The boss admits to ‘some technical problems’…

Little agreement between teachers,
administrators about ‘Virtual H. S.’

By Tom Sharp

Ignoring scandals that have rocked school districts across the country with everything from ghost students and teachers to illegal demands for inflated reimbursement payments (to what turn out to be ghost companies with no track record in education), Chicago is moving ahead with an attempt to put an increasing number of academic courses on line. Although an hour’s Internet search would turn up more than a hundred “virtual learning” scandals from Pennsylvania to California in the past two years, warnings of problems are being ignored or downplayed by most Chicago and Illinois proponents of the expensive, highly touted, but unproven concept.

In theory, like so many things that arose during the “Dot.com” generation, virtual classes provide an unprecedented opportunity for young people to get broader educational opportunities than would be available within the walls of even the best-staffed and best-equipped high school. Like their corporate counterparts, however, the proponents of virtual education are finding the devil is in the details, and that not every excellent business (or education) plan can be translated into real world virtuosity.

Despite the hype, the Virtual High School (VHS) program, according to some Chicago public schools teachers whose students are enrolled in it, is off to a somewhat rocky start.

The Chicago program is part of the statewide Illinois Virtual High School (IVHS) program. It was created, according to its supporters, to allow high school students (mostly seniors and some “homebound” students) to receive credits in a variety of subject areas via computer classes, without the need of attending class in the traditional classroom setting.

According to program administrators, IVHS currently serves more than 1,300 students statewide. About 200 are from Chicago. The program costs $600 per student per year, according to school board sources. Most students take only one course. Local schools have the option of having the students pay or charging the local district. In Chicago, the Board of Education (city taxpayers) pays for the entire program.

The Chicago program is completing its first full year of operations. Interviews with central office administrators, and school staff have revealed claims of a litany of mistakes and poor planning with the local VHS program that resulted in teachers not being properly trained, unusable or nonexistent student attendance and participation policies, an arbitrary, subjective grade policy, and lack of proper oversight. Brandon Taylor, the administrator in charge of the program, has denied all of these accusations.

Entire “virtual” concept open to debate

The idea of a virtual high school has been steeped in controversy since its inception. Proponents aver that the program provides a flexible and cost effective means of providing off-sight instruction to a large number pupils at dispersed locations throughout the city and beyond.

Detractors of the virtual high school point out that there is little, if any, means of protection against fraud. How do we know that Jane Doe did the work assigned to Jane Doe and ostensibly turned in by her if there is no physical classroom or other means of face-to-face contact between student and teacher? With plagiarism and cheating a routine problem in regular classrooms and schools, what protections do school districts have against them when the “classroom” is in cyberspace?

Criticisms have been countered by Sandi Atols, the IVHS Coordinator of School Programs at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora. “The issue of potential fraud in virtual high schools is very misunderstood,” Ms. Atols told Substance. “It has been blown way out of proportion. Virtual high schools are no more susceptible to fraud than a regular high school because IVHS students are required to turn in typed assignments, their styles and quality of work can be matched and any fraudulent homework identified.”

Noting the temptations for fraud in regular classrooms, Atols counters critics of virtual learning: “How does an on-site teacher know that the students’ parents aren’t doing some or all of the homework assignments?”

Detractors also claim that the curriculum, such as it is, often appears to be shallow and diluted to fit assignments that, by nature, must be “written” for the virtual courses. However, Atols says the “students often are shocked by the depth of the course and the amount and quality of the work assigned, it’s not a correspondence course.”

This sentiment is echoed by one CPS teacher in the VHS program who asked to remain anonymous, “Most of my students expected the assignments to be simple, short extra-credit work, not another full-blown course; they often find they can’t handle it,” the teacher told Substance.

Teachers unions have also opposed the virtual concept because it can and has been used to reduce the number of teachers systemwide. One virtual teacher can theoretically “teach” hundreds of students at the same time.

Inservice fiascoes?

Recently, a number of inservice sessions were scheduled to update teachers and administrators on virtual programming decisions related to course content, curriculum and grading. They were also supposed to answer questions that arose during the course of the year. Chicago’s Director of Distance Learning, Brandon Taylor, responded in two separate phone interviews with Substance on April 11th and April 15th about complaints made by faculty and administrators about the poor quality and poor planning in both the training sessions and the rules and safeguards (or lack of them) for the Virtual High School program

When Substance asked about his background, Taylor responded: “I came to the Chicago public schools from the DePaul University Technology Center. I have a Master’s degree in Instructional Technology from Western Illinois University, and I’m currently a Doctoral candidate as a Systems Engineer at Northern Illinois University.”

At this time it appears that Mr. Taylor is also an employed instructor for Illinois Virtual High Schools (IVHS, part of “eCollege”) an entity separate from DePaul and CPS. In fact IVHS is one of the major distance learning vendors. The others are Apex and eLearning. Taylor, as CPS Virtual High School Distance Learning Director, is in the unusual position of working for both the department that issues the contracts and for one of the vendors (IVHS) who has received CPS contracts.

One major issue arose on March 28th when Mr. Taylor decided to give a two-session video conference that was to originate in Springfield, Illinois with Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) staff. Initially another CPS office was invited to give a presentation on technology integration in the classroom and instructional activities. When Taylor learned of the meeting, he determined that he should be the one to run the meeting and the other office should only provide support. In response Taylor told Substance, “I asked to run the meeting because it fell under the purview of my department, not theirs. I offered and they accepted a collaborative effort.”

The other office declined to comment, feeling it would be “unwise” to do so. A great deal of behind-the-scenes maneuvering within Chicago has resulted in many anonymous and off-the-record sources for information on parts of this story.

Taylor said he intended the video conference to show CPS teachers in areas 12, 14, 15, and 23 how to use technology in the classroom. However, the video did not take place because of “technical difficulties,” according to both Taylor and his critics. The reasons for the technical difficulties differ, from that point. “There were technical difficulties that we tried to correct but couldn’t,” Taylor simply stated. “I informed all involved that I wouldn’t be able to conduct the session as planned. They all knew ahead of time.”

According to others involved, CPS technical personnel had explained to Taylor that the CPS firewall (a protective software that prevents certain actions that might potentially damage the system) would not permit the video conference connection, but he continued to pursue it. Additionally, Substance was told that by an anonymous source that Mr. Taylor “was unable to distinguish between a ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ IP address.” In the eyes of his critics, the Director of Distance Learning should not have this deficiency of skill and knowledge.

Because Taylor was not at the two sessions he scheduled, and teachers were waiting in the classroom, the “assistant facilitators” gave the presentation. Because March 28th was an “Institute Day,” teachers were allowed a half-day of self-directed activity. They were also entitled to continuing professional development units (CPDUs) to be used toward their recertification plans for attending sessions.

Mr. Taylor told Substance, “After the technical difficulties kept me from participating, I later learned that several central office people at the meeting made a presentation at the second session, without my knowledge or permission.”

Teachers in attendance told Substance that the office originally scheduled to give the inservice gave an adapted presentation and gave out the CPDU forms after Taylor failed to come. The “area facilitators” claim they received no advanced warning from Taylor that he would not attend.

“ I would have been really angry if no one had presented,” one teacher in attendance said. “I certainly had other things I could have been doing, but I wanted to learn something in is session. I did, and I got my CPDU, so I’m happy.”

Grade Problems?

One major issue facing the virtual program in Chicago is the integrity of assignments and grades. Recent experiences have made many teachers suspicious that the virtual program is just another excuse to ignore classroom teachers and automate important professional work.

Along with training and scheduling problems, there are allegations from CPS teachers that the VHS instructors have been difficult to reach and that they have not been sending the grades and student performance information on time. Also, CPS teachers who are the VHS facilitators for their building are now concerned about grades being issued that do not reflect student work in the VHS course.

Several CPS teachers who have students in the VHS program told Substance that VHS wants students graded on the basis of the percentage of the work done and its quality, but that there are no limits set in terms of what quantity of work is acceptable or what quality standards are to be used.

“ A student could turn in one or two papers, get a good ‘quality’ grade on them, and get an ‘A’ for a final grade,” one teacher said. “Also, there was a problem when we wanted to assign a failing grade of an ‘F’ to a student who had a ‘0’ for both ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’ and did no work. We were told we could not give an F.”

Since home schools are also included in the IVHS option, the problems become larger.

“Grading is a major problem in the IVHS program for the home schools,” another CPS teacher who asked to remain anonymous told Substance. “We don’t see what assignments the VHS teachers give. We don’t see the results. The VHS staff keep them. Then they tell us to assign grades based on the quantity and quality percentages they issue.”

“They [VHS teachers] all know that the schools have the final say in what grades are assigned,” Taylor told Substance in response to the grading accusations. “There are problems with mid-term and quarterly grades because each school district has different time lines and rules on deadlines for completing work as well as varied criteria for what constitutes an A or B, etc. The program allows for flexibility in terms of when and how students turn in their assignments, and we want them to go at their own pace. All of these procedures were explained at two inservice workshops held before the program started. I would have you ask my accusers if they attended those workshops; evidently, they didn’t.”

IHMSA’s Atols, however, acknowledges there have been some problems with grades, but adds: “The grading system is still evolving. We’re trying to do our best with over 1,300 students across the state. But I don’t see grading as a major problem.”

Logistic and number problems?

“In some schools there may be a smooth functioning team with everyone doing their job and staying on top of things,” a CPS teacher in the VHS program told Substance. “But at our school there is only me [the computer instructor] and one other person who does any work at all on VHS. The counselors here look at it as extra work and don’t want to be bothered. I spend hours on hundreds of e-mail transmissions each semester. Keeping up on communications is a major, time-consuming job.”

In answer to a question from Substance, the teacher said: “I’ve tried a hands-on approach where I maintain a physical presence on-site with the VHS students, but some thought I was intruding and violating the freedom the course claims as an asset to work at their own pace and time. Now I’ve been backing off and letting them do the assignments outside of the class, but nothing has changed. The kids that did the work on-site still do the assignments at home. Those who didn’t get the work done in the class, don’t do it at home on their own.

“The major problem with the VHS concept, however, is in the selection of students. It’s definitely not for everyone. You need good, dedicated students with a strong work ethic, or you’re in for a major disappointment. Our school takes only volunteers and this has led to a bit of a disaster.”

While Taylor, in effect, accuses his detractors of not doing their homework, they say he doesn’t even recognize his own students’ names. A CPS teacher in charge of coordinating VHS courses at her school was frantic because one of the IVHS instructors had not submitted grades for his students. Taylor was contacted and asked to intervene. He was provided with the course number and a roster of student names. He told the CPS teacher to contact the IVHS teacher directly, and if that failed he, Taylor, would make a direct call to the instructor. After the CPS teacher checked the records, she found out that the IVHS teacher assigned to that course entitled ‘Web Page Design’ was Taylor himself. Taylor had failed to recognize both the course and the students for whom he was responsible, according to the teacher, who requested anonymity.

This story will be updated as it unfolds. Substance wants anyone with knowledge about the inservice meetings mentioned in is story and the policies regarding grades for the VHS program to provide evidence or statements. Contact us by phone (773-725-7502), fax (773-725-7503) or e-mail (Csubstance@aol.com).