The Virtual Schools Of Tomorrow Are In The Florida Schools Today With More On The Horizon
The kindergarten through 8th grade virtual school was created in the Florida schools in 2003. It was sold to lawmakers as a great way to save money, offering coursework to replace on-campus teachers and classrooms at a savings of $700 per student. Only students who had attended the Florida schools the previous year were eligible to participate at a cost to the Florida schools of $4,800 per student. The savings over physical classroom instruction for the Florida schools was expected to be $700,000 with a 1,000 student enrollment in the virtual school program.
Though in theory the money saved by the Florida schools was substantial, someone forgot to tell the rules to Jim Horne (then education commissioner). He allowed kindergarten and first grade students, who had never attended the Florida schools previously, to enroll in the virtual school. These newly eligible students accounted for 27 percent of all students enrolled at a taxpayer cost of $4,800 per student. All projected savings were lost, and it ended up costing the Florida schools an additional $653,000, according to a...