Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Editorial:
Wisconsin kids may be locked out of the virtual schoolhouse after a state Court of Appeals decision Wednesday that threatens the future of online learning for public schoolchildren. But the Legislature can fix the problem by crafting a law that makes clear that the state supports such alternative and innovative means of instruction.
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Virtual schools offer parents a credible alternative for students who don’t do well in traditional settings. Judging from 2006 Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination scores, the kids attending Wisconsin Virtual Academy are thriving. They score at or above the state average in most subjects at nearly every grade level.
This sort of competition, also seen in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, has the potential to improve education in Wisconsin. The Legislature, as well as state Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster, must embrace such innovation instead of shrinking from it.
“They could learn a lot from our teachers about a new way of teaching,” Rose Fernandez told a radio interviewer.
She’s a parent at Wisconsin Virtual Academy, the Fredonia-based online public charter school. She was talking about the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state teachers union whose slogan is, “Every kid deserves a great school.”
WEAC, not in a learning mood, had just gotten a court to outlaw Fernandez’s kids’ great school. About 850 children who attend the school are now left hanging after Wednesday’s Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision. The school will stay open while it appeals, but a further loss would endanger every virtual school in the state.
Why would the teachers union try to kill a high-performing public school?
Because, said a written statement from the union, laws written for traditional schools can’t be applied to virtual schools. We need new laws to “make them accountable.”
Accountable? Such as testing students and reporting results? They do that. The academy’s scores on state tests are just dandy – exactly in line with schools in Cross Plains, Mukwonago and Fond du Lac that the academy families I talked to would otherwise use. Ninety-two percent of the academy’s students score proficient or advanced in reading.
And if the virtual school doesn’t satisfy, parents can put their kids back in the school down the block. Yet it’s the virtual school that may get closed. Have you heard of the union suing to close any brick-and-mortar schools that are failing?
All irrelevant, argued the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. It sought, with the union, to close the academy. Whether the school successfully teaches is beside the point, said the department’s lawyer. Whether it fits the state’s regulatory model is what counts. The court agreed.
This makes Wisconsin unique, says Susan Patrick, who heads the North American Council for Online Learning. She used to head educational technology at the U.S. Department of Education. She says to her knowledge, no state has shut down virtual schools over a teacher licensing dispute.
Another example of WEAC’s sincere focus on student achievement, bless their little union hearts.
I’ve reread the Appeals Court decision to try to understand the decision, having previously felt uncomfortable with its rationale.
The two issues on which the court ruled are that WIVA was not “located” within the District, and that the parents were the teachers of the students but were not certified by DPI.
However, it is not obvious to me that the Appeals Court used the correct standard to decide a Motion for Summary Judgment.
A party is entitled to summary judgment when there is no “genuine issue of material fact” and the undisputed facts warrant judgment for the moving party as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56 (c); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242 (1986). In addressing a motion for summary judgment, “the court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom summary judgment is sought and must draw all reasonable inferences in [its] favor.” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986).
The Appeals Court granted the Motion for Summary Judgment to DPI and WEAC, but seems to have not interpreted the “undisputed facts” in light most favorable to WIVA, etc — they seemed to have decided the facts most favorable to DPI and WEAC.
The Appeals Court did not define “located outside the School District”; they just asserted that the WIVA was not wholly inside. Maybe it’s obvious, but given that there is a plethora of Federal and State court cases discussing the meaning of “location” (nexis) in various contexts, I would have expected the Appeals Court to extensively discuss this issue and cite prior law and other court decisions. They did not.
If the rule is that only certified teachers can do the teaching, why was it OK last year for my child, at the age of 7 and 8, to be forced to teach math to groups of children? She isn’t protected by the Union, she wasn’t paid, and trying to differentiate to students of widely varying levels caused her so much stress that she’d come home crying.
Seems to me this rule isn’t applied very consistantly.