The [supposed] failure of online education

The core of the problem—I’ll just jump right into it here—is that anyone in this country thinks that education can be summed up in numbers.

It can’t.

Education is about people, and people are all different. Each unique. We may make schools to function as assembly lines, but we human beings continue to refuse to perform like widgets.

I'd be the last person to tell you that it's healthy for kids to spend most of their day in front of a screen, but that doesn't condemn online education!
I’d be the last person to tell you that it’s healthy for kids to spend most of their day in front of a screen, but that doesn’t condemn online education! My students are creative, engaged, unusual thinkers.

Case in point, the latest in many articles about the failures of online education:

Cyber Charters Have ‘Overwhelming Negative Impact,’ CREDO Study Finds

What more information do you need? I’m guessing that my longtime readers will know that I have a few bones to pick with this study.

The article cites numerous problems with the study from the point of view of educators who run charters or who are involved in the charter school movement. I agree with everything they say—numbers can’t tell the whole story.

But my response to this article is as a homeschooling parent and online teacher.

Not all students are created equal

It’s true that we want our students to be treated equally in education, but the fact is that students have widely divergent needs. I can tell you one thing about every single student I have ever known or heard of who has tried an online charter: that student is in some form of educational distress.

Here are some of the reasons why families choose online charter schools:

  • Their child is expressing suicidal ideation and swearing that if he has to continue in school, he’ll kill himself
  • Their family is going through a huge emotional upheaval, such as the death of a parent
  • Their child has the sort of difficult-to-integrate special needs that make school a nightmare, such as sensory integration disorder
  • The family is experiencing a sudden change of location due to job or family responsibilities
  • Their local public school system is a disaster and they are trying to find a solution for a child who has not received adequate education

These students—who I venture to say make up probably the majority of students in online charters—are coming to this new “school” with enormous baggage that most students don’t have. And we’re surprised that their test scores don’t measure up?

Not all online schools are created equal

Some online schools require that students sit in their seat and keep their computer active for a certain number of hours per day. If you were a student at that school, what would be your response to such a requirement? Yeah, me too. (Click… click… click…)

Some online schools are created to shovel the largest number of students through classes with the smallest possible amount of oversight (“oversight,” otherwise known as pesky teachers who want money, benefits, and respect from their jobs).

Some online schools require that students complete coursework that they are either underprepared for or overprepared for simply because of their “grade” (in other words, chronological age).

“Online school” includes such a wide variety of schools and approaches, it simply fails to offer a meaningful data set to study.

The failure of some online charter schools doesn’t spell doom for online education

I teach at Athena’s Advanced Academy, so you could say I’m biased. (For the record, Athena’s is private, not a charter, so it doesn’t fall into the parameters of the study referenced above.)

But I’m also knowledgeable about the strengths and failures of the online educational approach. Online classes completely fail to engage students who don’t want to be there, this is true. On top of that, online schools often fail students whose parents are not supportive at home. Online schools fail students who aren’t adept with computers (though participation in online classes tends to remediate that problem quickly). Online schools may fail students whose problems extend well past educational/academic issues.

The benefits of online education

Online schools do some things really well. They can:

  • Provide a safe, nurturing environment for children who have been wounded by social or academic bullying in brick-and-mortar schools
  • Provide a common space for children with diverse, unusual interests
  • Provide a way for children with special needs to connect mind-to-mind with adults and other children
  • Provide a 21st century approach to nurturing unbridled creativity

Online education isn’t for everyone. In many cases, it’s for kids who are already in some type of distress. That’s why applying cold numbers to the question of whether online charters are effective doesn’t really work. I guarantee that if you got onto one of the very active forums on Athena’s and asked the kids how they are doing, most of them would enthusiastically support what our educational approach. They are kids who needed something—a quiet space, a tribe, a breather from brick-and-mortar school—and they’re finding it at Athena’s.

I fear that articles like this will prejudice decision-makers against online education in general, which would be a shame for the students who benefit so much from this new approach to learning.

Further reading:

On not living the fearful life

Really bad things happen out there in the big world, bad things that people bring about.

If you read even the oldest texts that humans have passed down, we know that bad things have happened as long as stories have been told. And if you look at the forensic evidence that archaeologists present, you know that bad things have been around as long as humanity.

I’m not referring to any of the natural or even unnatural disasters that no one person is in control of, but rather the bad choices that people make.

Bad news

En garde!
Free play without adult interference is so important for our children’s development.

Recently in the news, there have been lots of bad things, including shootings at colleges. Recently in my local community there have been some very high-profile bad things, especially those involving children. These bad things have parents scared. Parents of younger kids are afraid to allow them the amount of independence that is healthy for them. Parents of teens worry as their teens go to college classrooms or live in dorms.

The media has decided that its job is stoking our fear. Let’s face it: the media’s real job is selling us stuff. And their advertisers have found that scared people buy more crap than happy, secure-feeling people. So they egg the media on to keep scaring us more and more.

The feedback loop

I believe the media frenzy for bad news creates a feedback loop in which people who were already vulnerable get pushed further:

  • People who are vulnerable to acting out from fear get egged on to go do violent things.
  • People who are vulnerable to feeling fearful are more likely to retreat from the world.

The first category is, frankly, a small sliver of humanity. Most of us don’t act violently out of fear. Most of us, when we’re fearful, retreat.

But in this case, retreat is also a form of defeat. Parents who keep their children from playing on their own outside are defeated in their parenting. Letting go and allowing our children to experience the world as individuals is one of our hardest and most necessary parenting jobs. (See Good People, Bad People, and the Rest of Us for my take on that.)

Risk reality

School bus
Riding in a school bus and being in school are two extremely safe things for your child to do, statistically speaking.

What the media doesn’t want us to remember, because this knowledge doesn’t lead people to go out and buy things, is that the biggest risks we take on a daily basis are ones that we don’t worry about: Statistically speaking, if you’re worried about your kids’ safety you should never drive a car, or for that matter, cross a road on foot. Of course, anyone who is worried about these things to the point where they won’t do them is assumed to be mentally ill.

We don’t give up driving our cars and crossing streets because that’s part of living the lives that we want to have.

Though you wouldn’t know it from all the scary stories, playing outside is not a major risk factor in children’s lives. And a college classroom is one of the safest places on earth to be.

As people who know and understand risk, we can’t retreat.

Being an example

What we have to do is stand up for what’s right, live our lives boldly, and know that our example inspires other people. A friend of mine posted an email on our local homeschooling list after a horrible local tragedy about how she let her kids go to the park across the street from her house alone the next day. I was really grateful for her to showing her vulnerability publicly like that, and reminding people that the most dangerous thing she allowed her children to do that day was to ride in the car with her.

We can’t let the relentless pursuit of advertising clicks rule our decision-making.

My teen goes to college classrooms, where one of the subjects being taught now is how to do a lockdown.

My almost-teen plays alone outside, rides busses alone, and is developing an admirable sense of self-confidence.

I feel confident that we are doing the right thing, though I am no less vulnerable to fear implanted by scare stories than anyone else. I hope more and more parents join me, my friend, and others who are fighting back against the hysteria that our relentless focus on people doing bad things has stoked.

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