Virtual School Hit the Mainstream 5 Years Ago. How Popular Has It Gotten?

It became a routine as familiar as going to lunch or picking up a child after school. Each day started with students logging online and listening as a teacher taught through a screen instead of at the front of a classroom.

While this shift to virtual instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic eventually boomeranged back to in-person learning for most children, for some families, it’s become their new normal.

“We see an increase in students fully enrolling in virtual programs or those facilitated or mediated by technology,” says Jennifer Darling-Aduana, assistant professor of learning technologies at Georgia State University. “Within 10 years, my best guess is brick-and-mortar will still be the default, but there’s a growing segment of the population seeing a benefit, whether it’s academic or social or logistical.”

Virtual schools existed well before the pandemic — although some were facing closures before 2020 — and the efficacy of virtual learning has long been debated. But now, growing comfort with online learning, coupled with an increase in homeschooling and the spread of charter school vouchers, has brought virtual learning into the mainstream.

While enrollment numbers could be hitting their peak, experts believe the larger effects of virtual school options could be their lasting impact on brick-and-mortar schools, from their technology to modality capabilities.

Difficult to Track Data

There are no current, national enrollment numbers on virtual schools, which was tracked by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) from 2013 through 2020. Requests from EdSurge to the Department of Education — which is being dismantled by the current administration — for updated numbers went unanswered.

However, past data shows a near doubling from 2013, when there were 478 virtual public schools in the U.S., to the 2019-2020 academic year, when there were 691.

While there are some statewide virtual school programs, in other places, school districts take on the onus of providing virtual programs, although Joshua Goodman, an associate professor of education and economics at Boston University, said it “almost certainly” is more efficient for a state to run a statewide program than individual districts.

According to a survey from think tank RAND, roughly 3 percent of surveyed districts ran a virtual school before the pandemic began, which grew ninefold since 2020. And while nearly one-quarter of surveyed districts had previously stated there were no plans to operate a virtual school in the 2021–2022 school year, they reported it had “at least some” interest in operating a virtual school in the future.

“I haven’t seen any hard numbers on this but I would not be surprised if it grew post-pandemic,” says Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. “A number of parents and students were kind of forced into the option, liked it, and wanted to continue. And many teachers found they really loved the scheduling flexibility and location flexibility.”

Looking at some of the largest and most enduring state virtual school programs — Georgia, Texas, Massachusetts and Michigan — showed similar trends.

• The Georgia Cyber Academy, a statewide public virtual school, reported 9,966 students enrolled in the 2024-2025 school year, following a 9,762 enrollment the prior academic year.
• Texas — which has two virtual schools, one for kindergarten through eighth grade and the latter for high school — reported similar enrollment trends at Lone Star Virtual Academy High School, climbing from 6,793 in the 2021-2022 academic year to 8,114 in the current academic year.
• Massachusetts, which has a 1,200-student enrollment cap, hit 1,184 students this year. That has nearly doubled since 2018, which reported 585 students.
• The Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute also reports wide participation in its programs, stating on its annual effectiveness report that 11 percent of all Michigan public school students have taken at least one virtual course, with 68 percent of the state’s public school districts reporting at least one full-time virtual enrollment.

According to the National Education Policy Center, virtual schools enroll fewer minority students and fewer lower-income students than their in-person public school counterparts, leaning slightly more female than male.

Across the board, the states’ virtual school enrollment saw higher participation among high school students than for elementary and middle school. That could help the school system’s bottom line, since students who may have otherwise dropped out opted instead to stay enrolled in a virtual option, Goodman says.

The enrollment numbers could be bolstered in part by the massive rise of homeschooling. While traditionally virtual school and homeschool have been considered distinct options, now some families could enroll their children in virtual schools but consider it “homeschool.”

Lake added that universal vouchers could be applied toward virtual schools, further expanding its appeal.

“When I studied virtual schools 10, 15 years ago, there were really only two big providers with K-12, but there seem to be many more now,” Lake says. “And I think the barriers to entry are lower for families and many of them tried it and liked it.”

The cost of running such programs vary. Some districts, or states, choose to contract with third-party white label companies, while others turn toward the educators themselves to build the program from scratch. While costs of the programs vary, districts have had to weigh which edtech solutions to keep and scrap in recent years as pandemic-related ESSER funds run out.

Whether or not virtual schools are as effective as in-person learning has been a big debate well before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Center on Reinventing Public Education, which is part of Arizona State University’s teaching college, found most children struggled in the virtual environment.

The National Education Policy Center found only 18 of the 35 states with virtual schools had “data on school performance available, because many states continue to have frozen accountability systems or to have implemented new systems excluding overall school ratings.”

The center polled 228 full-time virtual schools for four-year graduation rates, which clocked in at 65.1 percent — well below the national average national graduation rate of 86.5 percent. Those numbers fared slightly better for district-operated virtual schools (66.7 percent) than virtual charter schools (59.4 percent).

“It often requires a parent really overseeing an education at home and there’s a limited number of families who can do that,” Lake says. “It’s a rare student that’s so motivated and driven that they’ll just succeed on their own with a virtual program.”

Most studies echoed Lake’s and found brick-and-mortar schools are far superior for student outcomes — with many pointing to the learning loss that happened across the board in 2020.

“I think we have a growing body of evidence that virtual education is much trickier to pull off than in-person education for the vast majority of students,” Goodman says. “There are some for whom the virtual option makes sense, but in general it makes sense to start from a default assumption of skepticism with virtual schools and be very selective in which students we encourage to use such options.”

What to Keep in Mind

There are some students who are solid use cases for virtual learning, whether they are dealing with social, emotional or physical disabilities — being bullied, for example, or needing more one-on-one time in classes.

“I think one of the most important factors is that parents know their children best and whether that structure can be successful with them and whether they can take that on,” Darling-Aduana says. “It’s a lot to take on as a family and may not be feasible for the educational experience that family has in mind.”

She recommends, similarly to when choosing colleges, that families speak with people who have had experience with virtual schools — particularly those that have no vested interest either way.

“The best thing is to get some names of students and teachers that have experience within the system and see if it will align with what your education hopes to be looking like,” she says.

The experts interviewed also suggest looking at the data, including how many students succeeded in the program, stick with the program over time and what kind of parent support is needed for success. They also encouraged parents to review the curriculum, seeing if it is linked to evidence-based practices, and if it was created by teachers or a third-party educational technology company.

Lake suggested looking at additional supports to students as well, including those with physical disabilities, mental health issues and language learning.

Future of Virtual Schools

The wider-reaching impact of virtual schools may, ironically, be in brick-and-mortar schools themselves. Districts forced to quickly adopt technology introduced new avenues for learning modalities, which can now be used in moderation with the infrastructure in place. Most districts, for example, no longer cancel classes entirely for snow days, but have children boot up online.

“Because of the increased infrastructure and familiarity during COVID, they’re increasingly using that structure to implement components of courses,” Darling-Aduana says. “There’s even some examples of teachers being telepresented in.”

The demand for the virtual schools themselves could be slowing, with experts hypothesizing those who wanted to be in virtual schools already are, with enrollment largely leveling out.

“There’s been some rapid growth but then [it] leveled off,” Goodman says. “There’s a set of families for whom these schools are the right model, and they’ve found them. I would be skeptical if there’s much more untapped demand for virtual education, at least among K-12.”

Lake estimates online programs may get more personalized, and therefore engaging, with the rise of artificial intelligence use.

“There’s potential there for AI to help virtual programming, which was pretty static,” she says. “It was, ‘This is the curriculum, follow it,’ for the most part, to it becoming much more customized and fun for kids. Still, evidence really matters whether programs are effective, but I’ve heard a lot of homeschool families are very intrigued by AI.”

She also pointed out the pendulum could swing based on how involved brick-and-mortar schools get — or do not — in meeting students’ needs for personalization.

“I think the popularity depends on where the technology goes and who enters the field to become a provider,” she says, adding the field is starting to see more nonprofit organizations enter the space to meet an array of children’s needs. “It also depends how public education responds to the demand out there for more flexibility and customization. If traditional schools don’t respond to that, I think people will keep turning toward alternatives.”