National Education Policy Center on Virtual Charter Schools: Annual Report
Today the National Education Policy Center released itsannual review of research on virtual charter schools. The bottom line was not good.
The title of the report is “Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2019.” It was double blind peer-reviewed.
The authors write:
The number of virtual schools in the
U.S. continues to grow.
In 2017-18, 501 full-time virtual schools enrolled 297,712 students, and 300 blended schools
enrolled 132,960. Enrollments in virtual schools increased by more than 2,000 students between
2016-17 and 2017-18, and enrollments in blended learning schools increased by over
16,000 during this same time period. Virtual schools enrolled substantially fewer minority
students and fewer low-income students compared to national public school enrollment.
Virtual schools operated by for-profit EMOs were more than four times as large as other virtual
schools, enrolling an average of 1,345 students. In contrast, those operated by nonprofit
EMOs enrolled an average of 344 students, and independent virtual schools (not affiliated
with an EMO) enrolled an average of 320 students.
Among virtual schools, far more district-operated schools achieved acceptable state school
performance ratings (56.7% acceptable) than charter-operated schools (40.8%). More
schools without EMO involvement (i.e., independent) performed well (59.3% acceptable ratings),
compared with 50% acceptable ratings for schools CONTINUE READING: National Education Policy Center on Virtual Charter Schools: Annual Report | Diane Ravitch's blog