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Across the country, states are harnessing the power and potential of technology to offer cost-effective, student-focused, results-based learning options. Global groups like the International Council on Online Learning (iNACOL) and local coalitions are advocating policies that promote and protect public online schooling options. Online programs offer unprecedented flexibility, choice and outcome-oriented public options. Over the past few years, Washington state has joined the movement and adopted policies that favor online learning options. Yet the proposed House budget would eliminate online learning for grades K-6, displacing more than 2,000 students. This would neither save the state money nor serve the interestsofWashington’sstudents.

Background
    Over the past 10 years, online learning has been catching on at a rapid pace because it accomplishes what brick-and-mortar schools have been trying to do for decades: meeting students’ unique learning needs. Gifted students, credit recovery students, athletes, bedridden or even homeless students, are benefiting from public online programs that offer rigor and flexibility.

Public online learning programs have been operating in Washington for more than a decade. Using the state’s Alternative Learning Experience (ALE) laws, numerous districts have developed their own online curriculums or contracted with outside providers.

In 2009, the legislature unanimously passed SSB 5410, a groundbreaking bill that formalized public online learning by requiring districts to develop online learning policies and by creating state-level approval and quality review processes.

To accomplish the latter, SSB 5410 integrated the Digital Learning Commons, a public-private partnership, into the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to create the Digital Learning Department (DLD). The DLD was tasked with creating an approval process for providers seeking Basic Education funding that brick-and-mortar schools receive based on full-time-equivalent (FTE) enrollment. A handful of providers had previously been approved by the Digital Learning Commons and were grandfathered into the DLD’s new system.

House Budget Cuts K-6 Online Learning
  On Tuesday, February 23, 2010, the proposed House budget announced,

Beginning in the 2010-11 school year, alternative learning experience (ALE) programs such as online and digital learning delivered over the Internet, parent partnership programs (primarily instructional programs taking place in the home, with district responsibility for overseeing instruction), and contract-based learning programs will no longer be available to students in grades K-6.

More than 2,000 students participate in public K-6 online learning. Should this legislation pass, those children’s schools will be shut down.

Supposed Savings vs. Displaced Students
  The “Proposed 2010 Supplemental Operating Budget Summary” predicts a savings of $22.7 million from the General Fund this biennium by cutting K-6 public Alternative Learning Experience programs.
  Yet the state is obligated to fund basic education whether students attend brick-and-mortar public schools or online public schools. This means the only savings to be had through cutting online programs would come if the students it displaced did not return to their local public school. This explanation belies legislators’ lack of understanding of K-6 public online programs (and their funding structure) or their willingness to save money at the cost of pushing students out of public schools.

Recommendations
  First, legislators should focus available dollars on programs that get results. Moreover, new programs should not be enacted at the expense of existing, successful programs. Legislators have introduced a   number of bills proposing statewide preschool. Successful programs like public online learning should not be thrown under the bus to make room for new, untested fads, particularly when the state is facing a budget deficit.

Second, lawmakers must look for areas where cuts can be made without severely hurting family choice and high quality education. For example, the proposed Senate budget expects a savings of $103 million by reducing funding for class-size enhancement for grades K-4; the House projects a savings of $11 million. House members should explore this discrepancy and look for true cost-saving measures that don’t deny children Basic Education funding.

Prime candidates for cuts include those represented by powerful interest groups. Online learning does not have the benefit of long purse strings and political influence. Legislators must look beyond lobbying and clout and act in the best interest of students.

The state stands to gain nothing and lose much by cutting K-6 ALE programs. The winners will be the special interests groups whose investments are protected; the losers will be children. Legislators must understand the actual impact of what they propose and ensure they don’t start their cost-saving measures at the expense of the most effective programs.

1. WashingtonFamiliesforOnlineLearning,
  www .waonlinefamilies.org
  2. Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning: an Annual
  Review of State-Level Policy and Practice, John Wat-
  son (Nov. 2009)
  3. A Summary of Research on the Effectiveness of K-12
  Online Learning, iNACOL, Sept. 2009; The Online Learning Imperative: A Solution to Three Looming Crises in Education, Gov. Bob Wise, Alliance for Excellent Education (February 2010)
  4. See WAC 392-121-182, RCW.28A.150.305, RCW.28A.250.010, and RCW.28A.150.262
  5. Approved online school providers are Insight School of Washington, Internet Academy, Spokane Virtual Learning, and Washington Virtual Academy (WAVA). Other programs are approved to provide individual courses.