Category Archives: Online Schools

Our friends at Education Next pose an interesting chicken-or-egg question about digital learning and the case for major education reforms: Will the transformative technology unleash itself, or does major work need to be done overhauling K-12 policies and institutions first? To hash out the details, Education Next has unleashed a couple of the leading lights in education reform to give a point-counterpoint online debate. In the end, though, any disparities between the arguments advanced by the Fordham Institute’s Checker Finn and the Innosight Institute’s Michael Horn appear to me more differences of degree than differences of kind. Finn says we need to overhaul the school finance system — allowing us to fund students, rather than bureaucratic programs and institutions — and traditional “local control” governance “when students assemble their education from multiple providers based in many locations, some likely on the other side of the planet.”

I’ve shared with you before my concerns about the work of Colorado’s School Finance Partnership — too weighted down by established interests, too vague and unambitious thus far, etc. The Partnership put out a report in August, but now is transitioning to a series of technical discussions on how to make effective changes to school funding formulas and the like. State senator Michael Johnston, a key leader in the partnership, has stated his goal of striving to achieve both “bold” reforms to the School Finance Act and a “bold” request for additional tax revenue from voters (making such a tough request from cash-strapped voters in one sense would have to be bold). Just exactly how “bold” the respective proposals end up could make all the difference. You likely will hear more from me on that at a later point. But for now it’s interesting to note that Colorado isn’t alone in discussing this sort of “grand bargain.” Once more, our state may end up at the center of a national movement — at least according to an account from the Fordham Institute’s’ Michael Petrilli.

I’m getting too excited to wait much longer. Tonight is the special Colorado screening of Won’t Back Down, the new feature movie about empowering parents to improve failing schools. Put simply, it brings the “Parent Trigger” reform concept to the big screen. So as you look forward to catching the movie, either tonight or when it premieres this weekend for general audiences, you might appreciate some thoughts from a couple of prominent education reform voices to chew on first. It started yesterday with New Schools for New Orleans’ Neerav Kingsland, who argues that “maybe we shouldn’t support Parent Trigger laws at all” and “the best parent trigger is parent choice between non-governmental school operators.”

About a month ago, I pointed out to you the somewhat disturbing views about parents held by certain figures within the education establishment. Well, here’s going way out on a limb to guess the same crowd won’t be lining up in excitement to watch the new movie Won’t Back Down: The feature-length film starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis and Holly Hunter is a story about parents who take charge of transforming their children’s failing inner-city school. In other words, it’s a real Hollywood movie with a powerful education reform message that should resonate with American families facing challenging educational circumstances. Maybe it can pick up where Waiting for Superman left off.

Progress in education reform, like so many other areas, is never final. Just as bad policies can be undone, so can good policies. Simply put, we can’t rest on our laurels. I’m sure that Idaho superintendent Tom Luna and the team behind his Students Come First program are well aware of that reality now. Last year I told you about the yummy tater tots of education reform coming out of the Gem State — a few key pieces of legislation that, among other things, spurred some great innovative local pay-for-performance projects. But a report this week from Education News’ Julie Lawrence, the teachers union and other reform opponents collected enough signatures to put the reform items on the ballot for voters to reconsider:

Several days ago Education Week published a story about a large Colorado school district replacing French and German language instructors with software-driven programs: Of all the recent budget cuts made by the Eagle County, Colo., school district —the loss of 89 staff jobs through attrition and layoffs, a 1.5 percent across-the-board pay cut, and the introduction of three furlough days—none sparked as much anger or faced the same scrutiny as the decision to cut three foreign-language teaching positions and replace them with online instruction. Since I’m not too familiar with the details underlying the decision in Eagle County, I’m more interested in discussing policy ramifications and other ideas in general terms. Clearly, the decision was driven by the need to tighten the budget belt. The 6,300-student mountain district is not alone in this circumstance.

More than 10 years after Washington, D.C., gave us the No Child Left Behind era, the issue of educational accountability is returning to the forefront. How do we measure and attribute school success (or failure)? Who should be held accountable, and how should that accountability be shared? What should be the consequences, both positive and negative, and how will they be implemented and enforced? What role, if any, should the federal government play? The New York Times is hosting a forum with some of the brightest minds in education policy chiming in on the question: “Can School Performance Be Measured Fairly?” Now look, I’m not really fond of the way the question is framed. The obvious answer is Yes, just as obvious as the answer to the question “Can School Performance Be Measured Perfectly?” is No. That being said, some of the points respondents have made are significant, and deserve serious attention in policy debates:

The Education Policy Center’s recent look at 10-year financial trends showed most Colorado K-12 schools have continued to increase real per-pupil revenues and spending — just not as quickly as most other states. But the decades-long trend of seemingly endless growth appears to be crashing headlong into fiscal realities, reaching a plateau or peak that more and more elected officials and school leaders need to be prepared to deal with. Writing for Education Next, Nevada state superintendent James Guthrie and George W. Bush Institute research associate Elizabeth Ettema paint a broad picture that should attract some attention: Not all relevant financial figures are available yet, but reasoned extrapolations from private- and public-sector employment data suggest that U.S. schooling may be on a historic glide path toward lower per-pupil resources and significant labor-force reductions. If not thoughtfully considered, budget-balancing decisions could damage learning opportunities for schoolchildren. Education managers are typically inexperienced in and often reluctant to initiate cost-savings actions. Budget cuts may be poorly targeted, and students, particularly economically disadvantaged students, are swept up in the process as collateral damage.

Friday means I’m taking it easy, and leaving the work up to Choice Media TV‘s Bob Bowdon, who interviewed Jeff Kwitowski of K12, Inc., to talk about online education in this 8-minute video:

It’s not every day when my parents turn on the radio and get to hear education policy top the national news headlines. But yesterday Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gave a big speech to explain why improving education was “the civil rights issue of our era, and it’s the greatest challenge of our time.” Hardly a coincidence, I’m sure, but the Romney campaign also just released “A Chance for Every Child.” The document outlines his education policy plans, including: