Robert Pondiscio’s admission earlier this fall that “there are serious questions about the validity” of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO’s) findings about online learning outcomes felt like a lifeline to online educators who have been treading water for almost a decade. Senior Fellow Pondiscio wrote a column for the Fordham Institute based on what he heard on a panel he hosted entitled “Is it Time for a Fresh Look at Online Education?” I recommend watching the whole 75-minute panel recording. One crucial point is that CREDO’s “virtual twin” methodology, which is at the core of several widely cited reports criticizing online school effectiveness, fails to acknowledge essential ways that online students differ from brick-and-mortar students.

In our 2024 Snapshot, the Digital Learning Collaborative (DLC) noted that:

High-stakes testing for students in full-time virtual schools presents unique challenges, including issues of accessibility, integrity, and fairness. As more students enroll in full-time virtual schools, understanding and addressing these challenges becomes crucial, especially as evidence emerges following the pandemic that performance and participation increases when online schools are permitted to administer state tests to students in a virtual setting using remote proctoring, thus enabling online students — just like students in traditional schools — to take tests in the setting where they learn each day.