VSTE

Virginia Society for Technology in Education

Advocacy

Statement Opposing HB 8, Virginia Virtual School

February 16, 2016

The Virginia Society for Technology in Education represents over five thousand members including public school teachers, administrators, and higher education faculty. VSTE’s mission is to promote excellence in education through professional development endeavors supporting the integration of existing and emerging technologies.

The Board of Directors for the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) has reviewed House Bill 8, which calls for the creation of the Virginia Virtual School (VVS). We have serious questions and concerns about provisions in the bill and their potential impact on public education and public school divisions in the Commonwealth.

Those questions and concerns are as follows:

Funding is the major concern. Virginia’s funding per student, when adjusted for inflation, dropped on average by 13% annually since 2009, with some divisions experiencing drops as high as 17%. [1] While the bill includes limits on the number of students who could participate in the online school, the legislation will divert both state and federal money for our public school systems to the Virginia Virtual School (VVS), which will contract with non-profit or private entities. Students who opt to participate in VVS would no longer count toward the average daily membership (ADM) count of their local school division, meaning that divisions would lose anywhere from 25% to 75% of their per-pupil funding for each of those students. Smaller rural school divisions who rely more heavily on state and federal funding would be more adversely affected. School divisions rely on those funds to provide pooled services to their students and diverting the funds could have significant impacts on services provided to all students in a school division. Additionally, all the funds would go to the provider even though they would not be providing access to non-instructional services such as nutritional and extracurricular activities.

We are especially concerned that these dollars would go to a private entity. An analysis of the current list of approved providers as well as of the existing marketplace suggests strongly that only one private company - K-12, Inc. - will be able to provide full-time virtual schooling for grades K-12 as most providers on the approved list only provide courses for grades 9-12.

We are very concerned about the quality of instruction provided by K-12, Inc. The company has a poor track record of providing high quality online education, with states across the nation dropping them as providers. The National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado reported in July 2012 that K-12, Inc. students are falling further behind in reading and math scores than students in brick-and-mortar schools. [2] They also pointed out that the student population is transient and graduation rates are low. Finally, K-12, Inc. spends millions each year on advertising and lobbying. Is this really how we want public education funds to be spent?

Finally, we believe we do not need to replace the current systems, processes and advisory board in place for implementing virtual learning. We have a highly qualified Board of Education already in place that could certainly, with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, oversee the school. Currently, access to virtual learning is left at the discretion of local school divisions who are able to make decisions based on their local population and needs. The Virginia Department of Education is piloting an online high school and, in conjunction with many local school divisions, working to provide online opportunities. Why do we need additional legislation when work is already being done across the state? Creating a statewide school takes that local control away from local school boards.

We believe these questions and concerns need to be addressed before this legislation moves forward and the new board is established. We further believe that Virginia has a long history of local control and the establishment of virtual programs should be left at the discretion of our local school boards.

[1] School spending in Virginia hasn’t recovered since recession, Peter Dujardin, October 3, 2015, Daily Press, http://www.dailypress.com/news/education/dp-nws-jlarc-education-report-20151003-story.html

[2] Report Shows Students Attending K12 Inc. Cyber Schools Fall Behind, William J. Mathis and Gary Miron, July 18, 2012, National Education Policy Center, http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2012/07/understanding-improving-virtual%20

Contact:

Karen Work Richardson, Executive Director
karen_richardson@vste.org

Advocating for Public Schools: VSTE Statement Opposing HB 8

The Board of Directors for the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) has reviewed House Bill 8, which calls for the creation of the Virginia Virtual School (VVS). We have serious questions and concerns about provisions in the bill and their potential impact on public education and public school divisions in the Commonwealth.

You can read the full statement here and then we urge you to take action by contacting your legislator about the potentially negative aspects of this bill.

Not sure who represents you at the state level? Find out at the Who's My Legislator website.

Virginia General Assembly Opens Today

Wednesday, January 13, 2016, is the first day of the 2016 Virginia General Assembly with both houses convening at 12 PM. The Virginia House of Delegates and the Senate of Virginia offer live streaming video of the 2016 Legislative Sessions, when each body convenes for session. The adjourn and convene times are tweeted, #vahouse and #vasenate.

VSTE will be offering periodic updates of interest to its members. For now, we suggest you do two things:

  1. Determine your state delegate and senator using the Who's My Legislator link.
  2. Get familiar with the members of the House and Senate Education committees. Compare your legislators with the list to see if you live in the district of one of the members. Being a constituent of a member of the committee gives you a little bit of an "in" to talk to them about education related issues. Why not give them a call or send them an email to let them know what is important to you?

Help Make Broadband a Reality for Everyone

Broadband is the backbone of a high skilled, high-tech economy. Access to broadband accelerates all of Virginia towards economic opportunity, 21st century education, advanced health care, enhanced safety and security and can lead to a better life for everyone in Virginia.

In an effort to expand high-speed Internet access across the state, Virginia Tech's eCorridors program has launched Accelerate Virginia, a new broadband mapping project.

You can help! By sparing just a few minutes of your time to take the Accelerate Virginia Internet speed test, you will help encourage the expansion of affordable broadband services throughout Virginia.

Visit http://www.acceleratevirginia.org/speedtest today to take the speed test and get an instant review of your Internet connection and survey results of what others in your zip code are reporting about their broadband services.

If you do not have access to high speed Internet, please report your broadband dead zone at:http://acceleratevirginia.org/contact/ Your participation will help encourage the expansion of affordable broadband services in Virginia.

VA General Assembly Update

The 2015 Virginia legislative session begins Wednesday, January 14. VSTE is working with the Virginia Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (VAASCD) to become better advocates for education at the state level.

IMPORTANT UPDATE January 28, 2015

As you know the General Assembly is in session. There seems to be renewed interest in keeping the A-F rating system for schools, even though we expected it to be repealed this year. In order to move forward towards a better accountability system, we really need A-F to be repealed.  There are two versions of bills circulating right now. Both acknowledge that we are working to redesign the accreditation system; one includes a specific repeal of A-F and one does not.

These bills are still in Committee right now; if your legislator is on one of the education committees, now is a very important time to drive this message home. If your legislator is not on one of the committees, it’s still worth it to make a call or send an email, and we will ask you to do so again later when the bill comes before the full House and Senate. When you make your call, reference House Bill 1672 or Senate Bill 727.

Important Points To Make In Your Call:
- the Innovation Committee and the Board of Education agree that the accreditation system should be revised to include additional levels.
- these groups are working now to determine what these levels should be; VASCD, our partner, supports a “ladder-like” system that will not only show the rating of a school, but also trends (progress measures), areas of strength and areas for improvement.
- assigning a single letter grade as a school’s accreditation rating defeats these moves toward a better system before they have even had time to be developed.

There is momentum across Virginia to develop alternative assessments that provide a variety of ways for students to demonstrate what they know and can do. House Bill 1675 provides an option (this would be decided and approved at the division level) for students to earn verified credits under certain circumstances with less than 140 clock hours of instruction or by demonstrating mastery of SOL content and skills using an alternative assessment. This bill grew out of a recommendation of the Innovation Committee, and this morning even a legislator who is a member of that committee expressed concern about letting local divisions substitute alternate assessments for SOLs.  VASCD supports this proposal, which did pass out of Committee this morning after a nail-biter of a debate!  Please ask your House member to support this bill, understanding that the state will have guidelines to ensure the quality of the alternate assessments. Basically, our position is that once students can demonstrate the skills and are solid on the content of a course, they should not be prevented from moving on to more challenging, interesting, or relevant material while they mark time and wait for the test date to arrive. Again, under this legislation this would be a local option, not a requirement.

You can find information about how to contact your legislator on the Advocacy page.