Is CVA the Public School of the Future?

Take a look at Columbia Virtual Academy (see here).  CVA is a public K-12 virtual school in the State of Washington.  There are no brick and mortar buildings.  There are no school buses.  There are no passing periods.

There are of course advantages and disadvantages to everything, but here is one striking advantage to virtual schools: cost!  Familiarize yourself with a typical public school's finances, and you will see that a significant portion of the money spent is not spent IN the classroom.  It is spent ON the classroom and on transporting the students TO the classroom.  Minooka 201, for example, spent roughly $7,500 per student per year, but only about $3,700 of that (slightly less than half) is spent in the classroom.  The remainder is spent on operations and maintenance, transportation, etc. (essentially, maintaining the brick and mortar buildings and transportation to the brick and mortar buildings).  When you take into account all expenditures (including construction and debt service), Minooka 201 is currently spending roughly $10,500 per student.

Given the above financial advantages of virtual schools and the lean budgets that each state is experiencing, it is easy to see why virtual schools like CVA are being started and why they are expanding to deliver educational services to an increasing number of students.