Representatives of five would-be virtual charter schools will file into the administrative towers of the Georgia Department of Education today to pitch their brand of public education, which lets students study at home computers in their pajamas.
Some contenders will come with national representatives from education management companies touting their records of student achievement in other states. Some will rely on the moms and dads who sit on the boards of petitioning schools to make their case.
If they’re successful, they stand to be funded just as any other Georgia public school. Some state officials, however, aren’t ready to prop open the door of school choice and let more cyber campuses in without first doing more homework on the subject.
Tuesday, the state Board of Education stifled the plans of the state’s only existing virtual charter school, which asked for the opportunity to compete for full funding from the Georgia Charter Schools Commission. The state school board tabled the request so it could study the issue.
The five newcomers, however, did not have to seek permission to petition the commission. They have bypassed traditional routes to charter authorization in Georgia, which is first seeking approval from a local school district and then, if denied, appealing to the state Board of Education. With a second charter authorizer in the state up and running, new pathways are being created for charter school hopefuls.
The five virtual school contenders are aiming high. They understand that as state-chartered special schools under the umbrella of the state Board of Education, they would receive only state and federal dollars. But if chartered by the GCSC, they could also qualify for a matching share of local dollars carved from state allocations to the school districts their students would leave behind.
But their first appearance before the GCSC comes as state education officials are still trying to figure out how to handle virtual charter schools.
Among their concerns:
● How will virtual schools serve special education students?
● How much money should they get and from which sources?
● How will they prevent struggling virtual school students from falling through any cyber cracks?
“We haven’t worked out what it really costs to run virtual ed in a total k-12 environment,” said state Superintendent Kathy Cox. “There is some policy work and budget work that has got to be done.”
Still, the hopefuls are angling for commission charters and equal funding to get them going. They expect to go to their interviews energized by the rally for more school choice on the Georgia Capitol steps this morning hosted by the Georgia Charter Schools Association and Connections Academy, a national education management company looking to move into the market. Organizers expect 1,500 supporters.
Parent Barbara Suddoth is among the charter seekers. She taught her children using the online curriculum of Georgia Connections Academy, which has 20,000 public school students in 14 states and a national online private school.
“My child that I just sent to seventh grade at a private school went with post high school Stanford [Achievement] Test results on everything except for mathematics,” said Suddoth, a governing board president for Georgia Connections Academy Charter School. “I am an avid believer in Connections Academy.”
Time out to study
Georgia has 122 charter schools but only one virtual charter school — Odyessy/Georgia Virtual Academy, which serves about 5,000 kids statewide. The k-8 school won’t be among those looking to impress the GCSC today, however. Its bid to seek a commission charter was temporarily tabled this week by the state Board of Education. Administrators said they wanted to monitor its progress and begin to examine the ramifications of virtual charter schools on a large scale.
Nationally, some states have accused management companies overseeing virtual charter schools of looking to make money off of public education.
In Georgia, prospective virtual schools with the potential to reach students in five or more counties can bypass local school district approval. The districts, however, could be required to share their state allocations when their students switch to virtual schools.
Two lawsuits in Fulton County Superior Court seek to challenge the authority of the GCSC to grant charters without local district buy-in and fund them with a share of the district’s state allocations.
“We want to look at all of the political issues,” said Wanda Barrs, state board chairwoman. “I believe Georgia can be a leading state in virtual education. It is truly an important opportunity. We want to get it right.”
Getting a commission charter would be like hitting the lottery for Georgia Virtual Academy, a campus under the umbrella of the education management company K12 Inc. It could bring in millions carved from the state allocations of the 165 school districts its students have left.
“With additional resources we would be able to have more teachers, lower class sizes ... face-to-face instruction as much as one to two times a week for academically at-risk students,” said Matt Arkin, head of school for GVA. “We would be able to offer a more robust education for our students.”
While Arkin won’t be able to go before the commission yet on behalf of GVA because of the state board’s move Tuesday, he will go before the interview panel to pitch for Georgia Virtual Charter High School.
A new frontier
There are nearly 5,000 charter schools nationwide with 1.4 million students, or about 3 percent of the public school population, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Only a tiny percentage are virtual campuses. Last year, there were 200 nationwide, educating 175,000 students, according to the International Association for K12 Online Learning. Twenty-seven states allow virtual charter schools but only 22 currently have them.
While Georgia is considering how virtual charters will be funded, in several states they are funded just as any brick-and-mortar public school — with a combination of state, federal and local dollars.
Nelson Smith, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said that’s how it should be.
“There is no good argument that the overall funding level should be different for a child in a virtual school than any other kind of [public] school,” Smith said. “Instead of bricks and mortar, you see virtuals place an investment in software and technology and things like travel time. They have teachers that provide in person coverage of a geographic region.”
Pennsylvania funds its virtual charter schools with state, local and federal dollars. State educators there, however, are pushing legislation to prevent education management companies from raking in profits.
“Education management companies are building reserves based on the disparity in per pupil funding,” said Mike Race, spokesman for the Pennsylvania education department. “If you get $10,000 for one student and $25,000 for another, they have the potential to make a profit. The district’s argument has been that if you are making money off a student and the cost of educating them is the same, that extra money should be returned to the district that sent it to you.”
Virtual charter schools also have costs some brick-and-mortar schools do not. “The students will get a computer and the house will get connected to the Internet as well,” said Allison Powell, International Association for K12 Online Learning vice president. “Some of [the schools] provide a stipend for the family to pay for the Internet access if they can’t afford it.”
The real test
The GCSC will decide next month which virtual charter schools it wants to authorize. Interviews for other potential schools will continue next week.
The state Board of Education, however, will have the final say. A charter commission authorization can be overturned by a two-thirds vote of the state school board. It is the state DOE that doles out the funds.
“I wouldn’t approve any of these other virtual schools,” said state school board member James Bostic. “I would fix all of the problems we have with [GVA] and make sure we have one very, very good school. Maybe it just grows in size.”
