Michael B. Horn: Colorado's Crummy Policies Lead to Crummy Virtual Schools

An investigation of Colorado’s full-time virtual schools has revealed some dubious results and practices, which led the state’s Senate President to call for an emergency audit of all of Colorado’s virtual schools.
But the state shouldn’t be shocked by the report. As the truism goes, you get what you pay for.
Colorado’s policy environment incentivizes exactly what it’s getting from its full-time virtual schools—and arguably not just its virtual schools, but all of its schools statewide.
The biggest problem is this: It pays a school all of its funds on a “count day” on October 1 based on the number of students enrolled on that day. If students leave afterward, the original school keeps the funds. If students enroll elsewhere, the new school receives no funds.
This incentivizes providers to enroll students, but there are few incentives in place to focus on what happens after that. As a result, a significant number of online providers seem to have followed these incentives and done exactly what Colorado paid them to do. The end result isn’t pretty for students, as a great number of them allegedly leave soon after the count day and enroll back in district schools if they enroll elsewhere at all.
Some are using this to bash all online learning, as well as for-profit providers that are seizing this revenue-making opportunity (as many such providers did in higher education), but in so doing, these critics are missing the point.
As I’ve written numerous times, studying whether online learning is more or less effective than traditional learning is invariably asking the wrong question. Online and blended learning have the potential to dramatically transform our education system by being able to individualize for each student’s distinct learning needs, but whether it does so will have a lot to do with policy—whether we change the incentives and focus not on merely serving students and micro-managing the inputs, but instead focusing on the student outcomes and leaving behind an antiquated factory-model system for a student-centric one.
Click here to read my complete post on this. And you know what the biggest shame in all of this? By focusing on the wrong part of the story, it may set back our opportunity to leverage the rise of digital learning to transform our system into the student-centric one that each student deserves

Guest Commentary: Denver Post Op-Ed Describes Balance Needed Between Innovation, Accountability and Cyber Schools

Pam Benigno has served on the board of a cyber charter school and directs the Education Policy Center of the  Independence Institute, a Colorado-based, free market think tank.
In the wake of a controversial series on the quality of online education in Colorado, Benigno wrote an opinion piece for the Denver Post.
"Technological advances are continually creating new opportunities to effectively educate Colorado's K-12 students through online learning. Colorado needs to look forward in protecting an environment for innovation, while balancing needed accountability for cyber school operators," say writes.
"Two decades of open public school enrollment have given Colorado families a gift that continues to be unwrapped. Today, Colorado school districts offer numerous charter schools and other options, including full-time online programs. Twenty-two unique online schools serve students anywhere in the state, while 23 programs serve only district residents.
"Some of the dismal reports about Colorado's full-time online education programs reinforce what many of us already knew. On average, these schools have shown disappointing results in educating and retaining students. The Colorado Department of Education plans to conduct a comprehensive review of the standards and accountability for online schools. Senate President Brandon Shaffer has requested an emergency audit of online schools," she continues.
"However, technology is being developed so quickly we don't know what future programs will look like or what the challenges might be," Benigno adds.
Click here to read her complete essay and why she warns readers not to "turn back the clock on expanded educational opportunities."

Guest Commentary: Colorado Springs Gazette Wants State to Take K12 Inc.'s Advice and Let Money Follow the Student

The Colorado Springs Gazette took a bold stand. It said that the money the states allocates for each public school student should follow that student, no matter what school the students attends.
"School choice, the modern wave of education, is always under attack by the establishment. New schools threaten the old union-controlled, one-size-fits-all government education monopoly," the editorial board wrote.
"Those who liked the old way simply don’t like anything about the new way
A three-part investigative series that began running in last Sunday’s Gazette pointed out concerns about online government schools that deserve serious attention from politicians and the general public. An at-home, online education is exactly what a small percentage of students need. But it’s not for everyone, and it is probably not for most.
"When a student abandons an online school, the online school often keeps the state tuition cash. Colorado bases school funding on a single enrollment count. Once the count has been taken, the money is allocated and belongs to the school even if students soon thereafter," the editorial continued.
"That means another school ends up with former online students, but not the tuition.
"The administration of Colorado’s largest online public school, Colorado Virtual Academy, agrees that online schools should not keep the money.
" 'Colorado should move away form a school-funding model based on a single-count date to a better model, such as an average daily membership,'  said Jeff Kwitowski in a statement to The Gazette’s editorial board. He’s the vice president for public affairs for K12, the curriculum provider for Colorado Virtual Academy."
Click here to read the complete editorial.

Guest Commentary: Education Sector Looks at Reports on Online Learning

A hat tip to Bill Tucker and his "The Quick & the Ed" blog for taking a step back to put four recent reports on online learning into perspective.
Tucker launched what appears to be a multi-part series by looking at reports from Minnesota and Colorado. He also made mention of reports from Pennsylvania and Ohio. All the studies raised some concerns about the quality of online learning in those states. In Colorado, for example, a state senator has called for an audit of online learning schools.
Tucker's "Quick & Ed" post notes that the Minnesota shows that will the number of part-time students in online school nearly doubles and the number of full-time students more than tripled, since the 2006-2007 school year, "full-time online students have become less like to finish the courses the start; when compare with students statewide."
The Colorado study, Tucker reports, shows that the state expects to spend $100 million for about 18,000 students to attend online schools. What's more, "of the 10,500 students in the largest online programs in fall 2008, more than half--or 5,600--left their virtual schools by the fall of 2009. They were more than replaced by 7,400 new recruits by that fall."
The Colorado series is the result of a 10-month investigation by EdNews Colorado.
Click here to read Tucker's complete post and to find links to the reports.
Click here to see a video about the impact of online learning on one school and one student's perspective.
Tucker plans to update his report on Ohio online learning this week. We'll be reading and updating.

Guest Commentary: Blended Learning is the Best of Both World for Colorado Students

The Colorado Department of Education has a duty to fulfill the responsibilities set out for it in rules pertaining to online learning.
That's one of the conclusions of a wide-ranging report on the current status, and the future, of online learning in Colorado.
The report was written by the Denver-based Donnell-Kay Foundation as a way to show where Colorado stands "in terms of its digital and online offerings for public school students."
The report also discusses "why a shift to a blended model of learning that combines face to face, online and digital learning, is an important next move for Colorado."
The report is full of examples of current K-12 digital learning program in Colorado. It also offers a number of suggestions and policy recommendations to enhance growth of online learning in the state.
One of the suggestions in the report is to offer financial incentives to districts with established online and blended learning programs to expand these programs and partner with other districts and schools. Another idea is to attract education entrepreneurs to Colorado with start-up funding to develop digital and blended learning programs.
"We believe that this expansion of digital and online learning will begin to alleviate significant inequities that exist within our system today between students who have access to high quality teachers and a diverse array of courses and schools and those who lack such access because they live in communities that struggle to attract talent or lack the resources to provide the variety of options that a wealthier or larger district can offer," the report added.
Click here for the complete report.
Click here for an interview with Amy Berk Anderson, director of Strategic Partnerships at the Donnell-Kay Foundation.