The Costs of Online Learning, the latest in Fordham’s digital learning policy series, tackles the tricky question of per-pupil spending. And while the paper cannot offer definitive answers for policymakers and school leaders, it does provide a helpful primer on the overall economics of online and blended learning.
The top-line findings, that blended learning models cost an estimated $8,900 per pupil (+/- 15%) and fully online schools cost $6,400 (+/- 20%) — compared to traditional expenditures averaging $10,000 — will surely be repeated in statehouse policy battles throughout the country. But, those who actually read the short brief will quickly realize that the authors have bent over backwards to caveat their findings in multiple ways. The most important of these caveats? The author’s cost figures reflect estimates of what online and blended schools are currently spending, rather than what they should be spending. In other words, since we have little understanding of how spending relates to student outcomes, the authors cannot say much about either the effectiveness or productivity of this spending. Is it the right amount? We just don’t know.
Still, readers of the paper will better understand the various components of costs in blended and fully online programs – and how they differ from one another and with traditional instruction. These insights should inform those looking to evaluate digital programs by helping them ask better questions about the choices these programs have made and how they align with an overall instructional philosophy. For example, online programs could spend relatively little on content, relying primarily on their teachers to adapt free and open educational resources. In that case, the program would instead need to invest in its educators, ensuring that they have both the support and expertise needed to assemble and modify curriculum. Likewise, programs investing in sophisticated adaptive content will likely pursue a different instructional model.
Finally, one part of the paper will hopefully improve the overall dialogue around potential “cost savings” from digital innovations. The authors correctly note the wide variations in types of blended and online programs, along with the many different reasons that educators and policymakers pursue these programs. Often, advocates confuse attempts to reduce overall costs with efforts to re-allocate the same costs into a different instructional model (i.e., Rocketship). The first results in lower total expenditures. While the latter may mean lower expenditures in certain areas, such as facilities, those savings are put back into different areas in an attempt to be more productive or focus resources on a particularly vexing instructional problem.
As debates around digital learning become increasingly prominent across the country, it would behoove advocates on all sides to better understand the economics behind these programs. This paper is a helpful start, not only for its content, but also for highlighting the ongoing need to better understand the student outcomes that result from these public expenditures.
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Two different schools of thought dominate discussion on the economics of online learning.
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Bruce,
I’m having a little trouble responding to your arguments because it’s not actually clear where we disagree (outside of semantics).
Clearly I didn’t communicate as well in my writing as I meant to. In the paragraph you cite above, I repeat the report’s findings and note that they will be discussed. I then spend the next few sentences outlining serious limitations to the estimates and then end by saying we just don’t know if these are the right amounts. Just to be clear: I find the analysis helpful, but I’m not at all endorsing the use these figures to make a policy argument about less spending. Frequent readers of mine will know that I’m on record for quite a while as skeptical about cost-savings as the primary goal for digital learning. See, for example, http://www.quickanded.com/2011/03/bottom-line-goal-for-blended-learning-better-student-outcomes.html.
Perhaps you disagree that productivity improvements are possible. If so, please make that argument.
Correct, I didn’t make the exact point that you did about comparisons, but I think it’s a fair assumption that readers understand that there are important differences among online, blended, and “traditional” learning — just as there are huge variances within each of these labels. Again, perhaps I wasn’t clear, but the whole point of my third paragraph where I implore policymakers to better understand what they are getting in each of these models.
But statements like this, given the analyses, are simply wrong:
“The top-line findings, that blended learning models cost an estimated $8,900 per pupil (+/- 15%) and fully online schools cost $6,400 (+/- 20%) — compared to traditional expenditures averaging $10,000″
Your are referencing “traditional expenditures” on a completely different set of services covering a much broader array of inputs & outcomes. Comparisons between the online and blended models are equally problematic. There’s no attempt at estimating “cost” of comparable services, but there’s constant use in your post and in the report of language to that effect (setting aside the whole issue of the comparability of outcomes attained on even the same narrow set of academic programs/services provided under each model).
My apologies for the snark, but I get a little snarky when the oversights are this absurd/obvious, especially when the report does have some reasonable information to offer. Misrepresenting the information in summary form totally undermines it (even if the report does include some better documentation/information).
And statements like this mislead the policy conversation, and seem to be intended to do just that (more so in your post than in the report, but many similarities). The above quote is obviously from your post, but similar assertions are contained in the report itself, and are equally wrong. Like this:
“We find that average overall per-pupil costs of both models are significantly lower than the $10,000 national average for traditional brick-and-mortar schools—and that virtual schools are cheaper on average than blended schools.”
These are not my perceptions of the arguments… they are the arguments… as written… and they are precisely what you chose to emphasize above made even worse when you suggest that these incorrect cost comparisons can inform policymakers regarding potential cost savings. Rather, they might inform policymakers how to spend less on less service… but the current report provides little insight one way or the other.
Bruce,
Fair enough, it would have been better in my review to better define that the paper was about expenses, not costs. And, neither my brief review nor the paper delve into all the issues you’d like.
That said, if you’re going to write a 500+ word comment and also a snarky blog post accusing a writer of misrepresentation, it’s always preferable to first actually read the full paper. That way you won’t make all sorts of assumptions about the intent and conclusions of the work and can deal with the actual content of the paper rather than perceived arguments.
The paper is trying to shed light on a largely unexamined, but heavily debated topic. It’s a limited, but helpful contribution, especially since there is so little available on this topic. The authors are pretty clear about the limitations of their approach. And, as I noted in my review, many of the most important questions are not addressed — including the question of how outcomes relate to expenditures. Heck, at this stage, we’re still trying to figure out how to assess basic outcomes in these initiatives, much less the level of detail you describe above.
A paper on the incidence of costs would be really interesting, especially given that in many, if not most cases, parents are choosing to incur these “costs.” My hunch would be that different parents would value these costs very differently, some seeing them as benefits and others as significant costs (particularly those that do not have the option to stay home with their children). That would be a great paper to read.
What’s being compared here is not “cost” but expenses on varied levels of service provision.
“Cost” refers to the cost of providing a service level of specific quality, which in education might be measured in terms of student outcomes. That includes all costs of achieving those outcomes, whether covered by public subsidy, or whether passed along to other participants in the system. A really good guide for understanding “costs” this type of analysis is Hank Levin’s book on Cost Effectiveness Analysis.
So… let’s set aside the really thorny part of this puzzle and assume the outcomes are the same regardless of model type or student served. This post and the study still don’t summarize costs. Rather, they summarize expense on different degrees of service provision, where different costs, likely in very different amounts are passed along to students/parents. This has to be accounted for in order to have a thoughtful conversation on public policy implications.
For example, the “cost” of brick and mortar schools doesn’t change if we simply decide to cut transportation services while maintaining compulsory attendance laws. Rather, we pass along that expense to someone else – the parents. That expense is still there, and it may have even increased if we add in the cumulative parental expense on transportation (in effect, a tax for school participation).
I do not see anywhere in this study (on quick glance) or in the post above, any discussion of the varied amount of expense (portion of cost) that would be passed along to someone else (parents) under each model.
One might argue… so what’s the big deal, the kid goes to school in the kitchen in their house, and the parent is simply in the next room working from home, as opposed to the child being in a brick and mortar school for the day. Well, even that’s not a $0 expense endeavor. To nitpick, it’s likely that the increased monitoring role of the parent in this case would reduce the parent’s work productivity to some extent – an opportunity cost. The opportunity costs become potentially much larger if the parent’s productivity depends more on not being at home. Then there’s the marginal increase to utilities associated with having the child at home and online, and potential increased food expense (a little hard to judge). Additional computer hardware, etc. This kind of “little” stuff adds up across large numbers of kids.
It may not be feasible to construct a full tally of all of the “costs” passed along to someone else under each model, but it’s at least worth listing out what some/many of those things might be and the likely range of costs being passed along.
It may still be reasonable to make the argument that government expense can be reduced, but it’s not necessarily a reduction in the cost of the service, but rather a transfer of responsibility for covering that cost. It may be… though I’m not entirely sure… that the total cost is also reduced. But taking that next step in the analysis also involves evaluating the outcomes achieved. Spending less to get less doesn’t reduce costs. It too reduces only expenditures.
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