From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Virtual Charter Schools Enrollment is Up, But Student
Performance is Down

Description: Even before COVID-19 drew national attention to remote
learning, enrollment in virtual schools had actually been increasing
faster than enrollment and other public schools, and nearly 70% of all
students attending virtual schools are enrolled in virtual charter
schools. But there are concerns about how well students are performing
and whether the self-paced, mostly online learning format is producing
negative results. We find out more from GAO's Jackie Nowicki.

Related GAO Work: GAO-22-104444, K-12 Education: Department of Education
Should Help States Address Student Testing Issues and Financial Risks
Associated with Virtual Schools, Particularly Charter Schools

Released: March 2022

[Music]

[Jackie Nowicki:] In general, students in virtual schools perform much
worse on state assessments compared to students in brick and mortar
schools. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Hi and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report--your source for
news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm
your host, Holly Hobbs. Even before COVID-19 drew national attention to
remote learning, enrollment in virtual schools had actually been
increasing faster than enrollment in other public schools. The vast
majority of students attending school virtually are enrolled in virtual
charter schools. But there are concerns about how well students are
performing and whether the self-paced, mostly online learning format is
producing negative results. Today, we'll find out more from GAO Director
Jackie Nowicki, an expert in K-12 education. Thanks for joining us. 

[Jackie Nowicki:] Thanks for having me, Holly. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So, Jackie, the pandemic has been disruptive to all
students, but we looked at student performance at virtual charter
schools before COVID. How does this performance compare to other public
schools?

[Jackie Nowicki:] So in general, students in virtual schools perform
much worse on state assessments compared to students in brick and mortar
traditional schools or brick and mortar charter schools. So, for
example, let's look specifically at charter schools since they account
for about 70% of students enrolled in virtual public schools. So the
average math proficiency rate for virtual charters was 25 percentage
points lower than the rate for brick and mortar traditional schools, and
18 percentage points lower than brick and mortar charters. And those
gaps are statistically significant even when we controlled for a variety
of student demographics. So things like race and ethnicity and income,
and also when we controlled for differences in state testing policies
and standards. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So given that difference in performance, what can you
tell us about how instruction might differ between traditional versus
virtual schools?

[Jackie Nowicki:] So virtual schools largely offer self-paced or what's
called asynchronous instruction, meaning it's generally not real time
and structured with a teacher. Sometimes teachers do live classes via
video, but they're often optional. And parents are usually expected to
be home with their students and often act as instructors. And, you know,
as with anything, there are two sides to that coin. So families may
choose these schools partly for these reasons--so that students can move
at their own pace or take advantage of the flexibility of choosing when
they're doing their work. But school officials also told us that
students can struggle with the level of independence this type of
learning requires. And parents have found the time commitment sometimes
to be overwhelming. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So, why would a parent choose a virtual charter school? 

[Jackie Nowicki:] Oh, there's a lot of reasons why families might choose
a virtual school. So some students may have chronic medical conditions
that make going to school in person difficult. Some families choose
virtual schools because they have concerns about bullying or safety.
Sometimes, families, who are homeschooling their children, enroll their
kids to get supplemental curriculum and instruction. My own daughter
takes a virtual class part time because her public school doesn't offer
A.P. Latin, so she takes A.P. Latin online. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Public schools are required to meet certain standards.
Are there similar requirements for virtual schools, including charters?  

[Jackie Nowicki:] Yeah. So virtual schools these are public schools, so
they have to meet all the same standards as brick and mortar public
schools. A tricky one is taking attendance. Right? This can be harder
when students are not showing up in-person. And we found a lot of
variety in the ways that virtual schools do it. It can even be
inconsistent within a single state. And that might not sound like a big
deal, but it can result in data reliability issues with a state's
attendance data. And that also has implications for the amount of state
and federal funding these schools receive. Another standard that's
tricky for virtual schools is participating in state testing. So the
goal is to have 95% of students participate. But we found that the
participation rate for virtual school students is substantially lower
than for students in brick and mortar traditional schools and in brick
and mortar charter schools.

[Holly Hobbs:] I guess I don't really understand the connection between
attendance and funding, and how that would work or be tracked for
virtual charter schools?   

[Jackie Nowicki:] Right. So attendance can determine enrollment numbers,
which can affect the funding that a school receives. So a traditional
definition of school attendance focuses on the presence of a student in
a classroom or a school activity. And that generally isn't applicable in
a virtual environment. So because it's tricky to think about attendance
virtually and what that means, there's risk that attendance numbers for
virtual schools are inaccurate, and that translates to an increased risk
that virtual schools might receive more or less funding than they
should. Now, Education has no policy on tracking attendance in a virtual
environment other than guidance related to the COVID-19 national
emergency; and that's despite the fact that many districts across the
country established new long-term virtual schooling options in the
2021-2022 school year. 

[Holly Hobbs:] So Jackie, I know our report looks at pre-COVID numbers,
but all we've been hearing about lately is the importance of keeping
kids in classrooms, and the social and educational benefits of in-person
learning. Why, then, might enrollment in virtual learning increase? 

[Jackie Nowicki:] First, it's important to remember that although
enrollment in virtual schools is increasing faster than in any other
type of public school, we are still talking about relatively small
numbers of kids. So there's about 49 million public school students in
the United States, and between 400,000 and 500,000 of them were in full
time virtual schools during the 2019-2020 school year. That said, when
the pandemic initially forced most schools to go virtual, some families
looked for schools that had experience doing virtual learning instead of
putting their kids in a school that was sort of learning on the fly. And
at the same time, when schools started to reopen, families that were
nervous about the safety of in-person learning sometimes opted for
virtual schools. 

[Music]

[Holly Hobbs:] So Jackie just told us that enrollment in virtual schools
is increasing and that they may appeal to parents for a number of
reasons. But even so, there are concerns about student performance and
attendance at virtual schools, and the Department of Education is
responsible for monitoring these issues. So, Jackie, what could the
Department of Education do to improve its oversight of virtual schools?

[Jackie Nowicki:] So we do have a couple of recommendations in the
report to help with this. For virtual schools, you know, we recommended
that Education help states ensure that they are reporting comparable
attendance data across their virtual and brick and mortar schools. And
we also want them to identify challenges that are contributing to why
virtual schools have significantly lower participation rates on those
required state standardized tests, and to share those strategies to help
states increase participation of virtual students on those state tests. 

[Holly Hobbs:] And what about other kinds of charter schools? Do we make
any recommendations to Education about them? 

[Jackie Nowicki:] So for charter schools, which of course includes
virtual charter schools, they are often run by management organizations,
some of which are for-profit. Education's Inspector General reported
that these relationships can increase financial risk because an interest
in profits may outweigh a school's interest in providing high-quality
educational services to students and complying with federal program
requirements. So, Education started asking states to report on these
relationships, but we found that those data were incomplete and
inaccurate. So we recommended that Education identify the factors that
are causing underreporting and misreporting of information on management
organizations, and then take steps help states report accurate data on
those contracts. 

[Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of your report? 

[Jackie Nowicki:]I think the bottom line is that enrollment in these
schools is growing. So clearly there are things about an all virtual
model that appeal to some families. But on average, these schools
perform much worse on state assessments compared to brick and mortar
traditional schools and charter schools. And these schools also pose
increased financial risks due to challenges measuring attendance. And
for charter schools, specifically, those contracts with management
organizations can also present some risk. Thankfully, Education agreed
with our three recommendations to address these issues and said that it
could do more to help states address these challenges. 

[Holly Hobbs:] That was Jackie Nowicki talking about GAO's recent report
on the challenges facing virtual charter schools. Thanks for your time,
Jackie. 

[Jackie Nowicki:] Thanks, Holly. 

[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To
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