Education Week - January 27, 2016 - 27

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25

but schools can't abdicate their responsibility
in this equation. Virtual charter educational
providers should be thinking through the right
role for parents and how schools will meet
their own educational remits.
We urge policymakers to make changes, too.
Charter authorizers-government-sanctioned
bodies responsible for reviewing and approving charter
operators-must take action
if schools are failing students. And the oversight of
educational practice applies
to authorizers, as well as to
schools and educators. Authorizers should be graded
on the performance of their
portfolios: If schools fail students, authorizers must take
action. If they don't, authorizers themselves should be put out of business.
Going forward, authorizers should create
new accountability systems to ensure that no
school fails, month after month and year after
year. The review process must include observation of instruction and close review of student
and parent expectations. We think a shorter
review cycle, rather than waiting years, might
catch problems earlier.
As states think about the future of online
education, they should rethink their expectations and policies and test novel policy arrangements. For example, one policy that we
think has potential would tie funding to performance. Four states-Florida, Minnesota, New

PRESIDENT & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Virginia B. Edwards
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Gregory Chronister

Hampshire, and Utah-are currently testing
performance-based funding systems. Perhaps
we'll discover that providing virtual schools
funding only after students demonstrate mastery is the right way to hold these publicly
funded schools accountable.
That said, with this approach, it would be important to guard against perverse incentives that
could arise. For example, policymakers would
need to make sure that schools weren't pushing
out or otherwise neglecting students who are so
far behind that getting them to pass required
courses or summative assessments would appear
extremely resource-intensive.
Other funding reforms
worth considering are tracking enrollments and providing
associated student-based funding each month, rather than
annually. This would help prevent students from being easily forgotten.
To be clear, our comments
about online charter schools
are not an indictment of instructional technology or
online learning more generally, nor how these
stand to help create more high-quality educational options. Nor is this the Walton Family
Foundation abandoning its mission of creating
more educational opportunities for American
children. There are many examples of technology being used in conventional classrooms
in ways that enhance learning. New blended
learning models are showing promise, as is allowing students to customize learning through
the use of online platforms.
But the data from this study do not lie: Online education must be reimagined. Ignoring
problems-or worse, replicating failures-
serves nobody. ■

MANAGING EDITOR Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Charles Borst

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OPINION BLOGS

As Teach For America approaches its
25th anniversary, read what Wendy
Kopp, Linda Darling-Hammond, Randi
Weingarten, and others had to say
about TFA in its 20th year.

Guest blogging in
Education Futures,
researcher Stephan
Knobloch explains
why he thinks ESSA's
biggest impact will be
felt outside the classroom.

www.edweek.org/go/tfa@20

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The Detroit teachers are engaged in a noble act of civil disobedience
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Education Week - January 27, 2016

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