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How The Florida Virtual School Compares To South Florida School Districts
Bottom Line: The summer surge of COVID-19 cases in conjunction with increased concerns about what’s happening inside the classroom have led to more parents considering homeschooling with Florida’s Virtual School. Without remote learning options with Florida’s School Districts for the upcoming school year, it’s the only remote learning option available as part of Florida’s public school system. In many respects it’s probably for the best. Rather than having teachers who’re trained for classroom education attempting to adapt to a virtual environment, including learning the technology along with the students, Florida’s Virtual School teachers have long run the country’s largest and most successful virtual grade school in the country. As many parents are considering making a change, here’s a comparison to how it performs compared to South Florida’s School Districts.
- Florida: 90%
- Broward: 89%
- Miami-Dade: 90%
- Palm Beach: 90%
- Virtual School: 95%
So clearly overall outcomes have been best with Florida’s Virtual School. But what about proficiency scores? Florida’s Virtual School matches the state average in math proficiency, 58%, while exceeding the state average of reading proficiency with a 71% score, or 16 points better than the state average. All of this is to say that for parents who’d prefer a remote learning option for the upcoming school year, Florida’s Virtual School provides an excellent option which should generally provide a better education experience than what transpired over parts of the previous two school years as classroom teachers tried to adapt on the fly. Based on overall performance, Florida’s Virtual School outperformed 47 of Florida’s 67 School Districts last year including South Florida’s School Districts.