{"id":161,"date":"2012-09-24T18:11:30","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T18:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=161"},"modified":"2012-09-24T18:11:30","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T18:11:30","slug":"virtual-charter-schools-why-families-choose-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=161","title":{"rendered":"VIRTUAL CHARTER SCHOOLS: Why Families Choose Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record<\/strong>: \u00a0Carol Klein and Mary Poplin, \u201cFamilies Home Schooling in a Virtual Charter School System\u201d in Marriage and Family Review<\/em> 43, nos. 3&4 (2008): 369-395.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong>:\u00a0 Klein and Poplin<\/a>, Professor of Education at Claremont Graduate University, here offer the results of a survey\u00a0Klein conducted of parents whose children are enrolled in the California Virtual Academies (CAVA).<\/p>\n

Klein\u2019s doctoral dissertation on the same theme was published in 2006 as Virtual Charter Schools and Home Schooling<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0 Poplin was her major professor.\u00a0 This article is basically a shorter version of the book.\u00a0 Though published in 2008, it\u00a0is based on data collected during the 2004-2005 school year.<\/p>\n

Klein begins with a brief orientation to homeschooling, charter schools, and virtual charters.\u00a0 Virtual charter schools are public schools that offer online curriculum and computers, all for free, to students in their homes.\u00a0 Virtual charter schooling\u00a0is government-funded homeschooling.<\/p>\n

After her orientation, Klein reports the results of a survey she conducted of parents whose children were enrolled in the California Virtual Academies (CAVA).\u00a0 When she conducted the survey, CAVA had six schools with a total enrollment of 2,051 students, coming from 1,422 families.\u00a0 CAVA\u2019s main draw is its use of\u00a0the very popular K12 curriculum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Klein was given permission to have the students\u2019 teachers email parents her survey.\u00a0 Of the 1,422 families who were mailed the instrument, 146 responded, a dismal return rate of just over 10%.\u00a0 All but three respondents were mothers.\u00a0 Over 90% were married.\u00a0 70% white.\u00a0 94% had at least some college education.\u00a0 90% were Christian,\u00a0mostly conservative Protestants\u00a0(17% were Catholic and only 7% claimed no religious affiliation).\u00a0 Klein summarizes that these parents tend \u201cto be more educated, more religious, and more likely to be married than the general population.\u201d (p.379)<\/p>\n

Since CAVA is a public school its students are required to take the same standardized tests as do other California public schoolers.\u00a0 Because the test results of 2005 \u201cwere not available at the time of the study\u201d Klein used the results from earlier years.\u00a0 CAVA came out looking good in English Language Arts, with 15 of the 18 grade categories scoring above state averages.\u00a0 But in math things were not so good:\u00a0 16 of 18 grade categories scored below state averages.\u00a0\u00a0Klein notes that CAVA has instituted a plan to address this deficiency.<\/p>\n

Klein found that parents are overwhelmingly positive about the CAVA experience, and that this positive feeling was the same regardless of parent\u2019s\u00a0race, class, educational level, and all other variables.\u00a0 Her instrument included some open-ended questions, and Klein found the following five reasons to dominate the positive appraisals of parents:<\/p>\n

1. Parents love the K12 curriculum (61% mentioned this)<\/p>\n

2. Parents like the flexible scheduling and pre-packaged lessons (50%)<\/p>\n

3. Families had had negative experiences in traditional public schools (47%)<\/p>\n

4. Parents like that it is free (18%)<\/p>\n

5. Parents like that they can incorporate family and religious values into the school day (16%)<\/p>\n

Though parents were very pleased overall, when asked what could be improved, 20% responded that more opportunities for face-to-face socialization should be provided.<\/p>\n

After collecting and\u00a0analyzing the surveys, Klein conducted more intensive face-to-face interviews with ten representative families.\u00a0 These interviews reinforced the findings of her surveys:\u00a0 parents spoke highly of the K12 curriculum and loved being able to skip a day or two and then make it up on a Saturday or during a vacation period.\u00a0 All but one spoke freely, unprompted, about their faith.\u00a0 Klein notes, \u201cIt appears that these parents are largely Protestant Christians.\u201d (p.390)<\/p>\n

Klein concludes with two observations:\u00a0 first, she is fascinated by how easily these families take a secular curriculum and seamlessly incorporate their own Christian values into it.\u00a0 Secondly, she hypothesizes that the Virtual Charter School movement is perhaps an example of a post-industrial reorienting of public and private spaces:<\/p>\n

“Could it be that our technological culture, born of the industrial revolution, has come full circle and offers again the opportunity to renew this integration of family, work, values, and schooling that was initially torn apart by the industrial revolution?” (p.392)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Appraisal<\/strong>:\u00a0 This article is a convenient summary of Klein’s earlier book, but unfortunately though published later it does not take the story further than the 2004 school year.\u00a0 She does have a footnote that sounds like it was written in early 2006.\u00a0 In this footnote she includes one of the most helpful insights of her book:\u00a0 when cybercharters are first opened in a state they tend to attract people who had been homeschooling before.\u00a0 As they mature, however, cybercharters increasingly draw families out of public and private education.<\/p>\n

Milton Gaither, Messiah College<\/p>\n

Disclaimer<\/strong>:\u00a0 The views expressed in reviews are not the official views of ICHER or of its members.\u00a0 For more information about ICHER\u2019s Reviews, please see the \u00ab\u00a0About these Reviews \u00bb Section.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Record: \u00a0Carol Klein and Mary Poplin, \u201cFamilies Home Schooling in a Virtual Charter School System\u201d in Marriage and Family Review 43, nos. 3&4 (2008): 369-395. Summary:\u00a0 Klein and Poplin, Professor of Education at Claremont Graduate University, here offer the results … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6,13,18],"tags":[102,75,104,101,105,77,76,103],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curriculum","category-public-schools","category-technology","tag-california-virtual-academies","tag-carol-klein","tag-cava","tag-claremont-graduate-university","tag-k12","tag-marriage-and-family-review","tag-mary-poplin","tag-virtual-charter-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions\/186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}