The Warwick, Rhode Island, school committee voted 4-0 to offer online courses to high school students, despite the lack of any evidence that students learn well when taking such courses. The schools’ director of secondary education played a video touting the virtues of online learning before the vote. That was it.
Peter SanGiovanni, a teacher at Pilgrim, said the jury is still out on VHS.
“The U.S. Department of Education said there have been very few case studies done to prove this is an effective way of teaching,” he said.
SanGiovanni mentioned a study that was done by NPR that looked at more than 300 VHS-type programs and found that not only were two-thirds of those programs not educationally rigorous enough, but that when looking at students that participated in a full-time VHS program compared with full-time classroom students, the graduation rate for full-time VHS students was less than half of full-time classroom students.
SanGiovanni also questioned how VHS students would be policed in terms of taking exams.
Meredith McSwiggan, a special education teacher at Gorton, said her experience with VHS was not a positive one.
“I had a student years ago that was a struggling student and he couldn’t get through the English 9 course. I can’t say that he learned anything by taking the VHS course,” she said. “You don’t have immediate feedback with virtual courses, which is something that’s important for teachers.”
One of the parents that spoke during public comment, who recently completed a Master of Science online degree, said he didn’t get much out of the course and received almost no feedback from non-local teachers.
Superintendent Philip Thornton said VHS would be like a pilot program, with a very small percentage of students participating.
To my knowledge, there are no research studies showing the superiority of online classes over teacher-led, in-person, interactional classes. But there is a significant industry pressing hard to expand online classes and to make them a graduation requirement.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
there is no (independent) research that 1:1 works – yet we “have to have it, or our students won’t be college/career ready…”
O wait, that, too, is an industry slogan…
Not a very good comparison, Rudy. 1:1 is highly effective and used frequently by well off parents. It’s called tutoring. Aside from the snark 1:1 support has an extensive record in special education. I’m not sure where we”have to have it, or our students won’t be college/career ready…” Are you talking about something entirely different than I am?
2old2teach–He may be speaking of 1:1 iPad implementation that many schools are adopting.
You may be right. Rudy?
I have been supporting students in online classes for 16 years (Gifted (mostly science and math), World Languages and credit recovery). Only 1 in 4 of even the highest performing students felt that it was a positive learning experience. Many refused to take future classes, even those from the nation’s finest universities. Credit recovery provided a path for credit but seldom provided a high quality learning experience.
The US Department of Education is pushing for the Rhode Island experiment nationwide:
“For observers of this scene from a visit in spring 2015, it may seem like student learning is all over the map at Village Green Virtual Charter School. That’s because it is—by design. Sarah and Tammy’s school, founded in Providence, Rhode Island in September 2013 serving grades 9–10 with plans to expand to grades 9–12, was created with the express goal of “personalizing” learning for every student through a “blended learning” model of online curriculum and in-classroom teaching.”
I’m unclear why so many ed reformers push online learning so hard- it’s the whole gang from Jeb Bush to Arne Duncan.
I think people should be extremely wary of such a hard sell by lobbyists and their politicians.
http://sites.ed.gov/progress/2015/11/rhode-island-school-makes-learning-personal-for-students/
Here is the website for the industry, and it calls itself an industry.
http://www.inacol.org/symposium/
This is an oldy but a goody. Jeb Bush’s foundation parachuted into Maine and designed their entire “online learning” plan:
“Levesque replied not to worry; her staff in Florida would be happy to suggest policies, write laws and gubernatorial decrees, and develop strategies to ensure they were implemented.
“When you suggested there might be a way for us to get some policy help, it was all I could do not to jump for joy,” Bowen wrote Levesque from his office.
“Let us help,” she responded.
So was a partnership formed between Maine’s top education official and a foundation entangled with the very companies that stand to make millions of dollars from the policies it advocates.
In the months that followed, according to more than 1,000 pages of emails obtained by a public records request, the commissioner would rely on the foundation to provide him with key portions of his education agenda. These included draft laws, the content of the administration’s digital education strategy and the text of Gov. Paul LePage’s Feb. 1 executive order on digital education.”
The reporter who researched and wrote the piece won an award in 2012, which is nice, because he probably makes next to nothing at a local paper in Maine unlike the people who stood to make “millions of dollars” by lobbying Maine lawmakers.
http://www.pressherald.com/2012/09/01/virtual-schools-in-maine_2012-09-02/
Maine’s Gov. LePage is a winner.
There was a move to impeach him because he threatened to withhold state money from a charter school if it hired a political opponent (LePage is a Republican and the opponent a Democrat, so it’s easy to see none of this follows the conventional plot lines.)
Yesterday, “LePage said at one of his regular town hall meetings on Thursday that ‘guys with the name D-Money, ‘Smoothie’ and ‘Shifty’ who sell heroin in Maine often ‘impregnate a young, white girl before they leave.’ ”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/paul-lepage-race-drug-dealers
Forest Gump explains it all with: “Stupid is as stupid does.”
“a study that was done by NPR that looked at more than 300 VHS-type programs”
Please assure me that “NPR” here does not stand for National Public Radio.
I cringe to think of the kind of (un)scientific “study” the folks at NPR would do.
Yikes!
This has got to be a cost saving measure guaranteed to increase bottom line (with any savings going toward paying testing/data protocols probably)! If this superintendent were really interested in finding out how well the on-line program works, he might offer one course at his schools for starters replicating the limited “real face time with a teacher” and see if it works. The fact that this is being suddenly done like this is HIGHLY SUSPECT.
Anybody have a link to the study referred to by Giovanni? I did a search but came up empty.
Just think of the spin-offs!
On-line marriages
On-line doctors
On-line play groups
On-line virtual pets
On-line parties
On-line yoga
On-line religious services
I humbly add one more
On-line ranting
It’s only humble if you are speaking of yourself.
Raj, are you attempting on-line comedy?
I humbly add one more
Möbius ranting.
I question the DEMAND for more and more computerized learning in schools. I know ed reformers have promoted a series of slogans to convince us that children and parents are demanding more and more screen time, but I don’t buy it.
I think the “demand” side of this is being driven by a bunch of promoters. I have participated in a series of community meetings on our public schools for almost two years now and not only are parents not “demanding” this, they expressly rejected it when it was promoted by a (paid) “consultant. This is a mixed income district- they are poor and working and middle class people with a small group of well-off people.
Who decided the lower and middle classes want more and more computerized learning in public schools? Vendors? Politicians who are beholden to vendors?
Can someone point me to where this alleged “groundswell” for online learning is coming from? My son actually works in the industry and he thinks it’s a TERRIBLE idea to replace teachers with online programs. He doesn’t even buy that it will make more programmers or coders or designers. He doesn’t think they should be learning a specific set of tech skills – that isn’t what he looks for in employees. He looks for people with the capacity and interest to learn.
Your son is 100% spot-on correct on all counts. My daughter graduated college in June and immediately got a job at a hot, tech company – despite her lack of tech skills. All they cared about was her “capacity and interest to learn”.
The groundswell you wonder about is simply a corporate driven meme.
I am a registered nurse and am in a masters of public health program. Despite being enrolled in a university in the city I live in (NYC), many of the classes are hybrid or fully online, also despite the fact the professors are in the city. I can say first hand that this is an ineffective method of teaching. I am not getting as much out of the program as I had hoped.
I thought it would be helpful for me to take a moment to clear up some misconceptions regarding The Virtual High School (VHS) and its possible role at Warwick.
Here are some key points:
• VHS is a non-profit organization that was founded by a grant from the US Department of Education
• VHS was founded in 1996 and has 20 years of experience collaborating with schools, students and teachers – we were the first online high school program in the US and we were created to SUPPLEMENT (not replace) schools
• The standards used by VHS in its courses are the National Education Association (NEA) standards for online learning – the NEA created their standards for quality online learning by using the VHS model as a base
• VHS courses are cohort-based and require student-teacher interaction – they are online classrooms not independent studies
• VHS provides instruction for students but we ALSO provide instruction to on-site mentors at the local school so students have on the ground support while taking online classes
• We provide teachers (who remain employed by their local schools) with education that helps them learn to teach online and also helps them with face-to-face teaching. Teachers learn with and from one another, share best practices, and expand their learning. This is graduate-level training and we get wonderful feedback from teachers about how it helps them both in their classroom teaching and online.
• We hear overwhelmingly from students that they feel more prepared for college and careers after taking VHS’s very rigorous courses
• The VHS program is accredited and courses are NCAA approved
• VHS has 22 college board-approved AP courses and our pass rates exceed the national pass rates – a great measure that shows that VHS courses prepare students for the AP exam as well as face-to-face courses – and students get more options for courses than they currently have available.
The bottom line is that not all online programs are created equally. VHS as a non-profit exists solely to help school districts help students. We believe in the value of face-to-face instruction and in the role of the teacher and school in educating students. For 20 years we have been helping school districts do more with less, by helping them expand educational options for students. For more information on The Virtual High School visit http://www.theVHS.org.
Carol Ribeiro
President & CEO
The Virtual High School (VHS, Inc.)