Virtual Illusion: Comparing Student Achievement and Teacher and Classroom Characteristics in Online and Brick-and-Mortar Charter Schools

Indiana statewide student-level administrative data on charter and traditional public school students

Indiana students, including those who switched into virtual charter schools

Matching-cell fixed-effect design exploiting students who SWITCH into virtual charters, so each student is partly their own control — the feature that makes this the strongest identification available for moving a child's schooling into the home. Teacher and classroom characteristics were measured and tested as mediators.

Students who switched to virtual charter schools experienced large negative effects on mathematics and English/language arts achievement, and the effects persisted over time rather than reflecting a transition dip. The negative effects could not be explained by observed teacher or classroom characteristics. Point estimates were not recoverable from the abstract and are recorded here as direction and persistence only.

Low for the within-student comparison — a child's genotype does not change when they switch schools. The residual threat is time-varying: families switch to virtual schooling in response to something (illness, bullying, a bad year), and that something also predicts a decline. This is the standard switcher-design confound and it is not addressed.

Same sign and magnitude class as Cordes 2024 (Pennsylvania) and the CREDO online-charter studies, on independent data with a different design.