VISCED Colloquium
Cyberschool Advances in North America and Europe
An Assessment of the VISCED Colloquium
D.L. Bearden
European Virtual School
May 29, 2012
Abstract
Virtual school case studies in the European context are available for investigation from a variety of sources including the Virtual Schools and Colleges project of VISCED, World Virtual School, the International Association of K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), and Schoolnet. The American and European experiences are quite different, but each has a set of assets that are worthy of exploitation. Careful investigation of the implications of adopting reform models for education is warranted.
Questions and Answers
1. What are the overall problems in the case studies?
European virtual schools attending the VISCED colloquium are in most cases funded by the Lifelong Learning Program (LLP) of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Commission. LLP projects must become self sustaining after 3-4 years though there are conditions where programs may extend the grant for additional time frames. Some schools also enjoy funding from the Ministry of Education in each individual state. Virtual Schools in the United States are expanding at exponential rates as new governance structures are implemented in individual states. An ongoing world wide recession makes funding innovation in education more complex.
2. What are the factors affecting the problems related to the cases?
Cost factors include maintaining Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS) in each virtual school, retaining highly qualified instructors, building curriculum and student services applications, and keeping pace with emerging technologies. Logistics factors include expanding broadband infrastructure and meeting both software and hardware requirements on the part of students. Higher education institutions embraced these factors more completely while bachelareatlevel schools are still developing infrastructure. It is at the bachelareat level however that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) systems are more generally applied. These conditions are true in both American and European institutions.
3. Managerial, organizational, technological issues and resources related to these cases.
Capitalizing innovation in the field of education is largely a function of infrastructure development funded by governments combined with investments from corporate partners. In the United States management of Local Education Authorities (LEAs) is dramatically affected by the growth of enrollment in privately held charter schools. This phenomenon does not exist in Europe where national education systems and private schools have well established relationships that share support from government. At the level of higher education on both continents for profit institutions, that are more often than not virtual campuses, are gaining a larger market share of an expanding market while simultaneously preparing to deal with the potential effects of austerity restrictions on the level of governmental support.
4. What role do different stakeholders (decision makers) play in the overall planning, implementation and management of the information technology applications?
Individual states and nation states established their own educational technology plans that dovetailed with the federal and transnational plans advocating the expansion of knowledge economy measures at all levels of education. LEAs play a critical role in the implementation of ICT. Corporate venders of content and infrastructure play an increasingly important role in planning and implementation if not management.
5. What are possible alternatives in dealing with the problems related to the cases?
Open Source applications and Open Content curriculum provides relief to LEAs facing rising costs for platform deployment and curriculum development. Repositories of reusable learning content and a variety of non-proprietary applications are available to virtual school providers seeking to limit costs and leverage existing ICT capital.
6. Should emerging technologies be considered in solving the problems related to the cases?
Research institutions often provide the spark for new technology and the beneficiaries may be LEAs and smaller universities. Many higher education institutions were able to shift the cost of email systems away from their own Information Technology (IT) departments to take advantage of less costly corporate sponsored hosting services and cloud computing systems. Secondary and bachelareat level LEAs must be concerned with a higher level of risk aversion but increasingly benefit from deploying emerging technologies.
7. What is the final solution that can be recommended to the management of the state digital education systems described in the cases?
Caution must be exercised when cross pollinating public and private interests. Free markets do not reward egalitarian achievement. Boosting the profit margin is the end goal of private capital and this may be in opposition to the mission of the LEA, which is guided by teaching and learning. Public education is not prevented from engaging in enterprise and may take advantage of monopoly positions when corporations cannot. The ethics of integrating proprietary interest with public interest must be measured and remain transparent.
Cyberschool Advances in North America and Europe
Summary
VISCED, “a transnational appraisal of virtual school and college provision” (VISCED, 2012) brought to the attention of European eLearning researchers, virtual school managers and instructors gathered for a colloquium in Sheffield, UK May 22-23, 2012 the assets and attributes of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (http://www.inacol.org/) [iNACOL]. The colloquium consisted of a series of case studies of virtual schools in Europe with a corresponding sample of schools from the United States.
Participating Schools and Research Institutions
A full list of virtual schools serving a population of school students from the ages of 14-21 is available on the VISCED Wiki (http://virtualcampuses.eu/). Those schools attending the Colloquium were: Värmdö Distans of Sweden, European Virtual School of France, iScoil of Ireland, InterHigh of England, Notschool Sheffield of England, Sofia Distansundervisning of Sweden, Satellite Virtual Schools of England and Wales, Notre Dame School of England, Bednet of Belgium, Briteschool of the UK, Audentes E-Gymnasium of Estonia, Otavan Opisto of Finland, and Wereldschool of the Netherlands.
Representing virtual schools in the U.S. were Illinois Virtual School (www.ilvirtual.org/) of Illinois; and Clovis Online School (http://onlineschool.cusd.com/) of California.
Representing the ranks of higher education and other research institutions present were: Sero Consulting of Sheffield, U.K (http://www.sero.co.uk/).; European Foundation for Quality E-Learning of Brussels (http://efquel.org/) [EFQUEL]; Audiovisual Technology Informatics and Telecommunications of Belgium [ATiT] (http://www.schoolleadership.eu/portal/partner/audiovisual-technology-informatics-and-telecommunications-atit); Instituto de Educação of Lisbon (http://www.ie.ul.pt/); International Association for K-12 Online Learning of Virginia, U.S.; Sheffield College, of the U.K. (www.sheffcol.ac.uk/); University of Leeds, of the UK (www.leeds.ac.uk/); Aarhus Universitet of Denmark (www.aus.dk/); Katholieki Universiteit Leuven of Nederland (http://www.kuleuven.be/kuleuven/); Ross Tensta Gymnasium of Sweden (http://www.tea.edu.stockholm.se/); Department for Education of UK (http://www.education.gov.uk/) [DfE]; Innovation Lab Network of Washington DC, U.S. (http://www.ccsso.org/Resources/Programs/Innovation_Lab_Network.html); SCIENTER of Brussels (http://www.equnet.info/about/project-partners/scienter/); Tietoyhteiskunnan Kehittämiskeskus (http://www.ttlry.fi/) [TIEKE] of Finland; Estonian Information Technology Foundation (http://www.eitsa.ee/?url=eitf) [EITF]; Aarhus Universitet (www.asb.dk/); eLene2Learn of Italy (http://www.elene2learn.eu/italy) [METID]; and Lambrakis Foundation (http://www.lrf.gr/) of Greece.
The American Perspective
World Virtual School presented the International Schools Needs Assessment Survey (Muir, 2010). The survey was distributed through Telecenters (www.telecenters.org) and included data from 25 countries in addition to the U.S. The purpose was to provide perspective regarding Internet availability and the status of education within different global regions.
A publication released by iNACOL, A Survey of Policy and Practice of K-12 Schools Around the World (Barbour et al., 2012) is edited research drawn from country reports from around the world providing a short introduction and summary of each of the 11 case studies previously published (Barbour et al., 2012). This international survey of policy and practice aims at adding to the body of knowledge about online and blended education policy and practice for policymakers and practitioners around the world.
Virtual Learning and CharterSchools in the U.S.
Adding to the knowledge of trends in K-12 schools in the U.S. is a 2012 publication by the Southern Regional Education Board [SREB] titled Charter Schools in SREB States: Critical Questions and Next Steps for States. The report provides trend analysis that shows charter schools are moving into the mainstream of educational options available to students in the public school system. The report does not focus on academic performance, a task that was done over the previous decade by the SREB. Instead this report shows where growth in charter school enrollments is occurring. This data is significant because it is in the online learning environment where the potential for the greatest growth is present.
The report indicates that two states have surged ahead of all other states in enrollment size, Florida and Texas. Florida has a statewide charter school created by the Legislature and unique in the country because it is a public school district with all the funding authority of a traditional school district. The Florida Virtual School serves as a model to other states in this regard. There are other states that have statewide virtual schools. Some are run by universities, some by charter schools, some by local school districts or regional education service centers.
The Texas model of virtual education is quite different. The Legislature was slow to allow funding for virtual learning because of opposition from interest groups such as the teachers unions and the state associations of school boards, and administrators. When the Legislature changed the law it created the Texas Virtual School Network (TxVSN) a network of schools, universities and education service centers that was unique in the nation. The funding mechanism was created that allowed funding to flow to the provider network resulting in phenomenal growth in the first year of implementation, 2010. TxVSN growth was halted in 2011 following the Legislature’s decision to remove reimbursements districts received for TxVSN enrollment.
Figure 1. TxVSN Enrollment
Figure 2. Public School Enrollment in Texas (TEA, 2010)
With the mechanism in place for charter schools to receive funding, a new boom occurred with for profit management companies contracting with charter schools to provide online courses. Evidence of that boom is seen in the Southern Regional Education Board report showing Texas surpassed Florida as the state with the largest enrollment in charter schools. The impact on traditional public schools and private schools is significant though overall enrollment in all Texas public schools continues to rise rapidly.
Table 1. Charter Schools in SREB States (Grove, et al., 2012).
The European Experience
Full reports and briefs for all EU countries are available from European Schoolnet (http://insight.eun.org). Ministries of Education were asked to complete their country report on the basis of a 2011 questionnaire that requested details regarding education context, ICT policy and priorities, national characteristics, curriculum development, resources, and teacher training. The resulting reports provide a comprehensive analysis drawn from data provided by the ministers of education, (Schoolnet, 2012).
Research Recommendations
University of Northampton Lecturer George Watley’s preliminary study of the costs of online learning in the European Union point toward potential savings when compared to those of traditional brick and mortar schools. If the hypothesis is proven true it provides an advantage when approaching funding sources that are eager to find savings in an era of austerity.
The motivation for funding authorities to move toward online learning is based on an assumption that without physical plant costs there must be savings. As Watley points out there are many variations in the cost factors including the cost of the learning platform and the cost of developing content.
Open Source applications and Open Content pedagogy can in fact reduce costs but even those have hidden costs in that they require highly skilled faculty and technology support. In the higher education field there is a move toward hiring fewer tenured faculty members in favor of adjunct faculty thereby reducing costs for benefits and other factors required for retaining full time faculty and staff.
There is no one size fits all funding formula for online learning; therefore it must be understood that Watley’s cost of online learning mean does not stand alone. Considering the standard deviation, a level of significance sufficient to disprove the null hypothesis may be difficult to achieve.
Findings
The European experiment with virtual learning is significantly different from that in the United States. The structure of school governance in the two continents bears little resemblance to each other and increasingly less so as state after state in the U.S. abandons the traditional public school model in favor of corporate sponsored experiments (Perry, 2012).
iNACOL is a highly successful non profit organization that began in the late 1990s as a small gathering of virtual school administrators. In 2000 the Virtual School Symposium launched with corporate sponsorship and expanded annually over the next dozen years.
VISCED and its member organizations and schools are dependent on funding from the European Commission but must establish sustainability once the funding is exhausted. Looking toward the private sector for sponsorship is a proven model. Corporate investment in the European community is already well established with partnerships developing between course providers and the Ministers of Education (Vella, 2012).
Exhausting all resources within the European context is essential. Marketing those resources internationally may bring additional valorization. Caution is advised in adopting models without a full investigation of their impact (ExTRA Inc, 2012).
References
Barbour, M., Hasler Waters, L, and Hunt, J. (Ed.). (2011). Online and blended learning: Case studies of K-12 schools around the world. Vienna, VA: International Association for K-12 Online Learning.
Barbour, M., Brown, R., Waters, L. H., Hoey, R., Hunt, J. L., Kennedy, K.,...Trimm, T. (Ed.) (2012). Online and blended learning: A survey of policy and practice of K-12 schools around the world. Vienna, VA: International Association of K-12 Online Learning. Retrieved from http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/iNACOL_IntnlReport2011.pdf
Grove, J. Lord, J., Gaines, G. (2012). Charter schools in SREB states: Critical questions and next steps for states. A focus report in the Challenge to Lead Series. Atlanta, GA: Southern Regional Educational Board. Retrieved from http://publications.sreb.org/2012/12S04_Charter.pdf
ExTRA Inc. (2012). World Virtual School: Get a high quality education. Retrieved from http://extraink.weebly.com/
Muir, D. (2010). International schools needs assessment survey. Chicago, IL: World Virtual School Inc.
Perry, M.H. (2012) Protests in Philly over school privatization. MSNBC May 27, 2012. Retrieved from http://extraink.weebly.com/
Schoolnet (2012). Insight: Observatory for new technologies and education. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/country_report.cfm
TEA. (2010). Enrollment in Texas Public Schools 2009-2010. Austin: Texas Education Agency Division of Accountability and Research. Retrieved from http://www.tea.state.tx.us/acctres/Enroll_2010-11.pdf
Vella, F. (2012). iLearn: A whole new world of educational opportunities. The Malta Independent Online. Retrieved from http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=140379
VISCED. (2012). Virtual schools colloquium gets off the ground in Sheffield. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from http://www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.info/
D.L. Bearden
European Virtual School
May 29, 2012
Abstract
Virtual school case studies in the European context are available for investigation from a variety of sources including the Virtual Schools and Colleges project of VISCED, World Virtual School, the International Association of K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), and Schoolnet. The American and European experiences are quite different, but each has a set of assets that are worthy of exploitation. Careful investigation of the implications of adopting reform models for education is warranted.
Questions and Answers
1. What are the overall problems in the case studies?
European virtual schools attending the VISCED colloquium are in most cases funded by the Lifelong Learning Program (LLP) of the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency of the European Commission. LLP projects must become self sustaining after 3-4 years though there are conditions where programs may extend the grant for additional time frames. Some schools also enjoy funding from the Ministry of Education in each individual state. Virtual Schools in the United States are expanding at exponential rates as new governance structures are implemented in individual states. An ongoing world wide recession makes funding innovation in education more complex.
2. What are the factors affecting the problems related to the cases?
Cost factors include maintaining Learning Content Management Systems (LCMS) in each virtual school, retaining highly qualified instructors, building curriculum and student services applications, and keeping pace with emerging technologies. Logistics factors include expanding broadband infrastructure and meeting both software and hardware requirements on the part of students. Higher education institutions embraced these factors more completely while bachelareatlevel schools are still developing infrastructure. It is at the bachelareat level however that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) systems are more generally applied. These conditions are true in both American and European institutions.
3. Managerial, organizational, technological issues and resources related to these cases.
Capitalizing innovation in the field of education is largely a function of infrastructure development funded by governments combined with investments from corporate partners. In the United States management of Local Education Authorities (LEAs) is dramatically affected by the growth of enrollment in privately held charter schools. This phenomenon does not exist in Europe where national education systems and private schools have well established relationships that share support from government. At the level of higher education on both continents for profit institutions, that are more often than not virtual campuses, are gaining a larger market share of an expanding market while simultaneously preparing to deal with the potential effects of austerity restrictions on the level of governmental support.
4. What role do different stakeholders (decision makers) play in the overall planning, implementation and management of the information technology applications?
Individual states and nation states established their own educational technology plans that dovetailed with the federal and transnational plans advocating the expansion of knowledge economy measures at all levels of education. LEAs play a critical role in the implementation of ICT. Corporate venders of content and infrastructure play an increasingly important role in planning and implementation if not management.
5. What are possible alternatives in dealing with the problems related to the cases?
Open Source applications and Open Content curriculum provides relief to LEAs facing rising costs for platform deployment and curriculum development. Repositories of reusable learning content and a variety of non-proprietary applications are available to virtual school providers seeking to limit costs and leverage existing ICT capital.
6. Should emerging technologies be considered in solving the problems related to the cases?
Research institutions often provide the spark for new technology and the beneficiaries may be LEAs and smaller universities. Many higher education institutions were able to shift the cost of email systems away from their own Information Technology (IT) departments to take advantage of less costly corporate sponsored hosting services and cloud computing systems. Secondary and bachelareat level LEAs must be concerned with a higher level of risk aversion but increasingly benefit from deploying emerging technologies.
7. What is the final solution that can be recommended to the management of the state digital education systems described in the cases?
Caution must be exercised when cross pollinating public and private interests. Free markets do not reward egalitarian achievement. Boosting the profit margin is the end goal of private capital and this may be in opposition to the mission of the LEA, which is guided by teaching and learning. Public education is not prevented from engaging in enterprise and may take advantage of monopoly positions when corporations cannot. The ethics of integrating proprietary interest with public interest must be measured and remain transparent.
Cyberschool Advances in North America and Europe
Summary
VISCED, “a transnational appraisal of virtual school and college provision” (VISCED, 2012) brought to the attention of European eLearning researchers, virtual school managers and instructors gathered for a colloquium in Sheffield, UK May 22-23, 2012 the assets and attributes of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (http://www.inacol.org/) [iNACOL]. The colloquium consisted of a series of case studies of virtual schools in Europe with a corresponding sample of schools from the United States.
Participating Schools and Research Institutions
A full list of virtual schools serving a population of school students from the ages of 14-21 is available on the VISCED Wiki (http://virtualcampuses.eu/). Those schools attending the Colloquium were: Värmdö Distans of Sweden, European Virtual School of France, iScoil of Ireland, InterHigh of England, Notschool Sheffield of England, Sofia Distansundervisning of Sweden, Satellite Virtual Schools of England and Wales, Notre Dame School of England, Bednet of Belgium, Briteschool of the UK, Audentes E-Gymnasium of Estonia, Otavan Opisto of Finland, and Wereldschool of the Netherlands.
Representing virtual schools in the U.S. were Illinois Virtual School (www.ilvirtual.org/) of Illinois; and Clovis Online School (http://onlineschool.cusd.com/) of California.
Representing the ranks of higher education and other research institutions present were: Sero Consulting of Sheffield, U.K (http://www.sero.co.uk/).; European Foundation for Quality E-Learning of Brussels (http://efquel.org/) [EFQUEL]; Audiovisual Technology Informatics and Telecommunications of Belgium [ATiT] (http://www.schoolleadership.eu/portal/partner/audiovisual-technology-informatics-and-telecommunications-atit); Instituto de Educação of Lisbon (http://www.ie.ul.pt/); International Association for K-12 Online Learning of Virginia, U.S.; Sheffield College, of the U.K. (www.sheffcol.ac.uk/); University of Leeds, of the UK (www.leeds.ac.uk/); Aarhus Universitet of Denmark (www.aus.dk/); Katholieki Universiteit Leuven of Nederland (http://www.kuleuven.be/kuleuven/); Ross Tensta Gymnasium of Sweden (http://www.tea.edu.stockholm.se/); Department for Education of UK (http://www.education.gov.uk/) [DfE]; Innovation Lab Network of Washington DC, U.S. (http://www.ccsso.org/Resources/Programs/Innovation_Lab_Network.html); SCIENTER of Brussels (http://www.equnet.info/about/project-partners/scienter/); Tietoyhteiskunnan Kehittämiskeskus (http://www.ttlry.fi/) [TIEKE] of Finland; Estonian Information Technology Foundation (http://www.eitsa.ee/?url=eitf) [EITF]; Aarhus Universitet (www.asb.dk/); eLene2Learn of Italy (http://www.elene2learn.eu/italy) [METID]; and Lambrakis Foundation (http://www.lrf.gr/) of Greece.
The American Perspective
World Virtual School presented the International Schools Needs Assessment Survey (Muir, 2010). The survey was distributed through Telecenters (www.telecenters.org) and included data from 25 countries in addition to the U.S. The purpose was to provide perspective regarding Internet availability and the status of education within different global regions.
A publication released by iNACOL, A Survey of Policy and Practice of K-12 Schools Around the World (Barbour et al., 2012) is edited research drawn from country reports from around the world providing a short introduction and summary of each of the 11 case studies previously published (Barbour et al., 2012). This international survey of policy and practice aims at adding to the body of knowledge about online and blended education policy and practice for policymakers and practitioners around the world.
Virtual Learning and CharterSchools in the U.S.
Adding to the knowledge of trends in K-12 schools in the U.S. is a 2012 publication by the Southern Regional Education Board [SREB] titled Charter Schools in SREB States: Critical Questions and Next Steps for States. The report provides trend analysis that shows charter schools are moving into the mainstream of educational options available to students in the public school system. The report does not focus on academic performance, a task that was done over the previous decade by the SREB. Instead this report shows where growth in charter school enrollments is occurring. This data is significant because it is in the online learning environment where the potential for the greatest growth is present.
The report indicates that two states have surged ahead of all other states in enrollment size, Florida and Texas. Florida has a statewide charter school created by the Legislature and unique in the country because it is a public school district with all the funding authority of a traditional school district. The Florida Virtual School serves as a model to other states in this regard. There are other states that have statewide virtual schools. Some are run by universities, some by charter schools, some by local school districts or regional education service centers.
The Texas model of virtual education is quite different. The Legislature was slow to allow funding for virtual learning because of opposition from interest groups such as the teachers unions and the state associations of school boards, and administrators. When the Legislature changed the law it created the Texas Virtual School Network (TxVSN) a network of schools, universities and education service centers that was unique in the nation. The funding mechanism was created that allowed funding to flow to the provider network resulting in phenomenal growth in the first year of implementation, 2010. TxVSN growth was halted in 2011 following the Legislature’s decision to remove reimbursements districts received for TxVSN enrollment.
Figure 1. TxVSN Enrollment
Figure 2. Public School Enrollment in Texas (TEA, 2010)
With the mechanism in place for charter schools to receive funding, a new boom occurred with for profit management companies contracting with charter schools to provide online courses. Evidence of that boom is seen in the Southern Regional Education Board report showing Texas surpassed Florida as the state with the largest enrollment in charter schools. The impact on traditional public schools and private schools is significant though overall enrollment in all Texas public schools continues to rise rapidly.
Table 1. Charter Schools in SREB States (Grove, et al., 2012).
The European Experience
Full reports and briefs for all EU countries are available from European Schoolnet (http://insight.eun.org). Ministries of Education were asked to complete their country report on the basis of a 2011 questionnaire that requested details regarding education context, ICT policy and priorities, national characteristics, curriculum development, resources, and teacher training. The resulting reports provide a comprehensive analysis drawn from data provided by the ministers of education, (Schoolnet, 2012).
Research Recommendations
University of Northampton Lecturer George Watley’s preliminary study of the costs of online learning in the European Union point toward potential savings when compared to those of traditional brick and mortar schools. If the hypothesis is proven true it provides an advantage when approaching funding sources that are eager to find savings in an era of austerity.
The motivation for funding authorities to move toward online learning is based on an assumption that without physical plant costs there must be savings. As Watley points out there are many variations in the cost factors including the cost of the learning platform and the cost of developing content.
Open Source applications and Open Content pedagogy can in fact reduce costs but even those have hidden costs in that they require highly skilled faculty and technology support. In the higher education field there is a move toward hiring fewer tenured faculty members in favor of adjunct faculty thereby reducing costs for benefits and other factors required for retaining full time faculty and staff.
There is no one size fits all funding formula for online learning; therefore it must be understood that Watley’s cost of online learning mean does not stand alone. Considering the standard deviation, a level of significance sufficient to disprove the null hypothesis may be difficult to achieve.
Findings
The European experiment with virtual learning is significantly different from that in the United States. The structure of school governance in the two continents bears little resemblance to each other and increasingly less so as state after state in the U.S. abandons the traditional public school model in favor of corporate sponsored experiments (Perry, 2012).
iNACOL is a highly successful non profit organization that began in the late 1990s as a small gathering of virtual school administrators. In 2000 the Virtual School Symposium launched with corporate sponsorship and expanded annually over the next dozen years.
VISCED and its member organizations and schools are dependent on funding from the European Commission but must establish sustainability once the funding is exhausted. Looking toward the private sector for sponsorship is a proven model. Corporate investment in the European community is already well established with partnerships developing between course providers and the Ministers of Education (Vella, 2012).
Exhausting all resources within the European context is essential. Marketing those resources internationally may bring additional valorization. Caution is advised in adopting models without a full investigation of their impact (ExTRA Inc, 2012).
References
Barbour, M., Hasler Waters, L, and Hunt, J. (Ed.). (2011). Online and blended learning: Case studies of K-12 schools around the world. Vienna, VA: International Association for K-12 Online Learning.
Barbour, M., Brown, R., Waters, L. H., Hoey, R., Hunt, J. L., Kennedy, K.,...Trimm, T. (Ed.) (2012). Online and blended learning: A survey of policy and practice of K-12 schools around the world. Vienna, VA: International Association of K-12 Online Learning. Retrieved from http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/iNACOL_IntnlReport2011.pdf
Grove, J. Lord, J., Gaines, G. (2012). Charter schools in SREB states: Critical questions and next steps for states. A focus report in the Challenge to Lead Series. Atlanta, GA: Southern Regional Educational Board. Retrieved from http://publications.sreb.org/2012/12S04_Charter.pdf
ExTRA Inc. (2012). World Virtual School: Get a high quality education. Retrieved from http://extraink.weebly.com/
Muir, D. (2010). International schools needs assessment survey. Chicago, IL: World Virtual School Inc.
Perry, M.H. (2012) Protests in Philly over school privatization. MSNBC May 27, 2012. Retrieved from http://extraink.weebly.com/
Schoolnet (2012). Insight: Observatory for new technologies and education. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from http://insight.eun.org/ww/en/pub/insight/misc/country_report.cfm
TEA. (2010). Enrollment in Texas Public Schools 2009-2010. Austin: Texas Education Agency Division of Accountability and Research. Retrieved from http://www.tea.state.tx.us/acctres/Enroll_2010-11.pdf
Vella, F. (2012). iLearn: A whole new world of educational opportunities. The Malta Independent Online. Retrieved from http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=140379
VISCED. (2012). Virtual schools colloquium gets off the ground in Sheffield. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from http://www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.info/
