Poor policy ideas bubbling up
Our policy guru has written recently about how there have been relatively few digital learning laws passed in the current year’s legislative sessions. That doesn’t mean, however, that there is a lack of policy activity. New policies are being planned, debated, and in some cases implemented—and some of it is quite concerning.
Usually, we focus on state bills only if they have passed. This is mostly because tracking all introduced bills would be a major challenge for our small team, and also because there’s a lot of introduced bill “noise” in the “signal” of what ideas are really gaining traction—which becomes much more obvious if you look only at bills that are enacted. However, in the current policy environment it’s worth a broader look, particularly at issues of concern.
This post looks at three examples. Given how quickly some of this can change—bills get amended, SEA’s adjust their requirements—we are less focused on the specifics of bills at this time, and more focused on some of the bad ideas that we’re seeing.
Restricting access to online learning
If there’s one lesson that should be clear after the last year, it’s that students learn in different ways. (For anyone who thinks that is obvious, note all the policies and practices that states have in place that fail to honor that concept.) During remote learning, some students thrived, while many flailed. Anecdotally, some of those “thrivers and flailers” were surprises, to their teachers and/or parents. (A separate issue is the distinction between online learning and remote learning, which we have previously addressed.)
Let’s leave aside how much thriving and flailing was due to individual teachers, schools being more or less prepared, state policies, etc. One lesson that should be clear is that having more options is better than having fewer options.
And yet, we see New Jersey banning future remote learning, when instead it could use this (almost) post-pandemic period to expand online learning. In Texas, HB1468 would restrict online learning to grades 3-12, excluding earlier grades. This is based on the idea that online learning cannot be appropriate for the youngest students, despite the evidence in other states that allow online learning for all grade levels. They recognize that online learning is applied differently for varied ages, and that at the youngest grade levels parents or other caregivers are heavily involved with student learning. But this approach has worked reasonably well in other states, with the support of schools, teachers, parents, and legislators.
Reduced funding for online learning
Various state legislators are suggesting that remote or online learning should be funded at lower levels than physical schools. In fact, already many states fund online schools, charter schools, and/or online charter schools at lower rates than mainstream schools. Some ideas being explored, as in South Carolina, would apply this concept to online schools and programs in mainstream districts. From a South Carolina newspaper:
“A proviso in the Senate's version of the state budget would cut funding for school districts with more than 5% of students in virtual programs. For every student past the 5% threshold, schools could see the amount of money they get per student cut nearly in half…For Greenville County Schools, which currently has about 74,000 students enrolled, it means the virtual program could be limited to less than 4,000 students next year or risk losing funding…About 3,600 students in the district signed up for the fall virtual program before the district's April 23 deadline. Students can still sign up for the program through July 15 but will be added to a waitlist depending on space.”
This example shows quite clearly that the proposed state law risks the eliminating an option for students and families who wish to take advantage of online schooling provided by their local district.
Costs for and funding of online learning is a complicated topic that requires more than a blog post to address—and we are working on a study on this topic to be published in the coming months. It is clear, however, that a state policy cutting funding for online schooling in half will result in fewer options for students.
Pushing synchronous online learning
A third controversial area that we are seeing is states pushing real-time online learning instead of the mix of real-time learning and asynchronous instruction used by nearly all experienced online schools. HB1468 in Texas takes this approach, requiring remote learning programs outside the state’s virtual school network to be synchronous. The Colorado Department of Education has produced guidance on this topic that is less restrictive, but more confusing:
“…schools/districts must ensure that a portion of all remote classes provide some synchronous learning experiences and that students have access to live teacher/instructional support every instructional day of the school calendar. Asynchronous tools/resources, including CDLS courses, can still be used but synchronous learning experiences and live teacher/instructional support must be part of the plan as well.”
CDLS is the state-supported virtual online program, and provides supplemental online courses to districts across Colorado. Such courses typically include some real-time instruction, but not necessarily every day (not even taking into account schools/courses that might be on a block schedule).
Good policy guidelines
Given that we’ve highlighted some bad policy ideas, let’s close with guidance on what makes good state policy—especially in the current environment in which many districts are planning to add online or hybrid options for their students.
Allow districts to provide a variety of options to all K-12 students, including online, onsite, or hybrid.
Fund those options at similar levels, so that the district has no incentive to push students towards a higher-funded option.
Allow parents to choose online or hybrid options that meet the needs and best learning strategies for their children
Allow educators to choose the best instructional approach—real-time or asynchronous—for their classes and students.