Record: Miron, G., Shank, C. & Davidson, C. (2018). Full-Time Virtual and Blended Schools: Enrollment, Student Characteristics, and Performance. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. [Available Here]
Summary: This is the latest of six annual reports put out by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) dating back to 2013. For previous installments see our review of the 2016 report, which itself links to earlier reviews.
The NEPC report has long been and remains the single best source for keeping track of online virtual public schooling, or what is often called the “cybercharter” movement. In 2016 it added coverage of “blended” schooling to its report. Blended schools combine conventional brick-and-mortar instruction with an online component. This new report continues with that expanded coverage.
First for the data. In the 2016-17 school year there were 429 full-time virtual schools and 296 blended schools. That’s a slight decline from previous years in full-time and a massive growth in blended. When you look at actual enrollment, however, we’re seeing growth in both sectors. Full-time enrollment, which was just shy of 262,000 in 2015 reached almost 296,000 in 2017. Blended learning increased dramatically during the same period, from just over 26,000 in 2015 to almost 118,000 in 2017. (p. 4)
34 states have full time and 29 have blended schools. Within those states, schools operated by for-profit EMOs are typically much larger than others, enrolling an average of 1,288 students per school as compared to an average of 407 for non-profit EMOs. This means that while there are more non-profit schools, the for-profits have more students. In 2017 some 62% of students attended for-profit schools. (p. 4)
Interestingly, the largest for-profit EMOs, K12 and Connections Academy, who have dominated this sector for years, are seeing fairly significant declines. In just one year their combined market share has dropped from 59.5% of virtual school enrollments to 47.4%. (p. 15)
Demographically speaking, virtual schools continue to look whiter and richer than national averages, and they enroll fewer English-language learners. Note this, for it will become important when we discuss their academic achievement in a moment. Blended schools, on the other hand, are increasingly looking browner and poorer. 63.7% of blended students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, compared to a national average of 51.3%, and blended schools enrolled more Hispanics (37.7% compared to 15.5% nationally) and fewer whites (28.4% compared to 49.8%) (p. 22-23).
Due to differences in various state accountability systems, only 15 of the 38 states with either virtual or blended or both have comparative data between those schools and that state’s brick and mortar public schools. That’s 39% of virtual and 24% of blended for which the authors have good comparative data. Understanding this limitation, nevertheless, here is what comparison reveals: as every previous study had found, virtual schools continue to underperform academically, despite a demographic profile (whiter, richer, fewer ELLs) that should produce overperformance. Only 36.4% of virtual and 43.1% of blended schools received an acceptable performance rating. Digging deeper, district-operated virtual schools performed much better (53.8% acceptable) than charter-operated schools (20.7%). Graduation rates as well reveal just how poor these schools perform. The national average is 83%. For virtual schools it was 50.7%, and for blended it was 49.5%. (pp. 5-6).
Why such dismal performance? One reason might be student-teacher ratios. Nationally, public education averages a 16 to 1 student-teacher ratio. Virtual schools, however, average 45 to 1, and blended schools average 32 to 1.
Given all of this, the authors conclude with several recommendations. First, it is clearly the very large, for-profit schools that are doing the worst (see, for evidence, the very compelling scatterplot graph on p. 37). The authors here suggest that states mandate a lower student-teacher ratio in such schools, mandate that a certain percentage of the school budget go to actual instruction, and shift the instruction burden away from parents to teachers. “The widely practiced corporate model,” argue Miron, Shank, and Davidson, “largely relies on the parent as teacher and provides contracted teachers with insufficient time to interact with students or to provide support for those who struggle or drift away.” (p. 6)
The authors also continue to call for reforms redolent of those offered in previous reports, most of which are aimed at curbing the profiteering frequently practiced by for-profit EMOs.
The report ends with several appendices offering much more fine-grained data related to everything summarized above and more.
Appraisal: As usual the researchers at NEPC continue to put us all in their debt with this comprehensive, clear, detailed summary of the best data available about virtual and blended schools. Every year they counsel slowed growth until we can figure out why this model isn’t working very well, and every year they report robust growth despite the continued poor performance. It must be a frustrating task doing what they’re doing. Regardless, I am very glad they’re doing it, and I hope that eventually their patient data collection and logical recommendations will be taken to heart to improve these schools.
Milton Gaither, Messiah College