Student needs should be most crucial factor

TRANSPARENCY and high standards are much needed in Oklahoma schools. This is as true of virtual charter schools as traditional brick-andmortar venues. Sen. Ron Sharp has filed several bills he says would provide accountability and oversight. We have no problem with giving virtual schools a serious review, but it’s notable one of the things Sharp decries is that virtual schools pay teachers too much.

Last January, it gained wide attention when it was reported Epic Charter Schools, an online school, was paying teachers $64,000 on average and as much as $106,000 in select cases. Sharp, R-Shawnee, complains online providers can use taxpayer funding “to provide exorbitant bonuses to teachers to recruit other teachers and students.” Yet the Tulsa World reported Epic gave teachers base pay of $1,000 per regular education student and offered bonus pay based on students’ performance on state tests, attendance and remaining in EPIC year over year.

In other settings, teachers don’t lose money when students don’t learn or miss class, and the fact online schools seek to maximize enrollment and attract quality teachers is in line with standard business practices elsewhere.

Another Sharp bill would ban schools from offering private music lessons. Yet a constant complaint about public schools is that the arts have been defunded. The online model often involves a student learning at home, alone, so that bill appears a de facto ban on arts education.

Sharp says he wants transparency regarding online student attendance and course completion. Such information should be provided, but the same standard should apply to all schools. There have been times when traditional schools have failed to keep track of students or masked chronic absences through paperwork dodges.

Sharp also wants to deny state funding to online schools if a student flunks a course. Should traditional schools as well? And would Sharp prevent schools from complying through grade inflation, which is already a problem? Talk to teachers and you’ll soon hear of schools where administrators order teachers to give minimum grades even when students do no work.

That said, valid concerns have been raised about the practices of some virtual schools, and credible review is warranted. But such review should be designed to improve students’ educational outcomes and opportunities, not to stymie innovation or the introduction of new learning models.

Lawmakers should keep in mind that virtual schools provide great benefit to some students. In December 2017, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board released a survey of families who chose virtual education. One key finding was that 41 percent of respondents reported “bullying or threats from classmates at other schools” had led them to pursue online learning; 34 percent cited “problems with staff or administration at other schools.”

Arbitrarily barring such students’ access to virtual learning won’t resolve the underlying problems that caused them to leave traditional public schools and does nothing to improve students’ education outcomes. Lawmakers should focus on increasing student achievement and enhancing student access to course content, not simply preserving old models of delivery regardless of students’ needs or educational results.