The Insider

The state Assembly debate was fierce in spring of 2008 prior to the passage of Act 222, which increased state funding to allow more high school and elementary students to get educated online. “Just what will we get for our money?” critics asked. The controversy still lingers.

Wisconsin is near the cutting edge, among just 26 states that fund virtual schools and among even fewer (18 states) that pay for students who take all courses online. There are now nearly 3,000 students in 18 virtual schools around the state, a tenfold increase in just five years.

Virtual reality is certainly cheaper for taxpayers: For the 2006-2007 school year, traditional schools spent $11,085 per student, while virtual schools spent $5,845.

And the results seem promising. The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance compared 2006-07 test scores for virtual and public school students and found “virtual school students generally outperformed state averages” in reading. In math, they scored above average in three of the grade levels tested and below average in four others.

Of course, the number of virtual school pupils is so small that they could be below or above average in income, intelligence, etc., which could skew the test results. The only thing known for sure is that virtual schools use far fewer teachers.

While a traditional student/teacher ratio is approximately 20 to 1, virtual schools average about 50 to 1, according to Rose Fernandez, president of the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Families. “Virtual schools use a different model than the traditional classroom,” she says. “The prepared curriculum takes some of the workload out of lesson planning. Teachers also don’t have the burden of classroom supervision.”

So what’s the nearly $6,000 per virtual school pupil paying for? Rick Chandler, a former state budget director and current consultant to the virtual schools coalition, provided the legislature this breakdown of expenses: 37 percent for teacher compensation; 24 percent for online curriculum; 24 percent for student instructional materials, computers and Internet costs; and 14 percent for administration.

Mary Bell, president of the state teachers union (Wisconsin Education Association Council), thinks the numbers are unreliable. “It depends on what you believe those lines cover, what’s put in those lines,” she says. WEAC has also questioned whether “there is a consistent audit of the quality standards,” as Bell puts it.

Virtual schools don’t offer phys ed, music or extracurricular activities. For the classes that are offered, teachers lecture via tape or webcam, offer online feedback on assignments and are available for live chats at set times.

WEAC argues that virtual teachers are really “class facilitators,” since parents of students primarily handle the instruction.

A key policy question is how different a virtual education is from home schooling, says state Sen. John Lehman (D-Racine). He’s chairman of the Senate Education Committee and helped negotiate the compromise leading to Act 222. “In Wisconsin, home schooling is permitted, but not financed by taxpayers,” he notes. And yet, “when very young virtual school students are learning online, the parent is the primary teacher.”

Fernandez disputes this. “In many ways, our online curriculum is the instructor,” she says.

“It is the most rigorous, classical curriculum,” she adds, “and is the reason many families choose us. The combination of a world-class curriculum and our exceptional faculty is hard to beat.”