Foes Say Move Could Hamper Cyberschools’ Future
Staff Reports
DENVER – A Democrat lawmaker’s proposal goes too far in regulating cyberschools, says the co-chair of a government panel that recently completed a review of online education.
In early March, Sen. Sue Windels, D-Arvada, introduced legislation that could curb the growth of Internet-based public education, a non-traditional alternative geared toward helping children who might otherwise achieve under a more conventional public school format. After hours of testimony and debate, Senate Bill 215 moved through the House Education Committee on March 22. Legislators now will try to determine the cost of Windels' proposal.
Senator Nancy Spence (R-Centennial) said the bill could limit the ability of online education programs to focus on students’ needs.
“It’s a lot more prescriptive than I like,” said Spence, who served as co-chair of the Colorado State Board of Education Online Education Task Force. “It takes away a lot of the freedom of online schools to operate without the heavy hand of government watching every move they make.”
From 2005 to 2006, 6,200 of 780,000 Colorado public school students were enrolled in full-time online programs, with an estimated 10 percent of the growth in the state’s school population this year took place among cyberschools.
“It’s an online explosion and we can either direct that energy into a powerful educational option or we can let it scatter, weaken and fade away in chaos,” Windels wrote in a March 11 newsletter.
But the State Board Task Force report says expanding bureaucracy is not the best solution to help educate children who have not had their needs met in the traditional system.
“Far too many children in Colorado are falling behind, feeling left out, and eventually dropping out of our schools,” the report concludes. “Online education has the potential to serve some of these students and online educators have begun to tap into that unmet need.”
Drafted before the 17-member Task Force issued its report, Windels’ SB 215 is instead closely modeled after recommendations from the five-member Trujillo Commission on Online Education.
Both the Commission and the Task Force worked to address the emergence of publicly-funded online “learning centers” located outside the boundaries of the school districts that authorized them. Windels’ legislation features the creation of a state agency to oversee and impose rules and procedures on online programs that operate in more than one school district.
“SB 215 puts more restrictions on multi-district programs than it should,” Spence said. “It makes it more difficult to establish a multi-district program.”
The bill would require learning centers to set up formal agreements with the school district in which they are located. Students in the multi-district programs also would be eligible for less state funding than those in a cyberschool that only operates inside the chartering district.
Nevertheless, a measure in the bill drawing widespread support is the elimination of another form of funding inequity. Since 1998, Colorado students have only been eligible to receive funding to attend a virtual school if they attended a “brick-and-mortar” public school the year before. Both the Commission and the Task Force called for an end to the discriminatory practice.
While Spence does not support SB 215 as introduced, she conceded that “it’s not onerous as I thought it would be.” Last month, Spence led a bipartisan coalition of Senators to overhaul an even more regulatory Windels proposal that threatened charter school opportunities for families. That bill is still being fought over in the legislature.
While the State Board Task Force advocated a milder approach to regulations, they also urged the need for the state to step up and provide clearer quality guidelines for Internet-based education.
“It’s good for online schools to survive and thrive,” said Spence. “In order for that to happen, we have to have more accountability, more oversight, just to stabilize what’s going on with online learning. But also give it a little room to grow.”
Cyberschools often do not need state rules and procedures to find ways to improve on their own. In February, Hope Academy finalized a contract with the Douglas County School to District to help shore up the online charter school’s management techniques.
“Ultimately, it’s about what works best for the kids,” Spence said.