School is out...at least out of the classroom for more students. At least a dozen Texas school districts are bringing back some form of virtual or hybrid learning options for the upcoming school year. The move reflects efforts by public schools to adapt amidst declining enrollment, teacher shortages, and new competition from the Texas school choice program that's launching this fall. Some districts are switching to four-day weeks, others are adding extra days to improve academic performance. As for the new virtual options, the schools insist they are different than what took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, when mass online schooling led to poor student outcomes and frustration among parents.
Critics are skeptical after that pandemic experience. "I don't know why they didn't learn, virtual school learning during the pandemic did not work," says Jean Burk, president of College Prep Genius. "Especially with parents working now---many, many parents work---so I don't know how they're gonna try to pull this off again."
"There were two main takeaways from the COVID era," she continues. "One, there was no accountability because they had no idea what students were doing. And the flip side of that was parents saw what was going on, and that's why there was a mass effort to leave schools and find other options."
Under a new state law, virtual courses must meet all requirements of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) program, and provide "rigorous instruction." But Burk argues that no matter how many standards are in place, you can't replace live in-person instruction. "You don't have student engagement with virtual schools, instead they end up doing some sort of passive learning," she tells KTRH. "Kids need that face-to-face engagement, especially in the developing years."
Beyond lack of supervision and poor student engagement, Burke notes an even bigger issue with virtual schools---they don't allow for different learning styles. "Some kids are visual learners and they thrive that way, but then you have other kids who are more auditory, and others who are very hands-on," she says. "But when they're all just engaging on a computer screen, they're missing out on a huge component that's going to help them learn."
"So it's just not gonna work. It didn't work then, and it's not gonna work now."
Photo: Cavan Images RF