Massachusetts is poised to open two more cyber public schools by this time next year, and districts statewide are clamoring to establish their own virtual academies — despite the failing test scores at the one online school we already have.
A new state law allows a total of 10 cyber schools to open by the year 2020 as the latest trend in education — virtual schooling — sweeps the nation, with mixed results.
These schools contract with outside companies that provide software to allow students to receive computerized instruction. Ideally, students exchange emails and phone calls with teachers throughout the day, and have a learning coach, like a parent or guardian, to supervise them at home.
Yet the MCAS scores at the Massachusetts Virtual Academy in Greenfield, which enrolls 500 students throughout the state, have the second-lowest growth percentile in the state, and math proficiency is half the state average.
Even Jeff Wulfson, deputy commissioner for the state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, called the school's scores "nothing to write home about."
But rather than first fixing the problem we have, the state Legislature passed — and the governor signed — legislation to expand virtual schooling.
Advocates argue these schools target students who would otherwise be learning very little — or nothing at all.
"It's another way we can meet the educational needs of kids that are often very hard to educate, left out or left behind," said former state Rep. Marty Walz, the bill's author. "It's a small subset of kids, but it's kids whose needs are almost never being met by our schools. I don't want to leave anyone behind if there's a way to reach them."
The Legislature also crafted the bill to leverage greater state control over Massachusetts Virtual Academy, hoping to fix those dismal scores in the online school, whose superintendent did not return messages from the Herald. The Greenfield School Committee had voted to close the school altogether in February rather than cede such authority to the state. But the committee reversed its position months later after parents with children in the school waged a campaign to keep it open. This fall, it will be the only school in the state operating under the new legislation.
But not for long.
Six groups of regional school districts have applied to open their own virtual academies, including one in Boston. But how do we ensure the right students are attending these schools? Advocates say the law was written to gear enrollment toward students who have been expelled from conventional schools, as well as kids who are chronically ill, teen parents, actors, Olympic athletes and bullying victims. But I'm not sure how that's possible in practice. And I find the latter disturbing. What kind of message does it send to kids that a victim of bullying must leave the classroom and learn at home?
Advocates of online schooling have suggested that bullied teens who have taken their own lives might be alive today if virtual schools existed. But I wonder how many tragedies are prevented by forcing kids out of isolation, pushing them to get up and go to school each day, to learn a vocation, perform a lab experiment or play a sport.
"We don't have all the answers yet," Wulfson said. "There are a number of things about brick-and-mortar schools that are hard to translate."
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