Californias budget meltdown is an opportunity, not to raise taxes, but to explore innovative ways to deliver services more efficiently and effectively. With the revolution in online technology, education is a perfect area to re-think obsolete delivery systems. However, according to a new book by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), California has erected reactionary barriers that prevent this revolution from reaching millions of students who might benefit from it.
Entitled Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing the Online Learning Revolution in California, the PRI book details both the promise of new learning technologies that use computer software programs and the Internet, and the frustration felt by technology developers, educators and policy experts as they confront a wall of government red tape. The potential of the online education revolution is epitomized by Rocketship charter elementary school in San Jose.
Charter schools are deregulated public schools that are independent of school districts and not subject to teacher union contracts. Although located in a low-income Hispanic neighborhood, Rocketships test scores are higher than regular public elementary schools in affluent Palo Alto. Rocketship uses a hybrid-learning model, where three-quarters of the school day is spent in traditional bricks-and-mortar classrooms and the other quarter is spent in a learning lab that uses software programs geared to the individual abilities of students and designed to teach them math and literacy skills.
Preston Smith, chief academic officer for Rocketship, says that using the computer curricula in the learning lab is adaptive so that if a kid gets a question right it gets more difficult, but if they get it wrong [the computer program] backs up and re-teaches. Compare this immediate feedback to a traditional paper-and-pencil test where if a student gets a question wrong he or she wont know of the error until the test is corrected and handed back hours or days later, with little individual re-teaching given to students. Not only is the Rocketship model successful in raising student performance, it has succeeded in lowering costs significantly.
Certificated teachers arent needed to oversee Rocketships learning lab so the school employs fewer teachers. For every four classes, Rocketship needs only three teachers, thus saving half a million dollars a year. State regulations, however, hamper Rocketships successful learning-lab innovation.
A key problem with Californias regulations regarding minimum instructional minutes, according to Smith, is that our learning labs do not count for instructional minutes. There are other frustrating and nonsensical regs.
For example, students cannot enroll in a virtual charter school, where all instruction is delivered over the Internet and the student learns at home, unless he or she lives in the county in which the charter school is chartered or in a contiguous county. So if a student lives in Marin County he or she cannot enroll in a virtual charter school based in San Mateo County, even though the two counties are just a few miles apart, separated only by geographically small San Francisco County. Jim Konantz, a top official at virtual schooling provider K12, Inc., sharply criticizes Sacramento policymakers who seemingly believe the Internet changes from county line to county line.
Virtual learning is also impeded by state regulations that require a low student-to-teacher ratio of 25 to 1, even though no studies have been conducted to justify this ratio. Further, California regulations prevent star teachers in other states from teaching California students through online courses if those teachers dont hold a California teaching credential. Research shows that theres no connection between having a California credential and higher student achievement.
Konantz blames the traditional public-education sector for these backwards regulations because I think folks were afraid of losing money. In other words, if it were easier for students to choose hybrid or virtual charter schools, the regular public schools would lose per-pupil funding. Not surprisingly, teacher unions oppose online education alternatives.
The National Education Association, parent organization of the California Teachers Association, says there should be an absolute prohibition against the granting of charters for the purpose of home-schooling, including online charter schools that seek home-schooling over the Internet. The California Federation of Teachers, in model contract language, says: No employee shall be displaced because of distance learning or other educational technology.
Lawmakers in Sacramento should click the delete button on these regulations and develop a new funding system for education. California could save money and give parents greater choice by adopting the plan put forward by new Florida governor Rick Scott that would attach 85 percent of state per-pupil funding to children that parents could use for private schools, private tutoring, or online virtual schooling.
“Parents should figure out where the dollars are spent,” says Gov. Scott, so “if the parents want to spend it on virtual school” or “whatever education system they believe in, whether it’s this public school or that public school or this private school or that private school, that’s what ought to happen.”
As the home of Silicon Valley, its unacceptable that California prevents students from benefiting from the education technology revolution. Parents and their children must be given the freedom to exercise their fundamental right to choose the type of education that best meets their individual needs.
Lance T. Izumi is Koret Senior Fellow and Senior Director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI), Californias premier free-market public-policy think tank based in San Francisco. You can peruse Izumi’s impressive biography at the PRI website here. He is the co-author (along with Vicki E. Murray, Evelyn B. Stacey & Rachel S. Chaney) of Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing the Online Learning Revolution in California.
Order Short-Circuited online from Amazon today.
Get this article on Flashreport.org
Red Tape and Special Interets Short Circuit Education Innovation
Lance T. izumi
Californias budget meltdown is an opportunity, not to raise taxes, but to explore innovative ways to deliver services more efficiently and effectively. With the revolution in online technology, education is a perfect area to re-think obsolete delivery systems. However, according to a new book by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), California has erected reactionary barriers that prevent this revolution from reaching millions of students who might benefit from it.
Entitled Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing the Online Learning Revolution in California, the PRI book details both the promise of new learning technologies that use computer software programs and the Internet, and the frustration felt by technology developers, educators and policy experts as they confront a wall of government red tape. The potential of the online education revolution is epitomized by Rocketship charter elementary school in San Jose.
Charter schools are deregulated public schools that are independent of school districts and not subject to teacher union contracts. Although located in a low-income Hispanic neighborhood, Rocketships test scores are higher than regular public elementary schools in affluent Palo Alto. Rocketship uses a hybrid-learning model, where three-quarters of the school day is spent in traditional bricks-and-mortar classrooms and the other quarter is spent in a learning lab that uses software programs geared to the individual abilities of students and designed to teach them math and literacy skills.
Preston Smith, chief academic officer for Rocketship, says that using the computer curricula in the learning lab is adaptive so that if a kid gets a question right it gets more difficult, but if they get it wrong [the computer program] backs up and re-teaches. Compare this immediate feedback to a traditional paper-and-pencil test where if a student gets a question wrong he or she wont know of the error until the test is corrected and handed back hours or days later, with little individual re-teaching given to students. Not only is the Rocketship model successful in raising student performance, it has succeeded in lowering costs significantly.
Certificated teachers arent needed to oversee Rocketships learning lab so the school employs fewer teachers. For every four classes, Rocketship needs only three teachers, thus saving half a million dollars a year. State regulations, however, hamper Rocketships successful learning-lab innovation.
A key problem with Californias regulations regarding minimum instructional minutes, according to Smith, is that our learning labs do not count for instructional minutes. There are other frustrating and nonsensical regs.
For example, students cannot enroll in a virtual charter school, where all instruction is delivered over the Internet and the student learns at home, unless he or she lives in the county in which the charter school is chartered or in a contiguous county. So if a student lives in Marin County he or she cannot enroll in a virtual charter school based in San Mateo County, even though the two counties are just a few miles apart, separated only by geographically small San Francisco County. Jim Konantz, a top official at virtual schooling provider K12, Inc., sharply criticizes Sacramento policymakers who seemingly believe the Internet changes from county line to county line.
Virtual learning is also impeded by state regulations that require a low student-to-teacher ratio of 25 to 1, even though no studies have been conducted to justify this ratio. Further, California regulations prevent star teachers in other states from teaching California students through online courses if those teachers dont hold a California teaching credential. Research shows that theres no connection between having a California credential and higher student achievement.
Konantz blames the traditional public-education sector for these backwards regulations because I think folks were afraid of losing money. In other words, if it were easier for students to choose hybrid or virtual charter schools, the regular public schools would lose per-pupil funding. Not surprisingly, teacher unions oppose online education alternatives.
The National Education Association, parent organization of the California Teachers Association, says there should be an absolute prohibition against the granting of charters for the purpose of home-schooling, including online charter schools that seek home-schooling over the Internet. The California Federation of Teachers, in model contract language, says: No employee shall be displaced because of distance learning or other educational technology.
Lawmakers in Sacramento should click the delete button on these regulations and develop a new funding system for education. California could save money and give parents greater choice by adopting the plan put forward by new Florida governor Rick Scott that would attach 85 percent of state per-pupil funding to children that parents could use for private schools, private tutoring, or online virtual schooling.
“Parents should figure out where the dollars are spent,” says Gov. Scott, so “if the parents want to spend it on virtual school” or “whatever education system they believe in, whether it’s this public school or that public school or this private school or that private school, that’s what ought to happen.”
As the home of Silicon Valley, its unacceptable that California prevents students from benefiting from the education technology revolution. Parents and their children must be given the freedom to exercise their fundamental right to choose the type of education that best meets their individual needs.
Lance T. Izumi is Koret Senior Fellow and Senior Director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI), Californias premier free-market public-policy think tank based in San Francisco. You can peruse Izumi’s impressive biography at the PRI website here. He is the co-author (along with Vicki E. Murray, Evelyn B. Stacey & Rachel S. Chaney) of Short-Circuited: The Challenges Facing the Online Learning Revolution in California.
Order Short-Circuited online from Amazon today.
Get this article on Flashreport.org
Nothing contained in this blog is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Pacific Research Institute or as an attempt to thwart or aid the passage of any legislation.