Virtual Schools: Policies and Issues
by
Patricia Hendricks

Educational communities are currently experiencing tremendous growth in the number of virtual schools. Forty to fifty thousand K–12 students enrolled in an online course during the 2001­–2002 school year. This chapter of the Technology Coordinator’s Handbook will describe policies and issues that local schools and districts must consider when implementing virtual school programs. Specifically it will address teaching issues, financial models, quality assurance, and effective infrastructure frameworks for virtual schooling. Questions that local schools and districts should consider are posed throughout this chapter. These questions are designed to guide local policy discussions.

What is a virtual school? Virtual schools are educational organizations that offer K–12 courses through the Internet or using web-based methods. Virtual school organizations include the following:

In addition to the tremendous growth of virtual learning opportunities, there are still tremendous challenges. Karen Middleton, senior project coordinator for Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET), explains that the current frameworks for educational regulatory systems are based on place and time. For instance, advancement is based (among other things) on how much time a student spends in a specific school setting. Virtual schooling challenges this framework. Virtual school is any time, any place, and any pace.

Virtual school allows educators to meet the individual needs of learners. Expanded course offerings allow schools to offer courses beyond their teaching staff’s capability. Virtual school also allows students the opportunity to interact with students outside of their own environment. It increases scheduling flexibility and makes possible alternative programs like summer school and dual enrollment.

Teaching Issues

Teaching issues for virtual schools include how to prepare and support online teachers, how to design effective curriculum for a virtual environment, and how to measure student achievement. Middleton warns that teachers who are terrific in the classroom are not necessarily prepared for an online environment. A robust teacher-training program is necessary to prepare teachers for the unique challenges of a virtual classroom. Schools and districts must decide if they will develop this professional development in-house or will hire outside training. Virtual High School (VHS) offers 15- and 22-week training programs. Potential VHS teachers become students in an online course. As they learn to teach online, they also design their course and assessment strategies.

Schools and districts also need to consider policies of evaluation and work practice. How will administrators modify their evaluation practice to include teachers that are not located in their school building? What work practices need to be negotiated with teacher unions? If a teacher is sick and unable to fulfill duties in her physical building, should she be allowed to teach in her virtual classroom?

Certification of teachers is another important issue to consider. Virtual schools allow for cross border teaching and impact state licensing. No perfect solutions currently exist. National teacher certification is one solution that would solve this problem, but it is unlikely to be implemented. A reciprocity rule for teacher licenses among neighboring states is another possible solution. Teacher certification is not an area that is currently fine-tuned; it depends largely on the state the teacher is in and the state and district policies that govern each particular virtual student. Liz Pape, CEO of Virtual High School (VHS), urges policymakers to consider transfer students. If a student transfers from Texas to Minnesota, the Minnesota school does not require the student to enroll in kindergarten and complete 12 grades in Minnesota. Instead, the Minnesota school considers the courses that the student has taken and accepts that the transfer school certified its teachers. She urges local districts to likewise evaluate virtual courses and consider granting credit for successful completion (as they would to a transfer student).

Curriculum and course development require consideration of compensation and ownership. K–12 teacher-developed online course content and curriculum usually belong to the school district that employs the teacher or developer. Compensation and ownership issues are closely related to financial models. Many virtual schools sell online course content and curriculum to finance their virtual schooling programs. Before this financial model is instituted, the schools must clearly define ownership. If schools and districts purchase curriculum or course content from a vendor, they need to know who is responsible for modifications (if necessary) and the impact that teacher modifications might have on their licenses.

A final teaching issue is state standards. VHS staff designs courses to meet national standards. They modify these standards on a state-by-state basis if necessary. However, state assessments are a concern. What kinds of assessment should be incorporated into the curriculum design? Are these assessment strategies tied to state testing?

In summary, questions to guide local policy discussions include the following:

Financial Models

When discussing financial models for virtual schooling, the bottom line is sustainability. The era of state-funded virtual schooling is almost over. Florida Virtual School (FVS) was initially funded by the state department of education. Full time equivalent (FTE) or average daily attendance (ADA) is paid twice, once to the local school and additionally to FVS. This financial model is not sustainable. FVS is now selling content and providing schooling to students outside the state of Florida.

VHS started with a very similar financial model. VHS was initially funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The grant extended for 5 years. During the third year VHS developed a nonprofit cooperative financial model. Schools pay an annual membership fee to VHS. Each participating school agrees to provide one or more teachers to teach virtual courses. In turn, this provides the school a number of student seats for VHS courses. As more schools join the VHS cooperative, economy of scale will be achieved and annual membership fees will be reduced. This cooperative financial model is immediately self-sustaining, but it is dependent on showing the value of virtual schooling. Pape warns that this model needs to provide time for administrators to work virtual schooling into their budgets. She suggests that virtual school advocates expect an 18-month lag between evidence of effectiveness and a line item on the district budget.

The best way to support a sustainable funding model is to make sure that the virtual courses are of high quality and provide benefits not currently available in the school or district.

Questions to guide local policy discussions are

Quality Assurance

Middleton and Pape urge educators to delineate their audience for virtual schooling. Intended audiences might be students who failed sophomore English, AP calculus students, or home schooled students. After educators determine the audience, they select standards that match their goals for these students. Standards may include state or local curriculum and/or 20 th century learning skills. The National Education Association (NEA) developed the Guide to Assessing Online High School Courses. This guide suggests standards for online learning. It is a rich resource to educators and can be found at http://www.nea.org/technology/onlinecourseguide.html

Middleton suggests educators separate curriculum standards from instructional standards. For instance, quality of course design and the way the course works are instructional standards. Curriculum standards are a known entity in schools. However, instructional standards for a virtual course are less defined. Describing best practice for a virtual instructional environment will help educators prove effectiveness. In summary, if educators define their audience and carefully select the standards that meet the purpose for virtual schooling, they can show the value of virtual learning and sustain the program financially.

Questions to guide local policy discussions include

Infrastructure Frameworks

Online courses are not an entity in and of themselves. Support systems need to be developed around the virtual courses to make a student’s experience in a virtual course as transparent as a face-to-face course. These infrastructure issues include advertising and communication about virtual courses, registration processes and procedures, student skill-sets, technology access and support, information exchanges to administrators such as school counselors, calendars and procedures for posting grades, and on-site coordinators.

VHS employs an on-site coordinator at each school. This is the person that the student and parent go to about questions concerning materials, getting into their course, parent communication, and technical support issues. VHS staff found that the site coordinator was a critical piece in the completion rate of online courses; VHS currently shows a 90% completion rate. They largely credit the site coordinators for this completion rate. They have found that while a virtual course teaches independent learning skills, it is easy for students to get lost in the beginning. A person on-site who monitors progress and answers questions helps encourage students to complete the course.

A carefully produced infrastructure frames the excellent course and teacher. This framework is critical for successful completion of an online learning program.

Policy questions to guide local discussions include the following:

Virtual schooling offers great benefits to teachers, students, and administrators. It allows instructors to teach specialized courses to an extended audience. Virtual schooling allows students to learn any time, any place, and any pace. It reaches nontraditional students who might not be able or willing to attend school in a physical building. However, educators must explore policy questions and engage the educational community in a guided discussion to meet their local needs. We hope these questions will help you frame your discussion.

We are anxious to hear of your successes and challenges in implementing virtual courses. Please send your stories to phendric@temple.edu

 

This chapter of the Technology Coordinator’s Handbook comes from a web telecast that was held on January 29, 2003. This telecast was sponsored by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), MAR*TEC, Technology & Learning, and U Live and Learn.

Irene Spero, Vice President Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), was the moderator for the telecast. Presenters included Karen Middleton, Senior Project Coordinator for Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications (WCET; and Liz Pape, Chief Executive Officer Virtual High School, Inc. (VHS).