VIRTUAL SCHOOLS IN THE U.S.: Directory and Performance Review (2016 Update)

Record: Gary Miron and Charisse Gulosino, Virtual Schools Report 2016: Directory and Performance Review. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center, (2016). [Available Here]

Introduction: This report is the fourth in an annual series published by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC). The first report in 2013 was followed by the 2014 report (reviewed here) and the 2015 report (reviewed here). I recommend reading the previous reviews first since this post will only cover the information that is new for 2016.

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SLIPPERY ROCK V. PA CYBER: An Analysis of the Case

Record: Rachel R. Hadrick, “Slippery Rock Area School District v. Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School: A Fight on the School-Funding Playground” in Widener Law Journal 22, no. 2 (2013): 289-305.

Summary: Hadrick, now an Associate at the law firm McNees, Wallace, and Nurick, graduated from the Widener School of Law in 2013.  Here she summarizes and evaluates the 2011 Pennsylvania Supreme Court case Slippery Rock Area School District v. Pa. Cyber Charter School.

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ONLINE CHARTER SCHOOLS: Evolution and Concerns

Record: Lisa H. Waters, Michael K. Barbour, and Michael P. Menchaca, “The Nature of Online Charter Schools: Evolution and Emerging Concerns” in Educational Technology & Society 17, no. 4 (2014): 379-389. [Full Article]

Summary: Waters is a Technology Integration Specialist at Flint Hill School in Oakton, Virginia. Barbour is the Director of Doctoral Studies for the Isabelle Farrington College of Education and an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. Menchaca an Associate Professor with theDepartment of Learning Design and Technology at the University of Hawaii. Their goals for this literature review are to:

1. Provide a definition for online charter schools.
2. Describe how online charter schools have evolved.
3. Explain how they operate.
4. Discuss emerging concerns such as governance, funding and effectiveness.

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FAMILY PROCESS DIFFERENCES ENSUING FROM THE CHOICE TO HOME-SCHOOL: Self-Selection Bias?

Record: Mark H. Butler, James M. Harper, Matthew L. Call, and Mark. H Bird, “Examining Claims of Family Process Differences Ensuing From the Choice to Home-School” in Education and Urban Society 47, no. 1 (2013): 86-108. [Abstract Here]

Summary: Butler and Harper are professors in the Brigham Young University School of Family, Life, Marriage and Family Therapy graduate programs. Call is a master’s student in the Family, Life, Marriage and Family Therapy program at Brigham Young University.Bird is a licensed Marriage and family therapist in private practice in Dallas, Texas. Here they explore whether homeschooling is as beneficial to the family as many people suppose.

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EDUCATIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS: A Sociologist Worries about Privatization

Record: Linda Renzulli, “Educational Transformations and Why Sociology Should Care” in Social Currents 1, no. 2 (2014): 149-156. [Available Here]

Summary:  Renzulli, a professor of sociology at the University of Georgia, here lays out two claims.  First, she believes that public education in the United States is experiencing two contradictory trends at once—centralization and standardization of curriculum, assessment, and accountability in public schools on one hand and growing local control and autonomy among alternative forms of public education like charter schools and vouchers on the other.  Second, she is concerned that sociologists of education have not dealt sufficiently with these trends.  Homeschooling comes into play in this analysis as an example of privatizing trends and as a pool of customers for virtual charter schools. 

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FIRST MARRIAGE AND FIRST BIRTH: Comparing Religious, Home, and Public Schools

Record: Jeremy E. Uecker and Jonathan P. Hill, “Religious Schools, Home Schools, and the Timing of First Marriage and First Birth” in Review of Religious Research 56, no. 2 (June 2014): 189-218. [Abstract Here]

Summary: Uecker, a sociology professor at Baylor University, and Hill, a sociology professor at Calvin College, are both familiar names to readers of these reviews.  In a 2008 article Uecker found (among other things) that there was no difference in levels of adult religious commitment between graduates of public or home schools.  Parent religiosity, not school type, made all the difference.  In a 2013 article Hill found that homeschooled young adults were less likely to engage in volunteer activities than demographically equivalent graduates of public schools.  Both of these articles had drawn from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), a remarkably ambitious project that has borne great fruit in understanding the religious and political lives of young adults in the United States.

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HOME IS WHERE THE SCHOOL IS: Do Homeschooling Laws Increase Homeschooling?

Record: Rachana Bhatt, “Home is Where the School Is: The Impact of Homeschool Legislation on School Choice” in Journal of School Choice 8, no. 2 (2014): 192-212. [Abstract Here]

Summary:  Bhatt, an economics professor at Georgia State University, here presents a sophisticated statistical model to try to determine the degree to which a State’s passage of an explicit law granting homeschooling rights to parents increases the tendency for parents to choose homeschooling.

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EDUCATION WITHOUT SCHOOLS: Home Education in the UK, part 2

Record: Helen E.  Lees, Education Without Schools: Discovering Alternatives (Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2014). [Abstract Here]

Summary: Lees, a Visiting Research Fellow in Education and Theology at York St. John University in England and founding editor of the online journal Other Education, here draws on her doctoral research to make an impassioned plea for expanding the public understanding of education to include more than formal institutional schooling.  I summarized the first five chapters of her book here.  In this post I will summarize chapters six through nine and end with a bit of analysis.

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VIRTUAL SCHOOLS IN THE U.S.: A Comprehensive Analysis, part 3

Record: Alex Molnar, ed., Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2014: Politics, Performance, Policy, and Research Evidence (Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center, 2014).  Available here.

Summary: Part one of this report summarized recent legislative activity relative to virtual public schooling.  Part two surveyed the academic research on virtual schools.  Part three, which I review in this post, provides raw data on the number of online schools in operation, the providers that run them, and the students who attend them. 

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VIRTUAL SCHOOLS IN THE U.S.: A Comprehensive Analysis, part 2

Record: Alex Molnar, ed., Virtual Schools in the U.S. 2014: Politics, Performance, Policy, and Research Evidence (Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center, 2014).  Available here.

Summary: This post summarizes the second of three sections of this report.  For a summary of section one, which surveys recent legislative activity concerning virtual schooling, click here.  For a summary of section three, which provides data about the number of online schools and the type of students attending them, click here.

Section two surveys the research literature on virtual schools.  It was written by Michael K. Barbour of Sacred Heart University.

Barbour begins with the general statement that despite the fact that we’ve had 20 years now of virtual schooling, the research base for this form of education remains very weak. 

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