The majority of those students attended virtual charter schools.
#When is virtual families 3 coming out full#
“If our traditional public schools start teaching this way, it’s going to be disastrous,” said Gary Miron, a professor of education evaluation and research at Western Michigan University who has studied virtual schools.īefore the pandemic, fewer than 1 percent of the nation’s primary and secondary school students attended virtual schools full time, according to the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado. But it has not worked well for those who need more live, face-to-face teacher guidance. That self-directed approach has attracted self-motivated students and those with parents available to act as learning coaches. Many virtual schools require children to work through online courses independently, supplemented by occasional virtual interactions with teachers. To pay for the new online offerings, some districts said, they are using federal coronavirus relief funds or shifting resources from other programs. “My fear is that it will lead to further fracturing and fragmentation,” said Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.ĭistricts said they were simply responding to demand from parents and children who want to stick with remote learning - some because of student health issues, some because of concerns about bullying or discrimination in their school, and some who just prefer the convenience of learning at home.ĭistricts that fail to start online schools could lose students - along with government education funding - to virtual academies run by neighboring districts, companies or nonprofits, administrators said. It could also further divide a fragile national education system, especially when many Asian, Black and Latino families have been wary of sending their children back to school this year. It could normalize remote learning approaches that have had poor results for many students, education researchers said.
Yet a surge of online schools comes with risks. But, she added, “there is a minority of parents, a minority of students and even a minority of teachers for whom virtual schooling is the preferred mode.
“This is hardly a panacea or a silver bullet for public schooling,” said Heather Schwartz, a senior policy researcher at RAND who directed the study. In a study by the RAND Corporation, “ Remote Learning Is Here to Stay,” 58 out of 288 district administrators - roughly 20 percent - said their school system had already started an online school, was planning to start one or was considering doing so as a postpandemic offering. Unlike many makeshift pandemic school programs, these stand-alone virtual schools have their own teachers, who work only with remote students and use curriculums designed for online learning. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, went so far as to say there should be no remote learning option for children in New Jersey this fall.Įven so, at least several hundred of the nation’s 13,000 school districts have established virtual schools this academic year, with an eye to operating them for years to come, education researchers said. Parents and lawmakers, alarmed by the situation, have urged schools to reopen. The districts are racing to set up full-fledged online schools even as concerns mount that remote learning has taken a substantial toll on many children’s academic progress and emotional health. Even as students flock back to classrooms, a subset of families who have come to prefer online learning are pushing to keep it going - and school systems are rushing to accommodate them. “We’re really hoping they can continue it for the rest of his school career.”Ī year after the coronavirus set off a seismic disruption in public education, some of the remote programs that districts intended to be temporary are poised to outlast the pandemic. “It is such a good fit for him,” she said.