The Facts
– The inception of the TxVSN has demonstrated the popularity of online learning in Texas; since it went operational in 2009, enrollment has expanded from just over 250 to comfortably over 8,000 students.
– Texas still trails behind true leaders in this arena, like Florida, which as of 2007, had 130,000 students enrolled in their virtual school program.
– Texas is facing a budget problem in public education. Online students can be funded for up to $3,000 dollars less than brick-and-mortar students.
– Approval for a student to take courses in the TxVSN requires multiple approvals from both their own district and the provider district.
– There are very few full-time students in the TxVSN, and those that are must have been in Texas public schools the year previous.
– Virtual education in Texas is funded through an allotment in the budget, rather than being a part of the mainstream funding formula.
Recommendations
Change the funding structure in Texas virtual education so that monies flow directly through the finance formula, rather than from a set aside allotment. This would allow students to pursue virtual education in Texas more freely.
Remove cumbersome restrictions on school districts’ budgets that tell them how to spend their money, breakingdown barriers to expansion of blended learning and technology in the classroom.
Encourage the use of blended learning as a teaching tool in Texas classrooms.
Allow public school districts to run their own virtual education shops, rather than running through the red tape of the virtual school network process.
Allow greater freedom for private providers of virtual education than is currently available in the state’s virtual learning law.
Allow more flexibility for private and home-schooled students to take place in publicly provided virtual education in Texas.
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