Cyber Charter Schools: The End of Public Education or a New Beginning?

November 22nd, 2010 - By TheEditor

Many students even continue friendships with students outside the online education community. Says Conant, “I do have friends from church who go to brick-and-mortar schools.”

But is the moderate amount of social interaction enough to assuage the concerns? “Already, we have too many kids who lack appropriate social skills when they reach school age, and the problem generally only worsens as they get older,” says Corinne Gregory, president and founder of SocialSmarts, a nationally recognized program for teaching social skills. “We know that too much “screen time” isn’t good for kids; now we expect them to do the majority of their educational activities online?”

Gregory believes that even the small interaction provided by cyber schools does not address the needs of developing teenagers. “Even the best technology is no good substitute for in-person interaction,” she said. “Giving someone your attention, looking them in the eyes, speaking to them instead of away, learning how to take turns, communication, and sharing ideas and cooperating — all these things are difficult to “simulate” online, and it is still, at best, just a ‘simulation.’”

Dr. Wendy H. Weiner agrees. As a principal of a small high school in South Florida, she said that her school had to discontinue an online program they had for students, which occupied half of the school day, after seeing the day-to-day struggles of the students during the two year duration of the program. “I had found that students need to see the face-to-face reactions of working with peers and the teacher,” she said. ” The other issue is that the intonation of what is written over the internet is not necessarily what was meant by the author.”

The ultimate question on this debate remains: what is best for students and for public education as a whole?

It seems that these alternative institutions can claim some amount of success. Pennsylvania Cyber Charter’s average ACT and SAT scores (22.4 and 1515, respectively) are higher than both the state and national averages (21.9 & 1473 for Pennsylvania; 21 & 1509 for the country).  Seventy percent of PA Cyber Charter students matriculate to a 2 or 4-year college.

If more online educational institutions follow the cyber model, it will continue to fuel the never-ending debate on the state of education.   Certainly, more attention must be paid to this new movement to ensure it fulfills its promise to public school students, particularly the ones on the fringe.  And though opinions of online schools between elation, skepticism, and downright anger, there is no doubt that virtual education which will not easily or quietly go away anytime soon.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/jvbzook Jeffrey V Brown

    There are Afro-centric charter schools that exist out there ….. I just wonder why there are no summer camps that focus on teaching our African-American kids their history and culture.

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  • BLACK

    The children learn more from X-box and playstation than many of the,human interactions they have with teachers that are more focused on politics , pensions and punanny than the students

  • BLACK

    Whatever gets your children the Education they need thats what You as a parent should do it's not about the teacher,politician,pastor,or whoever, its about the children you should do whatever it takes to help your child to compete, it's, this proplem is not just in the schools its in many of the homes that the children come from and that is fact,they are not taught social skills at home and they cannot function in environments that doesnt mimic what values are taught at home, home training is a very important thing in a young persons life we are in the third decade of ill prepared parents in society, fix the home first and you will see the results,stop teaching excuses to the children, if you were a high school dropout what are you teaching your children how prepared are you to teach your child and if you are not prepared to teach your child the basics how dare you complain about anything ! because U are not an active part of the solution just another loud mouth

  • Janet l JONES

    Who is AG?

  • Sara

    It's essentially taxpayer funded homeschooling. I have no problem with it as that, however the amount that those schools receive should not be close to the amount that traditional public schools receive. Public schools provide educational materials and teach and supervise and transport and feed and entertain kids for six hours a day, online schools provide students with content and tutoring. The two are not comparable.

  • http://www.thelearningweb.net Gordon Dryden

    In New Zealand all schools—public and private—are charter schools. For 20 years now, New Zealand has abolished its national Department of Education and its regional Education Boards. Instead, government funding goes direct to each school, and is administered by each school's Bord of Trustees. More importantly, each board draws up its own "charter" with a scaled-down policy-advising Ministry of Education. That charter has two parts: 1) to achieve national curriculum guidelines; and 2) to excel in areas and disciplines chosen by each school under programs called "Tomorrow's Schools". Thus a school might chose to excel in "21st-century technology or literacy", "multi-cultural societies" (the main city, Auckland, has the world's largest Polynesian population—ahead of Honolulu). In the international PISA examinations (to test 15-year-olds on their ability to apply education to real-world knowledge, New Zealand ranks third in the world for literacy, fourth for science and in the top ten for mathematics. Finland ranks top in all three. It might help America's "teach to the test" K-12 edeucation system to visit schools in both countries. Gordo Dryden, co-author, The Learning Revolution series of books, Auckland, New Zealand.

    • bubbables

      Gordon, what the author is describing is a homeschool/cyber school hybrid. Students are plugging into their course material from home or wherever they access the web. Cyber schools fall under the public school umbrella, but the connection is made predominately online.

  • MRM

    Some people talk about online classes as a miracle of the new technology and THE way of the future. Virtual schooling should be considered as an *option* for some (as long as they are provided with other opportunities to communicate and collaborate with others–a crucial skill and something the "tuned-out" kids growing up today who never give any one thing their full attention badly need).

    I dread a situation where it becomes the only option, and until people making the decisions have actually taken at least one class online, they are not in a position to evaluate properly.

    Personally, I have taken several college courses online (as the only option for specific classes I needed for my degree) and see numerous disadvantages. Ideally, a hybrid model would be better, IMO.

  • Ann

    My son suffers from a chronic disease that our public high school flatly refused to accommodate. While agonizing over what to do, I discovered that he was a 9th grader, making As and Bs, but he could not think critically nor write coherently. His accredited online high school's college prep program allowed him to excel in both areas. He is now a successful freshman at a major university. We were fortunate in our choice of schools, and also fortunate that the local YMCA would work with him as an employee, which provided him with ample social experiences and a sense of accomplishment and self-worth. For those students who do not "fit the mold," for whatever reason, an alternative is crucial, in my opinion.

  • Dana Koch

    In an article recently published in “Edweek” the data collected from full-time virtual schools in the state of Pennsylvania supports a more cautious approach for the rest of the nation. “Cyber Charter” schools have been operating in the state for the past 10 years. According to the article, in the most recent year with available data, the 2008/2009 academic year, 7 of the 11 cyber charter schools did not make “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP). In addition, the graduation rate from these cyber charter schools averaged 77%, far below the state average of 89%. Finally, fewer than 66% of graduating students went on to further education as compared to 75% of students graduating from traditional schools. The PA Cyber Charter school does a good job but it is not representative of the quality seen in the majority of cyber schools.

    • http://twitter.com/CourtneyLynn26 @CourtneyLynn26

      It also comes down to the parents

  • Hoosier Mom

    The best thing about my kid's virtual charter is that the school allows capable children to achieve. No more holding bright kids back so everyone can learn in lockstep. Excellence is the norm and many children rise to meet new expectations. As far as I know, no other elementary school in the state allows a sixth grader to take algebra.

  • Matzpen

    Day-to-day human interaction with teachers and professors, it may not have fit neatly into some Fordist time management efficiency schemes of the school-"reformers", but it is that interaction which actually educates and enriches the lives of students.
    http://sherrytalksback.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/a…

  • Fred

    Arby is incorrect when he/she said, "The cyber or charter schools receieve the same money per student as the public schools from which the child comes." In Pennsylvania, cybers receive 75-80 percent of what the home district spends per student. The state then reimburses the home district 30 percent of the cyber tuition it pays out. So the home districts keeps about half the tax dollars for students they don't have to educate. As for his/her assertion that charters go after districts with the highest per-pupil cost, that's also false. Half the charter schools in Pa. are located in Philadelphia because the Philly schools are so bad – they graduate 27 percent of their students. Also wrong is his/her statement that they are "private businesses." Every charter and cyber charter in Pa. is a public school with a public board of directors and open meetings. There are no owners or shareholders. Wagner is right that there is inequity in public education funding – there has been for many years, but he just noticed because maybe 2 percent of the students have opted out for charters and cyber charters. Cyber charters receive unequal funding from districts, but give the same education to each child no matter what his or her zip code.