Don’t make online learning a culture war issue

(This seems like a good time to remind readers that the views in this post are my own and don’t necessarily reflect opinions of any DLC members.)

Back in the very early days of the Trump administration, with Betsy Devos as Secretary of Education, Rick Hess wrote an opinion piece that turned out to be prescient. He wrote of his concern that the ways in which the administration was leaning into school choice was making school choice in general, and charter schools in particular, an even more partisan issue than it already was. His view was that this approach would backfire on education reform proponents, and I believe he was correct. (I’m unfortunately unable to find a link to his article.)

We live in a politically polarized time, in which too many people decide what they like or support based on their political affiliation. If my team likes agrees with this position, then I do too. Or, even more corrosively—if the other team likes this idea, I don’t. I’ll figure out why later.

I’ve been thinking about Hess’s article since the news started coming out that an online, public, charter, religious school was being considered for approval in Oklahoma. The recent news is that Oklahoma Charter School Board approves nation's first publicly-funded religious school.

From that article:

In a split decision, Oklahoma City’s Catholic Archdiocese overcame a major hurdle Monday in its effort to create the nation’s first publicly funded, religious charter school. But critics say the move is unconstitutional and likely to face legal challenges.

The application from the St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Catholic Charter School to Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board has been sitting on the table since early April.

At its April meeting, the board voted unanimously to disapprove the application. It cited eight concerns the school had to address before the board would reconsider its vote: appropriate accommodations for special education, the school’s pedagogical approach, its governance and management, connectivity and technology for virtual learning, its funding structure, measuring school and student outcomes, likely lawsuits that would arise and issues with its application’s consistency.

St. Isidore would be free for students in kindergarten-12th grade and funded like any other public charter school in Oklahoma. It aims to open for the 2024-2025 school year and serve around 400–500 students. Proponents say it would give rural Catholic families who live far from brick-and-mortar schools the ability to access Catholic education.

That’s just one of many articles and opinions that have been written about the school.

There’s much to question and unpack.

For example: with so many catholic schools across the country, why is it an online school that is seeking to be the first publicly funded religious school? 

How is this going to play out? It’s clear that there will be legal challenges. If the US Supreme Court upholds this law, how many states will allow religious schools? Will there be a backlash against charter schools in other states?

But more important than that, for our digital learning audience, is my belief that as a field we are better served by keeping digital learning out of the culture wars.

Do you believe religious schools should be publicly funded? Fine, make that case, but don’t make online learning a central component of it.

Do you believe religious schools should not be publicly funded? Fine, but don’t let that bleed into an argument that online schools shouldn’t be funded. And if you hear or see someone conflating those arguments, help them understand the distinction.

The culture wars that seem to be more and more prevalent are a separate issue from digital learning, even though they are now overlapping with our online learning world. In much of education, the wall between education and the culture wars is crumbling. For all the students being well served by digital learning options, we need the wall between digital learning and culture wars to stand strong. There’s nobody better positioned to model that than us.