Recently, State Representative Michael Brennan of Portland introduced a pair of bills concerning the future of virtual schooling in Maine. One of these bills, LD 513 proposes to cap enrollment at Maine’s virtual charter schools. If passed, these schools would not be allowed to accept any more students, nor expand to new grade levels beyond their current charter. The other bill introduced by Brennan, LD 576 would direct the state Department of Education to develop and implement an online learning platform, and report to the Education Committee on its findings.
These two bills, both of which Brennan is the prime sponsor, should raise red flags for school choice advocates across Maine. Virtual schools connect students in disparate rural areas with lectures, lessons, interactive activities, certified faculty, and other students in similar situations. They provide a crucial educational outlet which would be otherwise unattainable for many students.
There are only two virtual charter schools operating in Maine: Maine Virtual Academy, and Maine Connections Academy, for which the state renewed the charter agreement last November. Does forcing these otherwise successful schools to suppress expansion advance the cause of public education? Will Maine’s rural families continue to have access to the educational options they need and crave?
Surely Rep. Brennan believes that technological competence is crucial for rising generations, and that students in the most rural areas of Maine deserve access to schooling that works best for them. But why then would he submit a proposal stifling these schools?
As a former mayor of Portland, he should know the value of a diverse educational landscape. He has seen the benefits of specialized learning that schools like the Baxter Academy for Technology and Science and PATHS, Portland’s public charter school and arts and technology-focused CTE school, deliver to students and families in the greater-Portland area every day.
Even with only 9 out of the 10 allowed charter school spots filled across the state, Maine’s chartered school program ranks among the top 10 states in the country by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has yet to be convinced that charter schools benefit students whom the traditional schooling model leaves behind. Maybe he is worried that a virtual charter school could operate without the same accountability standards as brick-and-mortar schools. I reached out to Rep. Brennan to gather some of his reasoning behind these two bills, but as of this printing he has not responded.
Now, there have been mixed reviews on the academic results of full-time purely-online schools nationally, especially looking at test scores, but these alternative learning environments should not be judged the same way that we judge the traditional schooling model. In order to even compare, the authors of a 2015 CREDO study had to develop a methodology that created a “virtual twin” for every student in a traditional public school (page 16). They didn’t have data tied to real virtual charter students, so they had to extrapolate the data based on test scores of students in traditional schools.
You see where this is going. Now is not the time to close the book virtual schools.
Considering the mediocre results of the broad public school system, educational models that dare to challenge the status quo should not be measured by how well students can regurgitate material on a test. After all, school choice advocates support alternative schools precisely because they experiment. They attempt different methods to reach students of all types of learning styles. We cannot rely on the old model to assess a new model.
Many opponents of charter schools offer kneejerk condemnations, blaming charters for competing for public school resources and attendance. The fact is, these schools provide a much-needed, diverse array of approaches to a problem that requires diverse solutions. The system should encourage experimentation.
Maine’s elected officials must do everything they can to empower parents and educational entrepreneurs, not unions and bureaucrats.
This piece was first published in The Maine Wire