Blended schools, on the other hand, enroll higher proportions of English-language learner, Hispanic, and low-income students than K-12 schools at large.ĭrawing a clear picture of online and blended schools’ performance was complicated by widespread changes, freezes, and variations in state accountability systems. 9.6 percent) than traditional public schools. 13.1 percent national average) and a far lower share of students who are learning English (2.5 percent vs. Among the trends NEPC did identify: Based on available information, it appears that full-time virtual schools enroll a far lower share of students who have special needs (6.7 percent vs. That’s because the average for-profit, full-time virtual school enrolls 1,384 students, compared with roughly 400 students for the average full-time online school run by a nonprofit.ĭata on the demographics of students in the sector, meanwhile, remain spotty. All told, for-profit entities educate nearly 6 in 10 full-time virtual students, despite operating just 3 in 10 virtual schools. and Connections Academy, which operate a combined 115 full-time virtual schools-have now been around for two decades. Such companies continue to dominate the online-learning landscape, NEPC found. In 2016, Education Week took a deep look at full-time online charter schools, finding a sector plagued by serious academic troubles and management problems, especially in schools operated by for-profit entities. “Instead, they designed emergency bills aimed at putting a band aid on the hemorrhaging issues.” Long-term trend of poor performance continues “Legislators did not necessarily think deeply about how to address remote learning needs, nor did they try to change the existing structure of virtual schooling,” the NEPC report reads. Three of them failed to muster enough votes to be enacted into law.Įven the flurry of state legislative activity in response to COVID-19 appears to have mostly discounted what little research there is on what does-and doesn’t-work in online learning. Over the past two years, for example, just four bills nationwide sought to improve monitoring of virtual course quality. Still, despite years of pushing from researchers and critics, efforts by state legislatures to overhaul how online schools are funded and held accountable appear to be waning. At the state level, Florida’s online schools appear to be doing rather well, with 16 of the 29 schools that received ratings earning an ‘A’ on the state’s accountability system. The news from NEPC wasn’t all bad: Blended schools tended to perform better than their virtual counterparts, the researchers found, and virtual schools operated by districts or non-profit groups tended to perform better than those operated by for-profit education management organizations. Those findings mirror years of academic research and journalistic investigations that have consistently pointed to a pattern of atrocious performance and financial mismanagement in this niche segment of the nation’s public education system. Less than 43 percent of full-time virtual schools with ratings by their state accountability systems were deemed acceptable. In 2019-20, the researchers found, the graduation rate in full-time virtual schools was just 54.6 percent, 30 points lower than the national rate. For the entirety of that time, the available evidence has pointed to poor academic performance across the sector. NEPC has released annual reviews of K-12 online education for the past decade. While systematic data on virtual-school enrollments this school year are not part of the NEPC report because they are not yet available, anecdotal evidence hints at continued enrollment gains. An additional 306 “blended” schools, in which instruction takes place both online and face-to-face, enroll a combined 152,530 students.Īltogether, enrollment in the nation’s full-time virtual and blended schools is up by more than 50,000 students since 2017-18. K-12 public school students during the 2019-20 school year, the report found. A total of 477 full-time virtual schools enrolled 332,379 U.S.
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