Education Week - Sizing Up: Blended Learning - S20

GAUGING COSTS
SAVINGS TIED TO BLENDED
PROGRAMS NO SURE THING
By Michelle R. Davis
PRICE ESTIMATE
PER STUDENT
The Thomas B. Fordham
Institute recently
sought to calculate the
per-student cost of
traditional, blended,
and fully virtual public
school models.
The traditional public
school estimate is for
all grade levels, the
blended model is
only for middle schools,
and the virtual model
represents full-time high
school students.
$10,000
One of the earliest hopes for blended
learning-along with the promise that
it would nurture students' technology
skills and foster personalized instruction-is
that it would help schools and
districts save money.
But those who have studied strategies
for combining online and in-person
instruction say that there is no simple
recipe for producing savings and that
the potential for cost-cutting, or added
expenses, linked to blended approaches
depends on myriad factors at play in
individual schools and districts.
As the economy has faltered in recent
years and school budgets have shrunk,
the pressure on districts to keep costs
in check has grown. And in some cases,
blended learning strategies have shown
the ability to reduce expenses, by allowing,
for instance, school leaders to share
resources, redesign instruction, increase
class sizes, and replace textbooks with
free or low-cost online curricula and
materials.
In other situations, however, districts
moving into blended learning have absorbed
new costs, not only associated
with purchases of computing devices
and technology infrastructure but also
linked to professional-development and
other expenses.
"My sense is that for some districts
saving money is one of the reasons
[blended learning] comes up on the
radar screen," said Michael B. Horn,
the co-founder and executive director of
the Clayton Christensen Institute for
Disruptive Innovation, a San Mateo,
Calif.-based think tank that studies
blended learning. "It's not hard to make
it cost-neutral, but it's hard to make it
a savings."
Others, however, say districts are
getting creative about using blended
learning in innovative and cost-effective
ways and the initial spending required
to ramp up technology is worth it.
"There are some costs upfront, but
in the long run, it will make it easier
for teachers to personalize learning,"
said Carmen Coleman, the superin-
$8,900
$6,400
tendent of the 1,800-student Danville,
Ky., school system, which slowly began
phasing in a blended learning initiative
three years ago.
"We're trying to help our teachers
think about blended learning as a way
to tame the turbulence: Let the software
do what it can do, so you as the
teacher can spend your time working
with kids on very rich and meaningful
project-based learning."
Relatively little research exists that
can help traditional public school districts
predict the costs, or savings, that
will result from blended learning.
A study released in 2012 by the
Thomas B. Fordham Institute concluded
that more established blended
learning programs tend to spend
less per student, between $7,600 and
$10,200, than many regular, brick-andmortar
public schools, which spend
about $10,000. (Fully virtual schools
spent less per student than either of
those models, between $5,100 and
$7,700, according to the study.) Yet the
blended learning schools cited in the
report were charter, not regular public
schools, according to Fordham, a Washington-based
think tank.
Spending Comparisons
Most of the studies on that question
have focused on charter schools
or fully virtual programs. Lawrence
J. Miller, a senior research fellow
at the Center on Reinventing Public
Education, based in Seattle, is
studying the stainability and funding
models of 10 blended charter
schools, most of which launched such
programs in 2012.
His preliminary findings show that
TRADITIONAL MODEL
BLENDED MODEL
COSTS CAN VARY
+/- 15 PERCENT
n STUDENT SERVICES
n SCHOOL OPERATIONS
nTECHNOLOGY
nCONTENT
n FACULTY AND ADMINISTRATION
FULLY VIRTUAL MODEL
COSTS CAN VARY
+/- 20 PERCENT
SOURCE: Thomas B. Fordham Institute
technology doesn't necessarily reduce
spending, but it allows for more personalized
teacher-to-student interaction,
regardless of class size.
In fact, those blended charter schools
are currently spending about the same
per pupil as traditional public schools,
about $10,000. Over the next three to
five years, however, the charter schools
Mr. Miller is studying intend to increase
student-teacher ratios to save money by
"hiring teachers at a slower rate as they
continue to grow their enrollment," he
said.
Some say the potential savings from
blended learning for school districts
depends largely on the size of those
systems.
Anthony Kim, the chief executive
officer for Education Elements, a Palo
Alto, Calif.-based for-profit company
S20 | EDUCATION WEEK: SIZING UP BLENDED LEARNING > www.edweek.org/go/blended-learning JANUARY 29, 2014
that provides blended learning services
to districts, said he finds that larger
districts are able to repurpose existing
funds, reorganize staff members and
other resources, and use high-volume
purchasing power to make blended
learning programs work financially.
Less-populous systems, with fewer
resources, often find that blended learning
adds to their bottom line, he said.
"The challenge for smaller districts is
that they often don't have the resources
to make some of the technology implementation
happen," Mr. Kim said. "It's
hard to squeeze more out of an operations
budget by implementing blended
learning because those districts are
often already very lean."
Free Content
That's been the case for the Danville
district, which relied on $150,000
in funding from the Next Generation
Learning Challenges grant program, an
initiative focused on using technology to
boost college readiness and completion.
The school system used that support to
help launch its more intensive blended
learning program in 2012, Superintendent
Coleman said.
The high-poverty school system is
struggling to find and buy enough
devices for students. The district is
considering technology that ranges
from $200 Chromebooks to $1,000
MacBook laptops, though those potential
purchases don't currently fit
into the school system's $19 million
general fund budget. Danville is currently
encouraging a bring-your-owndevice
model, Ms. Coleman said. But
there have also been opportunities
to save money. For example, the district
is using videos provided by Khan
Academy, a major source of free, online
educational content, to help with
mathematics instruction.
As it has moved to incorporate more
technology into instruction, Danville
has not eliminated teacher positions or
made a conscious decision to raise class
sizes. But the district is taking steps to
deliver instruction in different ways.
In high school world-language labs, for
instance, the district's online offerings
allow students to study an array of languages,
from German to Chinese, at the
same time. Instead of staffing each of
those classes with teachers, the district
is using its version of a college "teaching
assistant" model. An adult with a college
degree helps the class rather than
a more costly, certified teacher.
"It's not as expensive as hiring an

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Education Week - Sizing Up: Blended Learning

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