Within one category of $5 million, the BCPS proposals include another major expenditure on virtual learning at Chesapeake High School. Didn’t this school receive a multimillion-dollar virtual learning center last year? Why is so much money being spent on one poorly performing school when many others deserve help, such as Loch Raven Academy and Woodlawn High School?

Moreover, why are thousands of other dollars being spent on developing a virtual high school and games? In a BCPS communication last year on the Chesapeake virtual reality center, Superintendent Joe Hairston said, “the most natural way to learn is by doing …” But “doing” in virtual reality is not out in the real world. According to an article in e-school news last year on the system at Chesapeake High, David Peloff, program director of emerging technologies at Johns Hopkins’ Center for Technology in Education, said, “There’s not a lot of research that says this [i.e. gaming and simulation technology] directly improves student achievement. We have a hunch that it does,” he said. “But we do know that it improves student involvement.”

For the rest of the article, go to Best use for county school funds?