Guest Commentary: County School Board President Wonders if 'Rocketship Vote a Game-Changer?'

Joe DiSalvo is president of the Santa Clara County Board of Education. He also  writes a weekly blog for San Jose Inside, an online publication dedicated to ”encouraging political debate," in San Jose.
On the eve of an important vote about the future of  Rocketship Education, charter schools and blended learning in the heart of Silicon Valley, DiSalvo posted this on the SJ Inside blog.
"I wonder if the growing presence of high quality charter schools in Santa Clara County will serve as the revolution for eliminating the achievement gap. Will innovative means of learning be the norm? Is the timing right for a revolution in our public school system in Santa Clara County? Will the status quo prevail? Or, can change be the only constant now?
"We will know answers to some of these questions after the Santa Clara County Office of Education board meeting this week," he continued.
"On Wednesday, Nov. 16, sometime after 6:30 p.m., the Board of Trustees will vote on petitions to authorize (or not) Rocketship Schools 6, 7, and 8—all potentially opening in August 2012.
"Also on Wednesday’s agenda, the county board will hold a mandatory public hearing on 20 additional Rocketship Countywide Charter Schools to open in San Jose and Santa Clara County over the next four years. If all receive approval, Rocketship will have 28 total charter schools in the county and approximately 15,000 K-5 grade students," DiSalvo added.
Click here to read DiSalvo's views on the behind-the-scene maneuvering before the vote.
Check back with Liberating Learning. We'll keep you updated on the Rocketship Ed vote.

Tom Vander Ark: Digital Learning Now for Charters

With less funding than traditional schools, charters have more incentive to find solutions that can boost achievement and reduce operating costs. They usually have more flexibility to implement solutions. But they often have limited capacity and get cut out of deals that benefit districts and students in traditional schools. Despite the mixed bag, we’ll see lots of blended learning innovation in the charter space this fall.
I had the good fortune to participate in a session at the National Charter School Conference (#NCSC) in Atlanta with two of my favorite people, Susan Patrick, CEO of iNACOL, and Mickey Revenaugh, EVP Connections Learning. We reviewed the 10 Elements of Digital Learning, a project of the Foundation for Excellent Education and chaired by former governors Jeb Bush and Bob Wise.
The session was full and I thought the Q&A would focus on blended learning implementation, but instead the focus was on the policy details behind this framework including administering a competency-based learning system, ensuring assessment security for online learning, selecting high quality content, and creating incentives for providers to serve at-risk students.
Most charters will need a phased plan and some assistance to shift from print to digital and from teaching age cohorts to serving individual students.

Christina Martin: Expand Charter School Rights in Oregon

The Oregonian painted the picture of what happened in Salem on March 8: "As virtual charter school families rallied on the state capitol steps, the Oregon House was due to vote on House Bill 2287, which would expand charter school rights.
"But just before the bill was debated on the floor," the Oregonian report continued, "Republicans and Democrats requested a caucus meeting."
The upshot: Debate, and any vote, on the bill was delayed. The Oregon House is scheduled to take up the issue again on March 14.
HB 2287, which has bipartisan support, would create consistent guidelines for school districts to follow when they decided whether to accept or deny a proposed charter school. The measure also prohibits districts from imposing bureaucratic obstacles that are intended to delay a proposed charter school from moving forward.
These changes would benefit virtual charter schools. In 2009, the state legislature narrowly passed and created restrictions on virtual charters. The bill placed a two-year moratorium on the growth of existing schools by restricting them to the student counts enrolled on May 1, 2009. HB 2287 would help in the expansion of existing virtual charters and ease creation of new virtual charters.
In February, I testified before the House Education Committee about the need for passage of HB 2287. Click here to read my testimony.

Guest Commentary: The Coming Debate Over K-12 Virtual Charter Schools

June Anh, writing for the June 16, 2010 Teacher's College Record, has a strong piece that looks at virtual charter schools and some of the issues that may surround the future of these schools.
Contrary to wildly-held beliefs, Anh says, students who attend virtual charters are not chained in front of computers all day. Many participate in a blended form of education, participating in face-to-face instruction and distance instruction.
Anh adds that today virtual charters exist in a wild west atmosphere. This will rapidly change as this form of online education continues to expand. Few states have "explicit policies to govern cyber charters, and those states that allow (cyber charter schools) ... numerous policy concerns remain under-developed." Anh provides a list of issues that virtual charters well may have to face in the future--and also provides a road map on actions to take so the virtual charter movement continues to expand.
Anh's commentary is well-worth reading.

Guest commentary: The new classroom--online education and charter schools

You say you want an education revolution? Well you know, Gisèle Huff, chairman of the Innosight Institute, agrees with you. Recently she wrote, “We need to revolutionize the way our children learn; we can do that by harnessing the technology we already have at our disposal.”

In an op-ed for “The Hill,” Huff says, “Making technology an integral part of the curriculum and redefining the role of the teacher would lead to disruptive innovations.”

Huff got it right. Technology is one of the keys to better and more effective schools.

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