Online charters have a history of poor performance: high attrition rates, low graduation rates, low test scores.
Will Huntsberry of the Voice of San Diego reports here that online charters were once again among the lowest performing schools in that city.
Huntsberry writes:
Virtual charter schools – as well as other charters that don’t use traditional brick-and-mortar classrooms – performed among the worst in San Diego County in a new analysis of test scores that took each school’s poverty level into account.
The analysis compared 632 schools across San Diego County. Out of 14 non-classroom-based charter schools, as they are called in education jargon, five scored among the 20 lowest-performing schools. Nine out of 14 schools scored among the bottom 15 percent.
California’s non-classroom-based schools have lived under a magnifying glass in recent years. State legislators placed a moratorium on new non-classroom schools, after executives from one online charter siphoned more than $80 million into their own private companies. Legislators also temporarily blocked the schools from receiving new funds.
The new analysis, performed by Voice of San Diego and the Center for Research and Evaluation at UC San Diego Extension, did not just look at a school’s test scores. It compared a school’s performance on standardized tests to other schools with similar poverty levels.
Brick-and-mortar charters performed in line with traditional public schools in the analysis. But non-classroom-based charters scored significantly worse.
These findings reenforce the statewide study of online charter schools in California, prepared by “In the Public Interest.” They have a long track record of failure nationally.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The people of San Diego are paying for imposed inefficiency that produces worse academic outcomes. Public schools are efficient public assets that are operated by professionals, not amateurs. Paying for parallel schools that duplicate the instruction available in public schools is a waste of money. In person schooling is far better than online instruction as well as the “home school lite” school option in the post. There is nothing innovative about failure. The part where a charter operator stated that standardized tests are worthless made me smile.
A large school system like San Diego can provide far more options for vulnerable students than any amateur charter school operation, and they can provide authentic professional services to meet diverse students’ needs. The only time charters do better than public schools is when they are highly selective of their students. The city is squandering tax dollars on worthless, redundant private ventures that line the pockets of politically well connected.
It appears that being online is the issue. The article states that “Brick-and-mortar charters performed in line with traditional public schools in the analysis.”
What I thought interesting was 1) the online charters performed worse than others; 2) the brick and mortar charters performed no better than public schools, despite their boasting
retired teacher,
AGREE!
Thank you.
Score Prison Blues
I hear the score train a comin’
It’s rolling round the bend
And I ain’t stopped a score’n, since I don’t know when,
I’m stuck in score prison, and feets keep draggin’ on
But the scores keeps a rollin’ on down the faux atone.
When I was just a baby my mama told me “Son,
Always be a school toy, don’t stop judging the young.”
So I scored some kids in classes and watched them cry
When I hear that score whistle blowin’, I hold my degree
up high.
I bet there’s some folks wondering all about my avatar
They’re probably thinkin’ I’m carefree, a shining star.
Well I must keep the scores a coming, I know I can’t be free
While the goal posts keep a movin’
It still pays me
Well if they freed me from this scoredom,
If that score train was mine
I bet I’d move it out of sight out of the mind
Far from score prison, that’s where I want to stay
And I’d let that score based avatar slowly drift away…
I would think that a year of forced virtual learning would have exposed the flaws of virtual schools. The only way they work is if parents work alongside their child and the teacher is actively involved with instruction. It only “ works” for a select few. Plus, if a parent puts all that effort into their child’s education, they might as well home school.
It is imperative for policy makers to note the failures of online education in charters and during the pandemic. Putting school online is not a solution to any problem other than a life or death situation. It’s no substitute for face to face interaction.