Dear Commons Community,

According to several  reports released last week, students who take classes over the Internet through online charter schools make dramatically less academic progress than their counterparts in traditional schools.  As reported by Education Week (subscription required):

“Statistically speaking, the gains that online charter students saw in math were so limited, it was “literally as though the student did not go to school for the entire year,” said Margaret Raymond, the director of the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University.

Prepared by CREDO, the Center on Reinventing Public Education, and Mathematica Policy Research, the three-part National Study of Online Charter Schools represents the first comprehensive national look at the roughly 200 schools in the publicly funded, independently managed cybercharter sector. Such schools enroll about 200,000 full-time students across 26 states.

More than two-thirds of online charters were found to have weaker overall academic growth than similar brick-and-mortar schools. As a group, the schools were characterized by high student-to-teacher ratios, low student engagement, and high student mobility. They also offered students limited opportunities for live contact with teachers. From funding to enrollment to oversight, states are failing to keep up with the unique policy challenges that online charters present, the researchers contended.

The findings “leave little doubt attending an online charter school leads to lessened academic growth for the average student,” wrote the researchers from CREDO.

In response, the country’s largest for-profit operator of online charter schools criticized the studies as based on outdated data and a questionable methodology.

National groups representing charters and online-learning proponents, meanwhile, described the results as alarming and troubling.

“There is a place for virtual schooling in our nation, but there is no place for results like these,” said Greg Richmond, the president and CEO of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, in a statement.”

I agree fully with Mr. Richmond.  There is a place for online learning in K-12 education but these schools need to get their act together.

Tony