCC to be the first Colorado nonprofit
eager to support the fledgling charter school movement—and so it received our
first two grants to encourage this new option for families and educators. To the best of my knowledge, the Children’s
Campaign has been supportive of quality charter schools ever since. A CCC
report, then (as with criticism from the Walton Family Foundation) comes from
what charter advocates might call a sympathetic voice.
It released Kids Count of Colorado 2016 this spring. Page 77 of the 163-page offers perhaps our
most up-to-date look at online schools in our state. It is inclusive of both charter and
noncharter programs.
Online Education
Programs
Colorado is home
to dozens of online schools and programs that together enroll thousands of
students. … Recent pupil enrollment data
show that online schools are experiencing some of the fastest growth in the
state, but data also indicate that students in many online schools fare worse
than their brick-and-mortar counterparts on indicators such as reading and math
proficiency and graduation rates.
Data Highlights:
The number of
Colorado students enrolled in an online education program increased to 18,664
students in 2015-2016 (2 percent of students) from 17,060 in 2014-2015.
Enrollment in online education programs has increased by more than 400 percent
since the 2003-2004 school year.
Online schools
were more likely than brick-and-mortar schools to receive priority improvement
or turnaround ratings, the lowest ratings under Colorado’s school performance
framework. As of 2013-2014, the most recent year for which school accreditation
ratings are available, 37 percent of all online schools were accredited with a
performance plan, the highest rating schools can achieve; 31 percent of online
schools were accredited with improvement plans; 14 percent of online schools
were accredited with priority improvement plans; and 17 percent of online schools
were accredited with turnaround plans, the lowest rating schools can receive….
On average,
online education programs in Colorado have lower on-time graduation rates than
brick-and-mortar schools. In total, the graduation rate for online high schools
in Colorado was only 41 percent in 2015, significantly below the statewide
average of 77 percent.
Figure 64 -
2013-2014 School Performance Ratings*
Brick-and-mortar
schools
|
Online
schools
|
|
Turnaround Plan (lowest
rating)
|
3%
|
17%
|
Priority Improvement Plan
|
7%
|
14%
|
Improvement Plan
|
19%
|
31%
|
Performance Plan (highest
rating)
|
71%
|
37%
|
*These figures come from CDE’s report to
the State Board of Education, “School Plan Type Assignments,” Dec. 2014, https://www.cde.state.co.us/accountability/sbeschool2014spf. The exact
percentages differ slightly from CDE’s presentation as its summary included
three on-line schools that had closed.
Out of 35 still operating in 2014, CDE showed that 5 on-line schools
were on Priority Improvement Plans
and 6 were on Turnaround Plans.
NOTE: Vilas Online (for grades K-12) had been on Turnaround 2010-2013; after the Vilas School Board decided to close the high school
portion, and in 2014 the K-8 school received a Performance rating.
NEXT WEEK – AV#149 looks at a handful of online charter schools in
Colorado.
Addendum A – It’s more than a charter school story
2014 SPF Performance Framework –
11 Online schools on Priority Improvement, Turnaround, or Closed
Grades
|
Rating
|
Year
|
|
Boulder Universal
|
EMH*
|
Priority
Improvement (PI)
|
2
|
Canon Online Academy
|
MH
|
Turnaround
|
2
|
Delta County Virtual Academy
|
EMH
|
School Closed
(on
Turnaround previous year)
|
|
EDCSD: Colorado Cyber School
|
EMH
|
PI or
Turnaround
|
5
|
Engage Online Academy
|
EMH
|
Turnaround
|
1
|
Grande River Virtual Academy Elementary
|
E
|
Turnaround
|
3
|
Insight School of Colorado at Julesburg
|
MH
|
PI or
Turnaround
|
5
|
Karval Online Education
|
EMH
|
School Closed
(after
4 years on Priority Improvement)
|
|
Southwest Colorado E-School
|
MH
|
Priority
Improvement
|
1
|
Thompson Online
|
EMH
|
School Closed
|
|
World Academy
|
EMH
|
Turnaround
|
1
|
*EMH –
Elementary, Middle, High
|
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[1] The study included online charter
students in Colorado between 2009-010 and 2012-13—totaling nearly 15,000
students (64).
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