Will post-pandemic school be different? A prediction.

Previous posts made the case for why post-pandemic school may be unchanged, or may be different.

So, what do I think?

First, I have to be clear that predicting makes me uncomfortable. I believe in the Yogi Berra view (“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”) But publishing two posts laying out alternative views calls for some further analysis, and, dare I say, some predicting.

But in keeping with my reticence to predict, and our role as the Digital Learning Collaborative to amplify the voices of people in the field, I’m not basing this prediction primarily on my own thinking. Instead, I’ve been informally polling some of the smartest people that I know who are working in the field, whether by listening to their webinars, reading their blog posts, or asking them directly. Not people with an axe to grind, nor a position to push—but instead people who have to think hard about these questions while figuring out how to best serve their students and schools. Their collective wisdom suggests that the most likely post-pandemic future will be somewhere in between no change and large-scale change. Although that may seem unsatisfying, the type of change they are predicting is notable.

Most practitioners working in schools and district central offices recognize the ongoing pressures of meeting student, parent, and political expectations and norms. They tend to believe that many of these pressures will revert back to their pre-Covid position when the pandemic ends.

But they also believe that the pandemic is providing lift to the innovative schools, programs and technologies that are trying to take off, and in some cases have been operating with relatively small numbers of students for many years. They believe that these innovative online, hybrid, and technology-enhanced schools and programs will become stronger, more accepted, more enmeshed in mainstream bureaucracies—and attract more students. District leaders have looked to these programs for guidance during the pandemic, and some online school leaders feel they are being recognized for the first time.

Student numbers in online, hybrid, and blended schools are likely to grow significantly, but remain a small percentage of overall student numbers. For example, fully online schools currently enroll about 400,000 students, or under 1% of all students nationwide. One possible post-pandemic outcome is that the enrollment these online schools will increase substantially, perhaps by as much as 50%. From a national public education perspective, that change would be minor—going from 1% to 1.5% of all K-12 students. From an online education perspective, however, a 50% increase would radically alter current demand. Even that small increase in popularity and attention might tilt the scales enough that online schools are much more widely recognized and appreciated.

A related and potentially more significant outcome for the current online education universe is that districts may decide that learning flexibility is something they can achieve in-house.  Currently, most online schools are charter schools, or otherwise operate outside of school district structures. Districts may begin providing their own online or hybrid options.

For many online and hybrid schools that operate within districts, a common story is about internal competition—that their enrollment has been capped, formally or informally, by districts that don’t want to “lose” too many students to these new options, even when the online/hybrid school is run by the district itself. My expectation is that some of these districts will recognize that more families want these options, and more teachers are comfortable teaching in these environments, and thus they will relax the de facto restrictions that they have imposed on online/hybrid schools. The result will be that these innovative schools will be released from some restrictions, and then will able to grow. Several people I have spoken with have independently guessed that perhaps the number of students in these online, hybrid, and blended programs might grow to 10-15% of all students, which could permanently alter the relationship between mainstream and online schools within districts, in particular making online and hybrid schools a more common, and more commonly accepted, alternative.

Will public education as a whole look radically different, post-pandemic? Probably not. But people who have been in the trenches of online, hybrid, and blended schools will likely find a new wind at their backs, supporting their schools’ growth and innovation. Growth will be significant in percentage terms, but from such a low base number that online, blended, and hybrid schools will remain small compared to education as a whole.

Will all this represent significant change? It depends on one’s perspective. In a few years, looking back, one might say online/hybrid/blended learning grew by 50%, doubled, or even tripled in some cases. Another might say those options still represent less than 15% of all students. Both will be correct.