Виртуальные школы Южной Каролины показали катастрофические результаты по математике

Virtual charter schools in South Carolina have a math problem. Just 20.9 percent of the nearly 7,000 kids at these schools who took a state math assessment last spring met grade-level expectations — less than half the rate of children who attend traditional public schools and brick-and-mortar charter schools, a Post and Courier analysis of newly released SC READY results found. And the trend has persisted for years: Math proficiency among virtual charter students reached 19.5 percent in 2023-24 and 16.9 percent in 2024-25. When the South Carolina Department of Education released results Aug. 10 of the annual SC READY test, administered every spring to public school students in grades three through eight, officials applauded all-time high proficiency rates in math and reading statewide, with nearly half of students reaching grade-level mastery in math and more than 60 percent in reading. The statewide gains masked sharp disparities among subgroups, however, with some of the lowest performances at virtual charter schools, the newspaper found. Nearly 19,000 children — a third of all South Carolina charter school students — are taking classes at one of the state’s 12 virtual institutions. Eleven of those schools serve elementary and middle school students who took the SC READY test. Virtual school advocates say many students choose online education because health, family or other circumstances make enrolling at traditional schools difficult. A state Department of Education spokesman said student engagement, attendance, instructional delivery and family support all are tougher in an online environment. “That context is important when evaluating performance, but it cannot become an excuse for persistent underperformance,” agency spokesman Kinard Lisbon wrote in an email. Gary Miron, a Western Michigan education professor who has studied the virtual charter sector for more than a decade, said many virtual charters rely too heavily on “asynchronous” delivery of math — lessons that leave students to learn at their own pace with worksheets and videos. That can leave parents trying to help with math they may not understand, Miron said. Reading is less teacher-dependent, he added. “Children are a vulnerable population; they need to be seen and heard,” Miron said. “They can be seen and heard on a screen, but it means that it’s that individual communication with a teacher. And that doesn’t happen in this model.” Kids too often are left on their own, “a few clicks away” from video games or social media, and may lack the skills to stay on task, he said. Jaya Williams, an honors student in Anderson at the all-online Carolus Academy, said she wanted to get away from the fights and bullying she encountered at local in-person schools, public and private. She said she has succeeded at Carolus, where she is set to graduate in May at age 16, because she is a self-starter with clear goals who manages her time well among school, a job at Culver’s restaurant, socializing with friends and attending church. “Like, any time that I talk about my school at work or around anybody, they're always like, ‘Oh, I don't know if I could wake up. Oh, I don't know if I could, you know, make myself do it,’” Williams said. Just 8.1 percent of Carolus students tested at grade level in math, data shows. Parents should ask tough questions about how available teachers are for questions, how many hours a week of real-time instruction they give their students, how many students each teacher is working with and how virtual schools define “attendance,” Western Michigan’s Miron said. Schools respond The two state authorizers overseeing South Carolina’s operating charter schools emphasized that while virtual schools have tested well behind brick-and-mortar schools for years, the population of children opting for online education tends to have a higher rate of poverty and other risk factors. The best math performance among online schools was Summit Academy, where 35.1 percent of students met expectations — still nearly 13 percentage points behind the state average. Heron Academy defines itself as a “school of last resort” for students facing challenges such as expulsion, teen parenthood or prior incarceration. As a state-recognized “alternative education campus,” it is exempt from a law requiring closure after three years of “unsatisfactory” state Report Cards, which heavily weight test scores. David Crook, chief executive of The Heron Institute, wrote in an email that many of his students arrive several grade levels behind. “So I don’t think a 5.1 percent proficiency rate should be ignored — we certainly aren’t ignoring it — but proficiency also doesn’t tell you how far a student has traveled,” Crook wrote. Another virtual school administrator — Carolus’ Pamela Sieger — wrote in an email that i-Ready assessments show 75 percent of new students enter below grade level in math, including 51 percent in grades three through eight who are at least two grades behind. After enrolling with Carolus, students in grades three through eight make “meaningful” progress under i-Ready’s model even if they haven’t caught up, a spokeswoman for the school wrote in an email. The median student in grades three through eight achieved 111 percent of the annual growth expected. Carolus has earned “unsatisfactory” ratings on all its state Report Cards for the past two years. Unlike Heron, it is not an alternative education campus. Updates this spring to the state’s Charter School Act require the Education Department to review charter authorizers annually and issue notices of concern over school-performance problems. The agency said virtual-school performance “deserves careful attention.” Persistent failure can and does result in closure. S.C. Preparatory Academy and its sister school, S.C. Prep Leadership, closed last year after more than three years of “unsatisfactory” report card ratings. Population challenges Brad Henry, spokesman for the South Carolina Public Charter School District, said mastery of skills is especially challenging in a population of online students that is “extraordinarily mobile,” with students often facing academic disruption as they move from school to school. “We need to understand where those students started, how long the virtual school had the opportunity to serve them, and how much academic growth occurred while they were with the virtual school,” Henry wrote. His district’s virtual schools serve 1,737 elementary and middle school students. Without its online students, the Public Charter School District’s mastery rate would have been 45.4 percent. Including them, it was 42.2 percent. Virtual charter students are more likely to live in poverty — 72.5 percent compared to the statewide poverty rate of 63.3. Poverty alone, however, does not appear to explain the size of the math disparity. The rate of reading proficiency among virtual schools — 50 percent — is relatively close to the 58 percent at traditional schools with comparable rates of poverty. But the math gap was enormous: 24 points. Nearly 45 percent of students in those high-poverty traditional districts met or exceeded expectations, compared with 20.9 percent at virtual charter schools. Online schools also have lower rates of Black students and students with limited English, two groups with lower statewide performance. They have a somewhat higher rate of students with disabilities, 17.4 percent compared with 14.6 percent. The Charter Institute at Erskine faces even bigger challenges: Some 55 percent of students attending Erskine-authorized schools were enrolled online. The overall mastery rate in math at Erskine schools was 36 percent; without virtual students, it would have been 47.5 percent. Spokeswoman Ashley Epperson wrote in an email that Erskine has started some interventions and is convening a virtual-school leadership group this fall to address “core barriers in online math learning.” Erskine expects its brick-and-mortar schools to outperform their local districts and virtual schools to outperform the state average, she wrote. Every Erskine virtual school was at least 22 percentage points below the statewide proficiency rate in math. The authorizer plans to increase real-time math instruction at its schools, add more math specialists and interventionists, offer bonuses to math teachers and provide coaching on digital practices. “Yes, the internal data reflects a … disparity between virtual and brick-and-mortar charter schools in math proficiency,” Epperson wrote. “However, while virtual delivery requires distinct instructional methods, being virtual changes the medium of instruction, but not the expectation of academic rigor or state standards.” Erskine last year placed three of its schools on an “academic emergency” list for intensive support. None of its virtual schools were on it.