Kristine Kaiser: Vouchers, virtual schools undermine education

[jkrichter]

Thom Tillis is off to the U.S. Senate, but I think he left some sneaky ALEC-inspired handiwork behind. Over the summer, a legislative mandate to open two virtual charter schools was slipped into the budget. The move is reminiscent of how the vouchers or opportunity scholarships became the law, with no prior debate or public input. The action is so Tillis-like that he probably bears responsibility for it.
With the virtual charter schools, our schoolchildren are supposed to fully learn on a home computer, with no assistance from peers, counselors, or other support staff.
It looks like education on the cheap. I would think the mass education effort might be inexpensive. But K-12, Inc. and Connections Academy, the for-profit corporations that would run the cyber schools, would receive an estimated $9,000 per pupil or the same amount as for students who attend traditional brick and mortar schools.

http://www.hpenews.com/opinion/x1351409775/Kristine-Kaiser-Vouchers-virtual-schools-undermine-education

[exboyfil]

1. My younger daughter did her Spanish 2 online

from K-12. She was actually covering a good deal of the material that my older daughter covered in her Spanish 3 at her High School. I think $9K is insane and the law needs to be changed to better reflect actual cost though. My daughter has gotten As in the following three semesters after doing this online class.

My younger daughter also did her Biology from an organization called the North Dakota Center for Distance Education. Again it was better preparation than my older daughter had in her Honors Biology class. It allowed my daughter to take Anatomy and Physiology and Microbiology as a freshman (courses normally taken mostly by seniors with a few juniors). Again she got high high As in both these subjects.

I had to pay for the summer Spanish class and the Biology classes, but it now allows my daughter to take Spanish classes at the university her senior year that are paid for by the high school through PSEO.

Online classes can be good. Both my daughters have done a bunch through a community college (my older daughter did Calculus 1-3, Differential Equations, Physics I and II, a programming course, and a bunch of English/humanities/social studies online). Since she got Dean's list her first semester in engineering at a nationally recognized university, it seems to have been good preparation for her. Access to online classes will allow my younger daughter to complete the social studies and humanities for her Nursing degree before she graduates high school.

The problem with brick and mortar schools is the inefficiency and wasted time in instruction. Also after you get past the Honors classes the behavior of the students can have a negative impact on the learning environment. I paid for my younger daughter to take Certified Nursing Assistant Training at a local college between her sophomore and junior year vs. having her take the class at the high school. The experience was rather pleasant as she met many young adults in different life stages including two younger single mothers struggling to make a better life for themselves and their families. The teacher commented how she hated teaching in the high school because of the lack of seriousness of the students.