Virtual Cream Skimming

After reading Bill Tucker’s proposal on virtual school funding, it made me think of my own experience in the pre-virtual world, and testing out of a subject. When I was in high school, and was given the option to test out of senior government, I jumped at the chance. I bought a two-sided cheat sheet at the junior college with the basics of civics and government, and spent one weekend of prep. I passed the test, fulfilled my government requirement, and freed up some space in my senior year schedule. This was great for me, but I wonder if it would have been a good investment of tax dollars if someone had received funding for the educational services that were provided to me (i.e. none).

 Bill proposes to fund virtual schools on a performance basis instead of an attendance basis. Basically if a student passes a test at the end of the virtual term (however long that may be), then the school gets paid. So, under Bill’s virtual school funding proposal, virtual schools – public and private – would get paid for a similar type of service provision that I received in testing out of senior government.

 Assume that the state was paying public and private companies based on student outcomes. Both entities would target their marketing at students like me that could pass the test with almost no effort on their part. In my case, maybe they would have paid the $5 that I invested in the two-page cheat sheet, and allowed me to spend the weekend answering sample questions with an on-line tutorial program prior to taking the test. Then when I pass the class they get their money, and make a lot of profit.

 Basically the opportunity for cream skimming students that need almost no support would be huge, and providers would flock toward these types of students because they were the most profitable, ignoring a large portion of harder to serve students. So, unless you had some type of pre-test, that showed that the course was actually adding value, I think that the risk of abuse would be high.

 I agree with Bill that accreditation, at least as currently conducted, is not the answer. But, the potential for abuse in a pure performance based system raises too many issues that I wouldn’t trust the education market to correct.

Tagged as: Accountability, Accreditation, Performance Management, School Choice, School Quality, Technology, Virtual Schools