Guest Commentary: Erin Dillon and Bill Tucker--Lessons for Online Learning

Here's a preview from the Spring 2011 issue of Education Next.
Erin Dillon, a senior policy analyst at Education Sector, and Bill Tucker, Education Sector's managing director, write that "Virtual education is in a period of rapid growth, as school districts, for-profit providers, and nonprofit start-ups all move into the online learning world.
"But without rigorous oversight, a thousand flowers blooming will also yield a lot of weeds. Real accountability, including the means to identify and end ineffective practices and programs, must be constantly balanced with the time required to refine new, immature technologies and approaches to learning. Both virtual education advocates and education policymakers should learn from nearly two decades of experience with charter schooling, another reform movement predicated on innovation and change within public education. After nearly 20 years of practice, the charter school movement provides important lessons on how to ensure that improved student outcomes remain the top priority."
Click here to read the complete article and learn what the authors believe the virtual education movement can learn from the charter school movement.

Guest Commentary: Virtual School Enrollment Cap Stifles Choice

As a way to recognize National School Choice Week, James Wigderson, wrote an article for the Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute.
In the article, Wigderson said members of the Wisconsin legislature have several important choices ahead of them as they look at the educational landscape in this state.
"The temptation is to sweep our state’s educational problems under the rug with one heck of a broom for an excuse, 'there is no money.' To give in to that temptation would be wrong and there are steps the legislature can take to restore educational innovation and improve educational access without breaking the bank.
"One of the steps would be to eliminate the cap on online public charter school enrollment. The cap is one of the most shameful educational policy holdovers from the Gov. Jim Doyle era, and it needs to be repealed."
Click here to read Wigderson's complete article and find out why he believes lifting the enrollment cap on the state's virtual schools would "be one significant move to increase school choice options for Wisconsin families."

Tom Vander Ark: Blended Learning Can be an Answer to State Ed. Budget Problems

It’s a tough time to be a state legislator. Recently, I spent a Saturday morning listening to Washington State House Education Committee testimony from school board members, teachers, principals, and parents of kids in special program all speaking against budget cuts.
No one in the room seemed to understand that everything is different this time.
As governors across the country prepare their budget proposals for the coming year, they continue to face a daunting fiscal challenge. The worst recession since the 1930s has caused the steepest decline in state tax receipts on record. State tax collections, adjusted for inflation, are now 12 percent below pre-recession levels, while the need for state-funded services has not declined. As a result, even after making very deep spending cuts over the last several years, states continue to face large budget gaps.
The budget cuts will be huge in most state for several years to come, and you can be sure that education will be crowded out by Medicaid, corrections, and emergency spending on deferred infrastructure.
So what is a governor or state legislator to do? Each state is unique and will need to build their own list of budget cuts, but in at least one area, state policymakers need to lead on school based budgeting, blended learning, and performance-based employment.
That's right, blended learning is an important part of the solution mix.
To absorb 20 percent cuts and boost outcomes, schools will need to incorporate personal digital learning. By blending online and onsite learning, schools can save money and boost academic outcomes.
Click here to read more of my thoughts on why blended learning is a means to fix for state budget problems.

It's National School Choice Week

That's right, it's a time to reflect on the progress of the school choice movement and rededicate efforts to move forward.
Liberating Learning blog contributor Lisa Graham Keegan helped pioneer the school choice movement in Arizona. In 1990, an organization called Arizona Business Leaders for Education (ABLE) created a state plan for education reform. Key components of that plan were public report cards for schools, student testing and school choice.
Click here to read more about ABLE and Graham Keegan's memories of this fledgling effort.
Christina Martin is another Liberating Learning blog contributor. Martin is a policy analyst for the School Choice Project at the Cascade Policy Institute. This week, Martin writes, the institute has several events to increase awareness and build support for school choice.
Click here to read about them.
The Georgia Public Policy Foundation, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, was a pioneer in the push to expand education choices in Georgia. The foundation is one of about a dozen organizations that will gather at the state's capitol on Jan. 25 for a school choice celebration and rally. Click here for more information.
The Center of Education Reform is another early advocate for school choice and provides a wealth of information about choice and other education reform issues. This week, the center is featuring a series of lunchtime (noon Eastern) interactive events that focus on school choice issues.
On Jan. 27, the center's series spotlights "A Virtual Choice," and features Mickey Revenaugh, senior vice president of Connections Academies and board vice chair of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL). Click here for a complete list of all programs.
There are lots of events this week, and also sure to be lots written about school choice and the virtual education movement. The Liberating Learning website will keep you informed on it all. In the meantime, for more information on National School Choice Week, click here to find an event or to learn more about the movement.

Michael B. Horn: The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning

In classic disruptive fashion, online learning is expanding beyond distance learning. Educators and entrepreneurs are increasingly creating blended-learning environments—where rather than doing the online learning at a distance, students learn online in an adult-supervised school environment for at least part of the time.
At the outset, this occurred in areas of nonconsumption, such as credit-recovery labs and dropout-recovery schools. A small but growing number of schools, however, are now starting to introduce blended learning into their core programming for mainstream students.
Bleak budgets coupled with looming teacher shortages amidst an increasing demand for results are accelerating the growth of online learning into blended environments. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently described a “new normal,” where schools would have to do more with less. Blended learning is playing a vital role, as school operators begin to rethink the structure and delivery of education with the new realities of public funding.
The growth of online learning in brick-and-mortar schools carries with it a bigger opportunity that has not existed in the past with education technology, which has been treated as an add-on to the current education system and conventional classroom structure. Online learning has the potential to be a disruptive force that will transform the factory-like, monolithic structure that has dominated America’s schools into a new model that is student-centric, highly personalized for each learner, and more productive, as it delivers dramatically better results at the same or lower cost.
In a report that I co-authored, The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning, takes an in-depth look at teaching method of the future that "has the potential to revolutionize K–12 education in terms of quality and cost."
According to Education Week's Digital Directions blog, "While the body of research on online learning has increased exponentially in the last few years one of the first to devoted exclusively to blended learning."
Click here to download the complete report and let us know if you think that blended learning is truly a game changer.

Guest Commentary: Raleigh News & Observer--Virtual School, Real Results

Terry L. Stoops is the director of educational studies for the John Locke Foundation, a North Carolina-based, nonprofit think tank dedicated to "a North Carolina of responsible citizens, strong families, and successful communities committed to individual liberty and limited, constitutional government."
In a recent op-ed in the Raleigh News & Observer, Stoops took a hard look at the ups and downs of the North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS). He points out that after its 2007 launch, the NCVPS stumbled. New leadership was brought in and now NCVPS has the nation's second highest number of course enrollments and is a leader in the virtual education movement."In an era when schools, districts and states must do more with less, extensive virtual schooling can no longer exist as an accessory. It has become a necessity," Stoops writes.
Click here to read more about how North Carolina's virtual school has produced real results.

Tom Vander Ark: A Big Idea; Blended Community-based Organizations

More than two million students learn online. Some online course providers (Apex, K12, Connections, Florida Virtual, NC Virtual, and Lincoln Interactive to name a few) could triple in size given 60 days notice and do it with consistent quality. We've never had an opportunity like that; it's only local and state policy that stands in the way of better learning opportunities for several million kids and fast.
Community-based Organizations (think the YWCA, YMCA, Boys and Girls Clubs) build powerful sustained relationships with youth, engage them in developmental activities, and connect them to youth and family services. Many of them are frustrated by working around struggling schools.
If we combine the two assets--online instruction and powerful community connections--we get one big scalable idea; blends CBOs.
Click here to read more about why I believe a blended school model incorporates online learning and onsite support in ways that are often more flexible and cost effective than traditional schools

Guest Commentary: Why Low Performing Schools Need Digital Media

Craig Watkins is a University of Texas at Austin professor who studies the youth digital media culture. In this thought-provoking essay, Watkins challenges the conventional wisdom of the so-called digital divide.
"When the social and digital media revolution gained momentum at the dawn of the new millennium, no one would have predicted that less than a decade later black and Latino youth would be just as engaged as their white, Asian, and more affluent counterparts," Watkins writes.
"Across a number of measures -- use of mobile phones and gaming devices, social network sites, and the mobile web -- young blacks and Latinos are beginning to outpace their white counterparts. For years the dominant narrative related to race and technology in the U.S. pivoted around the question of access. Today, the most urgent questions pivot around participation and more specifically, the quality of digital media engagement among youth in diverse social and economic contexts," he continues.
What does this mean for schools?
"Technology alone will not change what is happening in low-performing schools. But effective insertion of technology into the classroom might help break the ice that chills the relationship between students and teachers. Rather than spending their time and energy policing mobile phones what if teachers asked their students to pull out their devices to execute a class assignment?" he adds.
Click here to read the complete article.

Michael B. Horn: Disrupting Class, Education 2011

In 2011, the weak economy that has bogged down the United States for the past two years will continue to propel online learning innovations in K-12 education.
The Economist asked me to write about the six virtual education trends to watch for in 2011.

Here is a link to my list.

Guest Commentary: Head of Nevada Virtual Academy Says Online Schools Can Save Money for States

Mike Kazek is Head of School at the Nevada Virtual Academy. In an op-ed in the Reno Gazette Journal, Kazek wrote that virtual education "is just the answer Nevadans are looking for to provide students with a quality and affordable education" during these economic challenging times.
How so?
According to Kazek, Nevada Virtual Academy, which is open to students throught the state, "doesn't receive local funding, provides all students with a computer, and all necessary equipment -- including lab materials, books and one-on-one teacher support."
That's just the beginning.
Click here to read Kazek's complete article

Michael B. Horn: How Digital Learning Can Help Solve California's Budget Mess

As Gov. Jerry Brown settles into office, he does so against the backdrop of severe budgetary pressures that require California to make do with less. When it comes to education, that realization is usually met with great fear and uncertainty. How can we deny our children funding if it will negatively impact who they become as adults?
We do not have to settle for this trade off. It is possible to use the fewer resources available to provide the great education our children deserve.
Just as California’s state higher education system is embracing online learning to cope with the budget shortfall and serve more students with high-quality programs, so too must California’s K-12 education system harness the potential of digital learning to deliver better results at less cost.
In a post for the Silicon Valley Education Foundation's Thoughts on Public Education, I outline the unnecessary hurdles California has set up that prevents a strong virtual education system from taking root in the state. I also propose some common sense ideas that will help the state move forward.
California’s current budget problems demand boldness. Digital learning offers the opportunity for better results at lower cost, but only if the right policies are in place.
Click here to read my complete post.

Guest Commentary: Kathy Schrock on Technology Trends to Watch

"I predict, in educational technology, in the next five years, all students will have an age-appropriate personal information/creation/consumption device with them 24/7. The result of students having access to information at all times will truly engage them as collaborators and participants in the instructional process."
A bold prediction.
That's what Kathy Schrock, author webmaster and director of technology for the Nauset Public Schools, told T.H.E. (Transforming Education Through Technology) Journal recently.
Schrock has witnessed dozens of predictions portending major shifts in how technology will change students, teachers, and schools. Some of those have fared better than others and others have been total surprises.
Click here to read more of Schrock's opinions.

Michael B. Horn: Notable Online Learning Developments in 2010 Not All Positive

Let's give 'em something to talk about.
As those of you who followed the growth of online learning in the United States know, one of the best reports about the online learning field is released annually at iNACOL's Virtual School Symposium. Titled Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning: An Annual Review of State-Level Policy and Practice, John Watson and his team at Evergreen Education Group give an update on general trends as well as a look at what is happening with online learning in all 50 states. As such, it offers the most comprehensive review of K-12 online learning in the United States.
An article in eSchool News titled Growth of online instruction continues, through unevenly, recently offered a brief overview of the report. It highlighted four of 10 notable developments that the Keep Pace report spotlighted, two of which I found to be quite positive and two of which may appear to be good on the surface but I believe to represent some causes for concern.
My focus is on Connecticut, Alabama, Idaho and Wisconsin. Click here to read my complete post.

Tom Vander Ark: State Leadership Matters When it Comes to Online Learning

The National Journal Education Blog started 2011 off with an interesting an interesting question about education reform: "If nothing happens on the federal level, what powers can local school districts use to ensure students have access to a quality education?"
I think state leadership, especially when it comes to virtual education, is very important.
Simply put, the expansion of and potential for online learning suggests statewide solutions.
Why?
Because the Internet doesn't respect school district boundaries.
Click here to read more on why I believe when it comes to virtual education, state leadership matters.
Two other Liberating Learning blog contributors answered the same National Journal question.
Click here to read what Lisa Graham Keegan wrote.
Click here to read the response from Sandy Kress.

Guest Commentary: Dissecting the 21st Century Skills Reform Movement

KQED's Forum, the San Francisco-based public affairs radio program hosted by Michael Krasny, recently took an in-depth look at the 21st Century Skills Movement.
The goal of the hour-long program was to the explore how this movement is seeking to reform education to better prepare students for success in the workplace of the future.
Guests characterized 21st century skills as creativity, innovation, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.
Krasny talked to three Silicon Valley practitioners who are using digital learning techniques to help students get these skills.
Krasny also tried to find out why the movement has encountered opposition from some education leaders, who favor an emphasis on traditional academic learning tools over digital media.
Click here to learn more about Krasny's guests and for a podcast of their conversation.