{"id":713043,"date":"2023-08-17T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/?post_type=article&p=713043"},"modified":"2023-09-11T10:56:10","modified_gmt":"2023-09-11T14:56:10","slug":"happening-all-over-for-many-students-zoom-in-a-room-never-ended","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/article\/happening-all-over-for-many-students-zoom-in-a-room-never-ended\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive Data: Fueled by Teacher Shortages, \u2018Zoom-in-a-Room\u2019 Makes a Comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last fall, Arkeria Wright wanted to check up on her son\u2019s progress in math after a particularly difficult seventh grade year. So she contacted the person she thought was his teacher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The response shocked her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The staff member in the room at Bear Creek Middle School in Fulton County, Georgia, was a substitute, there to monitor behavior and ensure students completed their work. His actual teacher was hundreds of miles away, delivering instruction virtually for an Austin, Texas-based company called Proximity Learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe didn\u2019t know our kids had virtual teachers,\u201d Wright said. \u201cParents need to be aware that that is the type of learning [students] are getting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

I could not stomach funding this because I would never send my kid to a school where they\u2019re in call-center cubicles.<\/p>Jennifer Carolan, co-founder, Reach Capital<\/cite><\/span><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Live, online instruction in school has long linked students to subjects they couldn\u2019t otherwise take, like A.P. Calculus or Latin. But as districts struggle to fill teaching vacancies, they are increasingly turning to companies like Proximity to teach core subjects. Districts are spending thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars on virtual teachers, according to The 74\u2019s review of purchase orders in GovSpend<\/a>, a data service. The practice \u2014 derided at the height of the pandemic as \u201cZoom-in-a-room\u201d\u2014 is raising eyebrows as students return to school and continue to grapple with the lingering effects of remote learning<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is happening all over,\u201d said Jennifer Carolan, co-founder and partner at Reach Capital, a firm that invests in education companies. She estimated that roughly a dozen companies offering virtual teaching have reached \u201cmeaningful scale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she balked at investing herself after a member of her team visited a high school English class at a school near San Jose, California, taught virtually by a teacher from Coursemojo<\/a>, another provider. \u201cUltimately, I could not stomach funding this because I would never send my kid to a school where they\u2019re in call-center cubicles<\/a>,” she said. “It doesn’t align with how I see education evolving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n