State Leadership Needed

The money should follow the students.

That’s right, I’m advocating for weighted funding that follows students to the best educational option (including those online).

Charter schools, often robbed of local funding, deserve the same weighted funding as well as access to public facilities or facilities funding. And, with the expansion and improvement of online learning, it is vital that “money follows the kid” be extended to the course level.
I explained my position is a pithy article for the National Journal

Oregon Board of Education Continues to Look at Virtual Charter School Issue

Oregon parents voiced their frustration to the state Board of Education about hurdles local school districts appear to be placing in front of children who want to participate in the Oregon Virtual Academy.

Parents told the board that is difficult to get the required release from the local school district so their children can enroll in the virtual school.

What’s more, parents must reapply for the release every year they choose to keep their children in the virtual school. They said some districts have denied reenrollment permission even after a child, who struggled in a traditional school, has shown improvement in the virtual school.

Watch the parents’ testimony and the board’s response. One interesting note: the board’s chairman said “virtual charter schools could become a more front-and-center issue in Oregon’s education policy in the next 5 to 7 years.”

The move to online classrooms

In 2008, when Liberating Learning Blog contributor Michael B. Horn, co-author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, began promoting his book, people told him that he was nuts to say that “by 2019” projections show “50 percent of all high school courses will be online.”

Something happened. A few months later, people told Horn he was nuts because the 2019 date was “way too conservative.” Change, he was told, was happening a lot faster than he and his co-author realized.

This wide-ranging, 2009 discussion is part of San Diego-based High Tech High School’s Graduate School of Education “Education Unboxed Speaker Series.” In the video, Horn talks about how online learning, hybrid education models and how online learning is a big opportunity to get effective teachers to the right student.

Guest Commentary: Taking sides in the distance learning debate

Education Week writer Ian Quillen acknowledges that when he started covering the education and technology, “I entered this beat assuming most supporters of online education would fall into the progressive/liberal camp.”

His assumptions were short-lived.


Quillen found that distance learning has its advocates—and some distracters—on both ends of the political spectrum. In an essay on EdWeek’s “Digital Directions” blog, Quillen tries to sort it all out.

Guest Commentary: A Schoolhouse of One

Brainy but easily distracted, The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates barely made it through high school and dropped out of college. Would a program like New York City’s School of One, which uses technology to tailor lessons to each student’s learning style and pace, have made a difference for him?

After examining the public-private partnership that is bringing online learning to a growing number of NYC students, Coates walked away persuaded that technology—along with cutting edge teaching methods—can change the academic lives of children.

Guest Commentary: Developing a Public Agenda for Virtual Learning

Bill Tucker of Education Sector posted an analysis, complete with videos, on “Developing a Public Agenda for Virtual Learning.” This is the kind of reasoned discussion that deserves to be widely read.

Tucker notes that “virtual learning continues to experience explosive growth. It holds the potential to help address many of our nation's most pressing educational issues.”

He adds, that with all of this growth, “there are troubling signs that virtual learning may not transform American education, but instead replicate many of its worst features … The question is not whether virtual learning will grow, but how?”

Check out his commentary and watch one of the videos that go with the article.

Florida's Leadership in Transforming Education Should be a Model

Florida can build on its early leadership in the virtual schooling movement to create an entirely new education system that is affordable and student-centric.

The policy brief I wrote for The James Madison Institute, a Florida-based research and educational organization, has lessons for all policymakers well beyond the boundaries of Florida. The brief describes how our public education system, designed for the industrial economy, is quite ill-suited to teach all students the higher-order skills necessary for success in today’s knowledge-based economy. By embracing online learning as a holistic strategy for transforming education—not a small item on the education menu—states can bring about a more student-centric system in which each student has access to a marketplace of affordable, high-quality, individually tailored education options.


You can read the executive summary as well as download the full policy brief by clicking here: Virtual Schooling: Talking Points

Q&A with Connections Academy CEO

Gus Sentementes covers digital technology and innovation for the Baltimore Sun. He recently turned his attention to distance learning. Sentementes interviews Connections Academy CEO Barbara Dreyer. This Maryland-based company specializes in K-12 online education and, as of fall 2009, had programs in 17 states.

The irony is there isn’t a Connections Academy in Maryland. The explosive growths of online education, plus the future of Connections Academy in its home state, are just a few of the topics Sentementes and Dreyer discuss.

Former Michigan Schools Chief Hails Era of e-learning

Tom Watkins and served as Michigan's state superintendent of schools from 2001-2005. Now an education and business consultant in the U.S. and China, Watkins takes a look at virtual education in the state he once served.

He likes what he sees. Watkins says Michigan, which has the second largest state-wide virtual education program after Florida, must continue to innovate. In his opinion column, Watkins says that e-learning will lead the way

6 Reasons School Districts are Attracted to Virtual Schools

More U.S. school districts are embracing virtual schools.

There are lots of reasons for this seismic shift.

Virtual schools can offer students at all levels classes that meet their needs. School districts strapped for cash can offer remedial and advanced courses and stay within budget. Virtual schools allow traditional school districts a new way to increase—or retain—enrollment.

Dawn Nordine, director of the Wisconsin Web Academy/Wisconsin Virtual School, provides six solid reasons for virtual schools when she makes presentations to school groups. Here is a report on her presentation.