A lot of things in Texas have skyrocketed in the last 10 years: average temperatures, the cost of rent and the price of eggs. But none of these have risen by 1,000%. Yet since 2014, the number of Texas students enrolled in virtual public schools has risen more than 1,000%, and enrollment is projected to double by 2028.
Texas Standard spoke with Elizabeth Sander, education reporter with the Houston Chronicle, about the rise of virtual public schools in Texas and new state legislation that is set to shape the landscape of online school in the Lone Star State. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:
Texas Standard: You report that nearly 62,000 students are now enrolled in virtual public schools in Texas. Who are these students? Do they tend to be clustered around certain grades, or do they tend to have certain backgrounds?
Elizabeth Sander: Students enrolled in virtual schools these days just tend to be regular students.
I mean, historically, students enrolled in virtual schools might be in special populations; you could say, maybe around 10 years ago, more students might have been medically fragile or had mental health concerns, or you could have athletes or child actors who couldn’t attend school in person.
But in the last decade, that’s really changed. Now, after the pandemic, most students in virtual school are just like the students in regular public schools in the brick-and-mortar buildings.
What are these schools? Do they also have physical sites where students can go and get specialized attention?
Yes, they’re basically online schools. So it’s like a classroom, except for it’s on the computer screen. So you could have a teacher; you could have synchronous classes. Some virtual schools have classes three days a week in a regular school schedule. And then they have two days a week where the students do their work.
Other schools are completely asynchronous. And some schools have class every single day. So it just differs.
Why have so many Texas parents enrolled their kids in them? What advantages do they seem to offer?
It definitely can help students who are moving around a lot and can’t attend a school in person. You know, you have students that could be unhoused or in foster care that historically would have had to go to many different schools in one year, but this way they can have that continuity. They can have the same teacher for one year.
But in recent years, virtual school has become a lot more popular after the pandemic lockdown, where a lot of parents saw their students doing virtual school at home and many saw the positive effects on their students. There’s concerns about bullying and school safety concerns on the rise, and so some parents just want their kids home.
Is Texas unique in having so many of its young people learning online?
Texas is one of the states with the largest virtual school enrollment. It’s not the largest virtual school enrollment – California, Florida and Pennsylvania are a little bit higher than Texas – but Texas is definitely on the forefront of the public virtual school enrollments.
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If my child is enrolled in a virtual public school, will they be considered as worthy a college applicant as a student that attends a brick-and-mortar school? Do virtual schools have a patina of not being as academically rigorous as some colleges might be looking for?
Yes, historically virtual schools don’t tend to perform as well as their brick-and-mortar counterparts. And that’s because, you know, students have to be a lot more self-motivated when they’re doing school at home.
Online, there’s potentially more distractions. And a lot of times the parent or guardian has to be kind of a partner with the virtual teacher to help their students when the virtual classes are over, just like a teacher might be in public school.
Now, that’s not to say that students who go to virtual school can’t perform just as well as their peers. It just takes a little extra help and support to get them there.
And it is kind of interesting that while virtual schools don’t tend to do as well historically as brick-and-mortar schools, Texas virtual schools are doing a little bit better than the other states that have high virtual school enrollment, according to some recent reports.
You report that some policy changes at the state level, particularly Senate Bill 569, might affect virtual schooling in Texas. How in particular?
It’s one of the biggest pieces of legislation that we’ve seen in Texas on virtual schools in the past five years. It kind of came out of the Texas Commission on Virtual Education, where they took a good look at what virtual education was doing well, what it wasn’t doing well and how to kind of reinvent the framework.
So you’ll definitely see an expansion in virtual schools. Some school districts have even already stated that they plan to expand. Cy-Fair ISD is a great example. They’re the third largest school district in the state. And they just hired a virtual school principal for them to open their own virtual school next year.
But this also helps solidify the framework. For example, if a virtual school isn’t performing well for three years in a row, it does give the commissioner and the TEA the option to close that school. So it kind of just ties everything into a little bit more of a bow as far as virtual schools are concerned.
