Virtual Academy students lagging behind in person

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12/22/2023 19:23

Subject: Virtual Academy students lagging behind in person

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Anonymous

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Anonymous wrote:The problem is the in-person only crowd absolutely refuses to see how virtual can benefit some students. Not all students (aka their students), but guess what? In person doesn’t work for all students either. In-person only crowd only considers their children’s needs, so they bash anyone who thinks differently. It’s juvenile and immature, but they want to continue to be selfish. If they spent a second in classrooms across the US right now, they’d see the complete disaster current classroom conditions are. They’d still refuse to listen to any alternatives though because they are stuck on an ideal from when they were kids. The world is changing….. not all students learn in the same environments…time to grow up.

Virtual is simply on balance an inferior form of education even for those kids who can technically get by. Public school districts have zero obligation to offer a learning model that is expensive and has poor results. It only makes sense for kids who actually cannot go to school.

Thanks for your opinion. However, not all kids are happy or want to go to in person. Sometimes the family over personal situation doesn't allow it. Some kids do better virtual. Why do you care if its offered?

I think we should all care if a specific methodology is producing worse outcomes than the traditional model. We live in a society, and in a society we should care whether young people are receiving an appropriate education. The data shows that the most vulnerable learners (EML and/or FARMS) are doing much worse in the VA model, but also that kids who belong to groups that statistically do very well also lag behind their peers.

If we look at the VA model like a pilot, we can see that it is underperforming. Now, MCPS can make some choices here. They can tweak the model in hopes of producing a better VA outcome or they can decide that this particular experiment is not working.

Also, if you are the parent of a typically developing kid who is thriving in VA, and you had your child sit out the standard MAP testing that would have shown whether they are meeting their grade-level targets, you are part of the problem. This was never a permanent institution, and everyone needed to take it seriously and try to demonstrate that it was working.

We don't have that data for the MVA so you are speaking without really knowing and you need to stop throwing FARMS and EML families under the bus for your talking points acting like they aren't capable of making good decisions and only you are.

You are so clueless about all this and keep rambling. MAP can be done online but they are not a true indicator as many kids come MS and HS blow off the tests as they are meaningless. Once you hit MS you get placed on a math track and stay there. So, your MAP scores are not relevant. It's every other test that requires you to be in person and many families skipped those, like us.

And, they are not looking at actual school/child data. Kids should be measured with their peers from their home schools, not all schools since not all schools have the same opportunities.

That data in enrollment is not correct. If you look at the bottom, it clearly states that schools with fewer than 10 students were not included in those numbers. I couldn't figure out why mine weren't listed. But, that blogger or who ever she is wasn't posting that fact or reading the numbers accurately.

Even so, why do you care? It's cheaper for MCPS, it reduces in person class sizes, and gives parents choice.

You want choice - you choose in person. Maybe we should take away your choice and make your kids do virtual.

So, it's not "throwing EML and FARMS families under the bus" to note that those groups are performing worse than expected in VA, nor to note that those students are particularly vulnerable and likely do not have the resources to supplement outside of school if VA is not working for their children.

Also, while the school-by-school numbers are wrong, the totals are correct. Enrollment has dropped to under 1000 kids, so it makes sense to ask whether diverting teachers and administrators to MVA remains a good use of resources. That's particularly true if, as it appears, the VA kids are not gaining key skills in reading and math at the earliest ages.

I care for the same reason that we should all care. We should care if kids in person are not learning, and we should care if kids in virtual are not learning. At the population level, it seems clear that VA isn't working for a lot of kids. It might work for individual kids, but we can't build an entire system around a tiny fraction while letting others fail.

You are using those kids and families as your talking point and they are choosing to be there. Some of the reasons why it might not be working are simple fixes on MCPS's side but they will not do it. Many of those kids would struggle in person or virtually so maybe because they are struggling virtual is the best place for them so their parents can support them. The resources that it takes to keep the MVA over so many other programs that MCPS supports and all their other wasteful spending is minimal and if you took the money from the home schools and gave it to the MVA that would fully cover the school and they'd have a lot more money to provide more to the students enrolled.

Mine are thriving in it.

Lots of kids aren't getting their needs met in person vs. virtually so the issue isn't how the instruction is given but the actual instruction given. The in person numbers only look slightly better and that's only because more kids are testing and they aren't being transparent on what those numbers are for/from.

Worry about your own kids and let us worry about ours. We're very thankful for the school.