In the continued march toward more online learning, a growing number of school districts throughout the state are looking into opening virtual schools - with at least three more possible this fall.

They would join the dozen that exist in the state, including ones in Kenosha and Monroe that opened this year, according to the state Department of Public Instruction.

In addition, one of the schools - the Grantsburg School District's virtual high school - is poised to expand via a partnership with Insight Schools Inc. that will allow it to market its offerings statewide.

"It's really been great for our students," Grantsburg Superintendent Joni Burgin said. "So we're just taking it up a notch."

The number of options for elementary and secondary students interested in virtual learning, which allows students to take courses or attend school over computers, is expected to increase further in the future - although perhaps not to the levels of higher education's expanding online market.

"Really, the sky's the limit in terms of possibilities," said Sharon Derry, a professor of educational psychology and learning sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who has studied online instruction. "This is a trend that is going to be increasing and growing, and it's really difficult to predict what the schools of the future are going to look like."

But even as more school administrators, parents and students in Wisconsin embrace virtual schools and other online learning possibilities, some officials said the growth in providers doesn't necessarily expand the options open to students.

Few local schools are able to develop their own courses, instead contracting with providers, some of which are linked to other districts in the state.

Planners of the Janesville district's virtual school, which could open to 20 students this fall, are exploring a partnership with the Kiel and Appleton districts, which purchase curriculum from the Florida Virtual School and Virtual High School.

A School Board member in the Stevens Point district, which has applied for a state grant to help plan a virtual school, questioned whether such moves are motivated more by trying to prevent money from leaving districts than by giving students options. A number of districts have lost state aid when students residing in those areas have opted to enroll in some of the virtual schools that have been marketed statewide.

"I just see these people buying this Edison kind of curriculum - Edison light - and putting their faceplate on it," Stevens Point board member Mark Ptak said. Edison is a nationwide, for-profit management company that has been contracted to run public and charter schools.

Kris Diener, principal of iQ Academies at Wisconsin, a statewide virtual high school that the Waukesha district started in 2004-'05, agreed that the new schools are mostly expansions of existing programs through new partnerships.

She said she welcomed the competition.

"I don't think the competition endangers us," said Diener, whose school enrolled about 700 students this year. "I think it gives us choices. And Wisconsin needs choices to succeed."

One of those choices could be Honors High Online, an expansion of the virtual offerings from the Northern Ozaukee School District, which started Wisconsin Virtual Academy in 2003 to serve students in elementary and middle-school grades.

'It's not for everyone'

The school is to cater to ninth- and 10th-graders this fall, focusing on college preparation and using a curriculum developed by or contracted for by K12 Inc., the online company that former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett started.

Virtual schools find far more acceptance today than they did four years ago, when they were first getting started in the state, Northern Ozaukee Superintendent William Harbron said.

"I still, from my own viewpoint, come from the perspective that it's not for everyone," Harbron said. "There are definitely students that need to be in that brick-and-mortar situation and need to have that type of experience."

But Diener said that given the prevalence of online learning in post-secondary institutions, there are also advantages to having students experience some sort of virtual schooling while in high school.

According to Eduventures, an industry research company, about 1.5 million of the nation's 17 million to 18 million college students are enrolled in online courses. That doesn't count so-called hybrid courses, which mix face-to-face instruction with online learning.

Last update : 20-11-2008 09:46

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