Georgia Virtual School: Student Success in a Computer-Generated World

Public school systems across the United States are addressing the issue of online learning and how to effectively use new technologies to meet the needs of students living in rural and low-income communities. However, there have been increasing concerns about online learning and the slow growth of new technologies in low-socioeconomic communities. For example, the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools of the University of California have argued that online learning could give students with better access to technology or money to pay for courses an advantage over low-income students, thus widening the existing achievement gaps (BOARS, 2012). Others have debated that even in areas where technology has been integrated; there are differential uses of these technologies among high- and low-socioeconomic status schools (Greenhow, Walker, & Kim, 2010, p. 63). Students from low-income and culturally diverse backgrounds are more likely to be assigned drill and practice activities on the computer compared to their more affluent peers (Greenhow et al., 2010, p. 63). There are a number of factors believed to influence whether students “meaningfully use technologies such as the Internet in course related activities” (Greenhow et al., 2010, p. 63). These factors include network connection speed; level of technology access and support; schools being too small or underresourced to accommodate an advanced course; and teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and expertise with technology (BOARS, 2012; Greenhow et al., 2010, p. 63).

As a result of these concerns, school systems across the country are partnering with universities, governmental agencies, and private companies to address the growing need for online high-quality education for students who might otherwise lack access due to their location or socioeconomic status. Over the last decade, states have established online courses in subjects that were not otherwise available to students in their schools (Worthen & Patrick, 2014); for example, providing learning modules for students in rural and low-income communities to enroll in online Advanced Placement courses. These new learning modules were the gateway for virtual online schools, which had become one of the fastest growing trends in education, with states and school districts increasingly turning to online strategies as a way to introduce education reforms (Blazer, 2009, p. 1). Virtual schools provide flexible scheduling, opportunities for students to take courses over the holiday or summer breaks, and provide remediation and tutoring opportunities on demand (Rice, 2006, p. 427). Virtual schools had become the new trend and full-time online learning options have increased to meet unique student needs (Worthen & Patrick, 2014). This led to states adopting policies and benchmarks from internationally benchmarked college and career ready standards for online learning to enable competency education policies, allow for proficiency-based diplomas, waive seat time requirements, create credit flexibility, or to initiate a redesign of accountability and assessment policies (Worthen & Patrick, 2014).

In 2008, the majority of U.S. school districts were providing some form of online learning to their students (Blazer, 2009, p. 1). Researchers estimate that, by 2016, online enrollments will increase to approximately 6 million K–12 students (p. 1). In 2008, online courses represented only 1% of all courses taken by students; however, it is predicted that by 2019 fifty percent of K–12 courses will be delivered online (p. 1). Georgia is among the states leading the country in online learning and is making incredible strides in closing the achievement gaps of their students in low-income and rural communities.

This article explores the history behind Georgia Virtual School (GAVS), along with the school’s vision and mission, enrollment and performance statistics for underrepresented students’ in the state of Georgia, what GAVS has to offer, and the success of Georgia students enrolled in GAVS online programs.

The state of Georgia was looking for innovative ways to provide options for school systems with limited curricular offerings, scheduling conflicts, or had difficulty providing highly qualified teachers to students in rural and low-income areas. Its primary target in these areas was advanced students who did not have access to certain courses in their traditional schools. Many of Georgia’s school districts where too small or understaffed to offer a variety of courses to their diverse student populations. Approximately 77 of Georgia’s high schools (22%) offered no Advance Placement (AP) courses at all and 19 of them offered only one Advance Placement course to students (Barge, n.d.), thus widening the achievement gap between students in low-income and rural areas. “Students in these schools are at a disadvantage when it comes to applying for and entering college and are not given the opportunity to experience college-level content or apply college-level skills,” said John Barge, former superintendent of Georgia Schools (Barge, n.d.).

In 2001, Georgia was in its second year of a 3-year federally funded grant issued by Department of Education. The grant, titled Advanced Placement Nexus, was written in collaboration between Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee and its goal was to increase the availability of AP courses to low-income and other disadvantage students by means of online opportunities through a contract with Apex Learning, one of the largest providers of online AP courses (Barge, n.d.). As a result of these efforts, in August 2001, the Georgia State Board of Education approved the Virtual Learning Business Plan endorsing the provision of online AP and core curricular courses to students in Georgia’s high schools (Barge, n.d.). The Virtual Learning Business Plan was the first program in the state of Georgia that allowed public schools the opportunity to offer special curricular opportunities and options for schools in low-socioeconomic and rural communities. This virtual learning program was then transferred in October of that same year to the Office of Technology Services. Eventually, more and more school districts in the state of Georgia wanted to participate in the grant but many did not qualify. This prompted the Georgia’s Department of Education to begin expanding its online program through additional contracts with several vendors (Barge, n.d.). After several school systems expressed interest in developing their own programs, 13 school systems across the state that were already engaged in some sort of virtual learning were assembled in Atlanta to discuss the possibility of a state-sponsored virtual school. With an overwhelming response to the idea of a state-wide online program, all were willing to collaborate on and contribute to its development (Barge, nd).

GAVS was established on May 4, 2005 when Governor Sonny Perdue signed the Georgia Virtual School Bill, O.C.G.A. 20-2-31, into law. The program is accredited through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement and operates in partnership with schools and parents to offer middle school and high school level courses across the state (GVS, 2015). The school’s mission is to serve as a stimulus for dynamic change by providing quality digital programs to strengthen teaching and learning. Their vision is to provide quality learning, innovating opportunities, and elevating performance for all students taking online courses in the state of Georgia (GVS, 2015). During the academic year 2013–14, GAVS served 33,041 course enrollments, a 28% increase over the previous year; several district programs; and three statewide fully online schools that enrolled 18,035 students, making it one of the larger state virtual schools in the nation (Georgia digital learning state snapshot, 2014). Providing students the option of attending a fully online school was successful; enrollment in the three statewide fully online schools increased 34% during the academic year 2013–14 over the previous year (Georgia digital learning state snapshot, 2014).

Finally, on June 10, 2010, the State Board of Education in Georgia approved a blended learning program for students in K–12 education. The blended learning program was implemented during the 2011– 12 school year, providing opportunities that combined the prodigious features of traditional schooling with the benefits of online learning to deliver personalized, differentiated instruction across the state. As reported by International Association for K-12 Online Learning, some researchers define blended learning as:

Blended learning allow students the opportunity to interact inside the classroom as well as outside the classroom to provide an culminating learning experience where students learn at their own pace, anytime, anywhere.

GAVS offers a wide variety of courses including 125 unique core curriculum, AP, and elective courses with 281 variations including SAT preparation. These courses are offered in both block and semester formats with varying schedules to meet the scheduling needs of Georgia school districts (Barge, nd). In 2007, GAVS introduced the Credit Recovery Program and the AP Exams Review Program. The Credit Recovery (CR) Program offers a selfguided, self-paced environment where students are able to demonstrate mastery of the full course content that is in alignment with Georgia’s Public School curriculum (Barge, n.d.). The Credit Recovery Program provides students the chance to recover course credits lost due to various reasons. Credit recovery is especially important in urban environments where 81% of schools indicate this is a major issue (International Association for K-12 Online Learning, 2013). The Credit Recovery Program is offered to Georgia Public School students free of charged and serves over 10,000 students per year (Barge, n.d.). The AP Exam Review (APER) Program allows students and teachers the opportunity to gain access to practice AP exams and review materials. In addition, in 2010, GAVS introduced shared resources which offer the full course content for five classes on a public webpage and premium shared resources which allow Georgia public schools to download full versions of GAVS course content in over 55 courses (Barge, nd).

GAVS currently has more than 108 instructors who are highly trained in online learning. Instructors must complete a virtual training course addressing the pedagogy of online learning and instruction as well as policies and procedures specific to GAVS (Barge, n.d.). After successfully completing the online learning program, teachers are provided the opportunity to work with experienced online instructors before teaching their own courses (Barge, n.d.). Teachers who are interested in teaching AP courses for GAVS must also complete the AP training course. Currently, GAVS has approximately 44 certified instructors trained to teach AP courses (Barge, n.d.).

In 2012 a change in funding required GAVS to invoice school districts directly, instead of the student. School districts are instead invoiced $250 per student per online course, providing districts an overall savings of 20–50% (Georgia digital learning state snapshot, 2014). In addition, more than 70 online courses are provided as open educational resources at no cost to Georgia districts, with an online option specifically to address college and career readiness for students (Georgia digital learning state snapshot, 2014). These changes allowed GAVS to expand its course catalog, especially world languages and AP courses; provide more efficient class scheduling, and effectively prepare their students with 21st century skills. The results of the GAVS initiative have been overwhelming; students in GAVS courses have exceeded state and national pass rates on their end-of-course test (EOCT) and Advanced Placement (AP) exams.

According to the AP Report to the Nation (2014) for the state of Georgia, 33,142 AP exams were taken by low-income graduates in the class of 2013, of which 22.9% scored a 3 or better on an AP exam during high school (CollegeBoard, 2014). The number of low-income graduates who took at least one AP exam during high school increased from 914 in 2003 to 10,953 in 2013. In addition, the number of low-income students who scored a 3 or better on at least one AP exam more than doubled, from 319 in 2003 to 4,241 in 2013 (CollegeBoard, 2014).

The state of Georgia has implemented many successful efforts to increase the participation in AP programs for students in low-income and rural areas. The most successful efforts have been with GAVS. GAVS currently offers 25 AP courses and more than 1,350 students took an AP course with GAVS during the academic year 2012–13. During the spring 2014 semester, 64% of the students taking AP courses scored a 3 or better on their AP exam (see Figure 1), which was 8% higher than the national average (Georgia Department of Education, 2012). All of the students taking AP Physics through GAVS scored a 3 or better on their exam and exceeded the nation on 18 of the 22 courses offered during that time (Georgia Department of Education, 2012).

At the end of each semester, Georgia high schools are required to administer a standardized, multiple-choice end-of-course test for students in Grades 9 through 12. There are eight core subjects on which the students are tested: Algebra I, Geometry, U.S. History, Economics, Biology, Physical Science, Ninth Grade Literature and Composition, and American Literature and Composition. The purpose of the tests is to assess specific content knowledge and skills. Even though a minimum test score is not required for the student to receive credit in the course or to graduate from high school, completion of the test is mandatory (Georgia Department of Education, 2015). During the academic year 2013–14, the end-of-course test pass rates for students in GAVS earning a 70% or higher was significantly higher (see Figure 2) than those in the state taking the same courses in a traditional classroom setting. Additionally, students’ scores in math and science were also considerably higher than those students taking the same course in a traditional classroom setting (see Figure 2). Since the spring 2014 pass rates were published, the end-of-course test program was retired after the November 2014 midmonth administration and students began taking the Georgia Milestones Assessment System beginning with the 2014–2015 school year (Georgia Department of Education, 2015).

The state of online education for K–12 has seen small and steady increases over the last decade. However, this current state cannot be sustained without changes in state policies, laws, rules, and regulations. In an effort to promote change, the U.S. Department of Education published a report: The National Education Technology Plan, to provide strategies that will assist schools in implementing systematic change in online education. Strategies include: (1) strengthen leadership, (2) consider innovative budgeting, (3) improve teacher training, (4) support e-learning and virtual schools, (5) encourage broadband access, (6) move toward digital content, and (7) improve achievement through student data management (Rice, 2006, p. 428). States must ensure that students have access to a wide range of choices across the learning continuum and those choices are of high quality, have the necessary supports and infrastructure, and are in place to enable highly personalized pathways (Worthen & Patrick, 2014).

The state of Georgia initially needed a way to meet the educational needs of more students in low-socioeconomic and rural communities. Many of Georgia’s school systems are too small and understaffed to offer the variety of courses needed to prepare more students for college and beyond. Sixty-four of Georgia’s 180 school systems have a total population of less than 2,500 students and of those a third of Georgia’s school systems only have one high school (Barge, n.d.). In addition, Georgia did not have enough highly qualified teachers to put in the classrooms; therefore, they were forced to limit their course offerings (Barge, n.d.). Several school districts across the state were participating in distance learning initiatives to provide students with the educational opportunities their schools could not provide. For that reason, the Department of Education for the state of Georgia implemented a state-supported virtual learning initiative, the Georgia Virtual School, to provide every student access to online learning.

We have seen not only a rapid growth in enrollment for GAVS, but also a growth in the number of underrepresented students taking AP courses and scoring a 3 or better on their AP exams and an increase in the pass rates on the end-of-course test. GAVS has expanded its course offers and programs to provide students full-time enrollment options so that they can complete their high school diploma entirely online. Furthermore, Georgia provides training for certifications in online teaching and endorsements that are needed to sustain and increase the number of highly qualified teachers. Finally, keeping pace with the growing need for online opportunities for K–12 students combined with the best features of the traditional classroom, Georgia has implemented blended learning in K–12 education to allow for more studentcentered learning experiences. This “cultural shift in instruction and learning and online learning represents a fundamental shift in the delivery and instructional model of distance learning” (International Association for K-12 Online Learning, 2015, p. 6). As we move into the third decade of the 21st century, Georgia and other states all across the country are preparing for the evolution of distance learning and its impact on the provision of high quality education for all students regardless of their location or socioeconomic status.