Next step for online initiative
Positive fiscal analysis to help the cause
With a formal title and a favorable fiscal analysis in hand, backers of an initiative to broaden access to online college preparatory classes will begin gathering signatures today to qualify for the November ballot.
The proposed initiative would give students the right to go elsewhere for a course required for admission to a UC or CSU campus if their school doesn’t offer it. While they could drive to a nearby district, they also could take the course online. It would establish a California Diploma, which would be awarded when a student completed the 15 required courses, known as A-G.
The initiative, which promoters are calling the California Student Bill of Rights, would remove some of the state’s significant regulatory and geographic restrictions to online courses. It could affect tens of thousands of high school students who might not have access to all A to G courses.*
Since students could turn to a charter school, a college, or a for-profit online provider for a course, critics had surmised that the initiative would drain school districts of some of their state funding. But the Legislative Analyst’s Office and the Department of Finance, in a four-page analysis concluded that the initiative in the long run would create “savings potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually” for local school districts “if schools experience efficiencies and widespread participation in the use of online courses.”
“This is what we believe, and they (the LAO and state analysts) saw some of the same cost savings from efficiencies,” said David Haglund, principal of Riverside Virtual School, the largest district-run online school in the state, and chair of Education Forward, the group sponsoring the initiative.
Haglund predicts that, rather than lose tuition money, districts would respond by offering their own online courses and by creating interdistrict compacts to share curriculums, course monitors, and labs for courses needing them, for example. Rather than offer Chinese or AP Physics for a handful of students in a high school, the district might offer them online to a few dozen from several high schools.
The initiative wouldn’t wouldn’t override teachers contracts’ limits on class sizes for various subjects. Details on course payments would be left to follow-up legislation, state regulations, or negotiations between districts and vendors or other districts. The initiative also wouldn’t offer a universal right for students to shop around; it would allow them to pursue courses not offered by their own district – an important distinction, Haglund said.
Update: Edgar Cabral, the LAO education analyst who did the fiscal analysis, doesn’t disagree with Haglund on that point, but notes that the initiative does not define what a student’s “unrestricted access” to an A-G course would entail. For example, would a student with a scheduling conflict for AP chemistry have the right to pursue an online course elsewhere, or could a school tell the student to try again next year? Could the district limit the student’s course choice to a district or vendor with which it has partnership? Or could the student choose any qualifying online course? The initiative leaves it to the Legislature or State Department of Education to spell out how course providers would be reimbursed.
Quality controls would also prevent students from enrolling in courses offered by fly-by-night vendors or poor-quality schools.
- Local districts would have to certify that the course meets A-G requirements;
- It would have to be taught by a teacher with an “appropriate” subject matter credential. It would have to be taught by a teacher with an “appropriate” subject matter credential. While not specifying a California credential, districts and teachers unions could argue that one would be required, as with other teachers in bricks and mortar classroom, since the initiative creates parity between online and traditional schools;
- The student and parent must consent to the course;
- A teacher must be available to answer students’ questions, provide information, and make assignments.
Attorney General Kamala Harris didn’t buy the sponsors’ preferred “Bill of Rights” title. Instead, it will appear on the ballot as the “Online K-12 Education, College Preparatory Courses Initiative.”
But the positive fiscal analysis will make it easier raise money for signature gathering and the more expensive campaign for passage, Haglund said. His group has oral commitments for $500,000 of the $2 million needed to collect 504,000 verified voter signatures, he said. Donors will start identifying themselves in coming weeks; many of the backers are expected to be from Silicon Valley.
Haglund sees the initiative as the basis for a flourishing of online and “blended learning,” which integrates online learning and a traditional classroom. The next step, requiring regulations or statutory changes, would grant course completion – and funding for it – based on proof of proficiency, not the traditional completion or “seat” time.
Other key leaders behind the initiative are Haglund’s boss, Rick Miller, superintendent of Riverside Unified School District; Gordon Freedman, former Vice President, Global Education Strategy at the education technology company Blackboard, Inc.; Bill Fowler, who retired last year after leading Cisco Systems’ Global Education Group; and Bill Erlendson, who retired last year after serving as assistant superintendent of San Jose Unified.
* It’s not clear how many students would benefit from the initiative. Haglund estimates 40 percent of students lack access to the full range of A-G courses based on estimates by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. But that figure, while hard to pin down, is likely overstated. See comments in an earlier post on the initiative.
The concept “lack access to” the range of A-G courses is flamingly misleading. Thanks for at least pointing out that it’s overstated. “Can’t conveniently fit all the courses into their schedule” is not the same as “lack(ing) access.”
And the title of the initiative is just forehead-slapping. Actually, of course, it’s the Opportunistic Profit-Seekers’ Bill of Rights (to exploit public funding).
By the way, here’s a commentary pointing out why the mainsteam press is so passively accepting of this kind of opportunistic sham.
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2012/01/why-the-press-promotes-the-powerful-marginalizes-dissent/
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I hate the way this is presented as some Robin-Hood flourish against the mean old educators who are holding kids – kids eager to enroll online and do great work – back.
We don’t need a “bill of rights.” We need resources. It should be easy for a school to offer online a-g courses for students who want it and who will use them well – ABSOLUTELY.
Schools need more computer labs and more bandwidth. They need IT personnel to keep everything running. It needs to be easy for a district to sign up one student for one good quality class for credit, and monitor it. We don’t have these things, and this constitutional amendment doesn’t create any of it.
I don’t see how this constitutional amendment is helpful nor necessary. Guess what – districts already have the legal option to spend millions of dollars to run high speed networks to schools. They just don’t have the dollars.
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I wonder if the proposed addition to the CA constitution in this initiative could be interpreted as allowing restriction of access to such courses only to legal residents:
“53354. No student shall be denied access to any online course or the opportunity to enroll in an accredited online school because ofthe student’s county of residence.”
Note the next provision is:
“53355. No student who resides in the State of California shall incur or be charged a fee or cost for participating in an approved course at a publicly-funded school. This section is not intended to prohibit or restrict the ability of a provider of an approved course to charge a fee or cost to a student who is not a resident of the State of California and who is not enrolled in a California public school.”
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Navigio… the initiative does not amend or add anything to the California Constitution; it is a statutory initiative. I don’t see any way that this initiative would prohibit anyone who is currently allowed to attend public school in California from accessing online courses.
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Oh, come on. They are saying that 50% of California’s schools don’t offer math, English, history, science, and foreign languages? Seriously?
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The whole A-G process is a sham. Getting a course certified by the UC’s as A-G approved is an exercise in paperwork (I have gotten over 40 courses approved). You essentially have to submit a detailed syllabus, which you may copy directly from another school already approved. There is no oversight into how well the course is taught – all A-G courses are not taught equally well from one school to another. A-G designation, while the goal is worthwhile, is arbitrary at best. Don’t slam non A-G approved courses as not college prep when they may be more college prep than the approved A-G ones.
Additionally, the UC’s are not able to audit all of the applications to ensure that each high school’s courses are approved for A-G for each applicant due to the large volume.
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That’s true, Ed. The sponsors may call this a Bill of Rights, but it would be a statutory change, not a constitutional amendment.
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My mistake on the initiative/amendment confusion. I went and read the whole text of the bill, but inadvertently mistook the wording about ’submitted in accordance with’ the California Constitution as stating it was amending said Constitution. Thanks for setting me straight.
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Me too on the constitution mis-speak.
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Interesting article: How Online Companies Bought America’s Schools
http://www.thenation.com/article/164651/how-online-learning-companies-bought-americas-schools
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Glad you read the entire initiative, el. It proposes potentially big changes in how high school students would take college prep courses and how they would be taught. But it certainly does not appear to open the door to a takeover of public education by marauding for-profit online companies, as some readers are assuming.
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Replying to John — I don’t see how the initiative would have that effect, no. But that effort is certainly underway, no matter how much those who point it out are marginalized, and placing an initiative like this on the ballot and framing it as a “bill of rights” certainly is part of it. It just adds to the general momentum.
You’ve surely noted that the Washington Post owns Kaplan, which truly is a marauding for-profit online company. And powerful names associated with K-12 — another marauding for-profit online company — include Bill “Bookie of Virtues” Bennett and Michael Milken. I actually don’t think it’s something to scoff at, unless you just assume that these operations will make no headway at all despite the powerful forces behind them.
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Where in the LAO analysis is there any consideration of the cost to develop or provide the online content? I have worked with a school district attempting to provide blended learning opportunities for its students. Developing the classes, providing the technology infrastructure and training credentialed and administrative staff to support these students are all daunting expenses. Contracting for existing programs, e.g. the Middlebury College world language programs is also very costly. While this district is very well intentioned, there are no resources whatsoever to bring these options to their students. They are trying, but have zero funds to front-load the effort before ever realizing the potential savings sketched out in this analysis. Appeals to foundations, corporations and the County Office have yielded little funding.
In the meantime, a local charter school is soliciting very large donors (who support private, non-union education options) to launch a slate of online classes in anticipation of the revenue limit sharing. Both the charter school and districts also face competition from these same dollars from County Offices of Education. Quietly, County Offices have been developing plans to compete with their local districts also in anticipation of the revenue limit sharing. County Offices have two plans: creating their own online charter schools to collect full revenue, or offering a slate of classes to collect shared revenue should this initiative pass.
When it comes to virtual education, it is the wild west and the dollar is absolutely at the heart of the land rush. Schools and districts best poised to serve their students are hog-tied by scarce resources. This initiative favors the quick and nimble with ready access to deep pockets. Do not be fooled by the “student” in this bill of rights.
Governing schools by initiative is not the right process, nor will it yield the best programs for students.
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I don’t disagree with you, Caroline, about for-profit operations like K12 seeing opportunities to make lots of money. Some states would appear to be racing to open up to online operators on a wish (cut costs, marginalize teachers unions) and a prayer (that it works). This initiative — at least to my initial reading of it — would give the upper hand to districts. Creating their own online courses would resolve whatever A-G access problems they have, giving students the chance to take AP and college prep courses they would otherwise miss.
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John, do you think there is anything in ed code that will prohibit a district from completely shutting down its brick and mortar high schools and going completely online? (I dont see any caps or limits on how many of these courses a district can decide to contract out for.)
Note also that I dont think the wording restricts the courses offered to A-G ones, rather the entity board can decide whether a course is ‘quality’ simply by decree.
In addition, conceptually speaking, how is this different than a indirect (or even direct) fractional-ADA-funded charter (but without the limits)?
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John, the upper hand goes to those who have online courses in the can. Creating, providing and supporting online classes is a HUGE undertaking. Few districts have the upper hand here. They need expertise and infrastructure to develop & provide the content, infrastructure for students to access the courses and must go through the approval cycle to qualify each course for A-G credit. It means a massive investment of time and money — resources that are beyond scarce in California school districts.
The advantage goes to those already poised to jump into the market. That would be for-profit ventures like K12 & Blackboard, districts like Riverside and those County Offices of Education that have quietly been planning for this for the past two years.
The big losers are the school districts struggling to serve their students as best they can against staggering odds.
This should not be a free for all scramble mandated by a misguided initiative.
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I know of two California districts that have adopted blended learning: Riverside Unified School District (a detailed description of the program can be found at http://www.innosightinstitute.org/media-room/publications/blended-learning/) that addresses the point raised by Bea in her last post, and the Los Altos School District that is using the Khan Academy math curriculum in all their 5th and 6th grade classes. That curriculum is available free of charge, as are the Flex Books provided online by CK-12. It is sad indeed that, rather than recognizing what a boon online learning is for all kinds of students who can learn “any time, any place, any path, any pace,” and for teachers who are thus freed to differentiate instruction for each of their students, the discussion is centering on the for-profit providers who are so 1.0. The future of blended learning has little to do with the current debates as long as they don’t smother the baby in its crib.
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I am suspicious of any organization that provides so little information about itself. Searches for “Education Forward” lead to the initiative sponsorship page. The “about us” link on that page only lists the names of the four bigwigs (one chair, three directors) and two little wigs- a political consultant and a treasurer. The bigwigs’ bios show them all as top-of-the-food-chain moneymakers in the educational industry of consultants, lobbyists, and glorified motivational speakers who infest the privatization, corporatization, and neoliberal profit-orientation reform of all levels of education. The fancy web site with the illustrations of happy smiling students only makes me wonder where is the money coming from and why. Best interest of students? or education industry investors and venture philanthropists? or far right ideologues?
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@Gina, you don’t have to look too far to find the connections. This piece appeared on Alternet.org today. It neatly sums up a number of investigative stories from the past few months. The effort will die quickly once California voters see the close connection between this initiative and the model legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) funded by the Koch brothers.
We need to help schools support their students, not develop new ways for schools and districts to compete for the dollars attached to those students.
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It’s so sad that these discussions deteriorate into conspiracy theories rather than an honest analysis of what digital learning means in the second decade of the century. Schools have been “supporting” their students all along with very mediocre results that undermine this country’s competitiveness in the Flat World. Every other profession in our economy, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, farmers, etc., is routinely using technology to increase productivity and effectiveness. Only the overburdened teaching profession is not allowed to integrate technology in a meaningful way to help students navigate the demands of the 21st century. Bea’s comment about “new ways for schools and districts to compete for the dollars attached to those students” is puzzling since it is district superintendents who are behind this initiative. I notice that Bea ignores the fact that the Khan Academy curriculum is free and therefore does not require the shifting of any funds. I also notice that she throws in the dreaded words “Koch Brothers,” trying to put an end to any substantive discussion about what access to online learning means for all of California’s kids.
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The Khan Academy is free to use, but you need bandwidth and some sort of regular access to a computer lab running relatively new computers to access it at all. And you need the confidence that you can keep all the kids on task without going off to surf the ‘net while still being able to help each child when there are questions. I have used it with my 6th grader; I find it an interesting and valuable augment to her regular school assignments, but in no way a substitute for the standard curriculum.
I would like to hear more about people using it for blended learning inside classrooms.
Riverside Virtual School has this on their website:
Please note: Online learning is NOT for everyone. It requires a great deal of self-discipline and self-monitoring; common characteristics of independent learners. Online classes also require a great deal of reading and interacting with others through the use of discussion boards and instant messaging. Please take time to consider your options carefully. Visit our website and take a self-assessment to determine if this program if right for you.
I think there are many opportunities for blended learning and for using online classes to broaden the available curriculum for students. I think also that most people dramatically underestimate the amount of effort needed to build a really good online course. I have worked in that field, and universally people fail to understand that the base software – while important – is maybe 10% of the effort that is required. It’s developing the content and tying it together and building the data-specific algorithms for what elements go together that really take the time and expertise, and there’s not much commitment to doing that, not in K-14, not in university, and not in private sector applications.
The first thing I’d like to see, rather than this push to compel schools to have an online option, is simply making online courses available to schools. I know our local district would love to have some high quality online options for courses that cannot currently be offered at the high school.
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Giselle, I am a true believer in online options for students. My children have completed several courses online, including A-G courses in high school. Some were utter crap, some decent. In all cases, they were a welcome alternative that we were fortunate to access. In the process, I developed an intimate understanding of the challenges our school and district face in offering more of these options. THAT needs to be fixed. The proposed initiative does nothing to support districts in developing or accessing quality online offerings. It is meant to stake out turf for those already on the front edge to gain a financial and competitive advantage by securing dollars attached to the students from other districts playing catchup. Serving students is not the primary motivator here. It should be.
What is needed is a level playing field that lets schools serve their kids in their home districts. The content is in the cloud — we need an infrastructure that makes it affordable to make that content widely accessible. What we don’t need are wild west cattle rustlers poaching kids which further exacerbates the challenges of serving them!
And the Koch brothers reference is not meant to end the discussion, but rather to shed light that there are players in this arena who have a vested stake that has nothing to do with my kids’ success or options.
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Also, Giselle, this initiative has little to do with the Khan Academy or blended learning. It is designed to break the link between a student and his school or district to complete entire courses 100% online, able to receive a “California Diploma” once all prerequisites are met.
We regularly use the Khan Academy videos in our home to complement or review what my children are doing in school. That is not the same as a course offered only online (which they have also done).
Public school students are far more prepared than their schools and teachers for the 21st century. I am wholeheartedly in support of bringing their schools along — quickly — to catch up. Unfortunately, that’s not what this initiative does.
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I would strongly encourage you to download the proposed initiative and read the entire document. Those that take the time to do that will find that online learning is not the focus of the proposition. What the initiative does focus on is ensuring access to high quality learning experiences for all students regardless of where they live or attend school.
Those opportunities extended to students attending schools that do not offer sufficient a-g course options would include seat-based courses in community colleges or neighboring districts or schools, as well as blended or online courses taught by credentialled teachers and offered by accredited public schools. It does not provide a mechanism for non-accredited schools or non-public schools or providers to draw enrollment outside of the public schools.
This is one reason the many district and county superintendents are supportive of the proposition. They do not see the effort as anything other than a means to provide greater acces to a larger number of students throughout the state, including in their own districts. Many of whom are already working in partnerships that promote collaboration focused on development and sharing of course content that can be used in classroom-based, blended, and online courses. Much of this content is shared without cost to the districts for use in all learning environments, at all schools, and in any every way possible so that we can reach every student in California with a world class education.
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I am still interested in hearing whether there is any limit to the number of classes that can be ‘off-loaded’ (with the maximum, in theory being all of them)..
For example, whats to prohibit a school board from deciding the charter down the road (or down the internet highway) will service the district’s entire high school population? Is there any such limit?
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@ Nagigio The language does not support “off-loading” of all courses as much as it ensures student access to courses not offered at the student’s school. While the language does not limit a district from moving in that direction, I do not see the purpose of doing so. Maybe I am missing something?
What I do see happening is districts looking at ways to increase student access to a-g courses as a means to sustain local enrollment. That might include increased partnerships between districts -or between the K12 and community colleges) to increase the a-g course delivery options. These efforts may well result in increased college readiness rates that produces a more highly educated workforce – an important step in producing long-term positive economic growth in the state.
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El,
For your information, Envision Schools in Oakland used the Khan Academy math curriculum in their summer school remedial algebra 1 class on Google’s ChromeBooks (you can read a description of the project at http://blendmylearning.com) on sites dedicated to the work the students needed to do. No surfing! ChromeBook is a new product that is considerably less expensive than computers or laptops and that will only go down in price in the near future as every other new technology does.
As for the content, it turns out that in blended learning settings, it merely needs to be good enough because it is consistent, adaptive and enables the student to work at her own pace. Using technology in such a setting allows for the bifurcation of content and pedagogy. The teacher is liberated from all the drudge work, can differentiate instruction for all his students, and can spend his time honing their critical thinking skills. This system also allows for the inclusion of project based learning as students have more time to apply what they learn. For instance, the 5th grade math classes in the Los Altos District pilot project finished the course work at the beginning of May 2011 and filled the rest of the school year with projects based on it.
Having attended conferences where software providers showcase their wares, I can tell you that there is a plethora of content being generated, a significant percentage of which is open source. Sal Khan created his math curriculum and many other teaching videos on his own, after he gave up his day job, and he did it so that everyone all over the world can access it free.
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Giselle, thank you for the link. I found it interesting, and I appreciate your response.
If not by students, then in order to use them to visit other sites with educational value.
My experience with the Khan Academy is around 10 hours divided between myself and my 6th grader. I’ve done simple exercises, exercised that matched my child’s current point in the curriculum at school, and I’ve dabbled in the advanced math, both reviewing concepts that are stale in my mind, and going over areas that I know very well.
There’s a lot I like, and I think it’s a wonderful net.resource, just as say Wikipedia is. But I think even Salman Khan would agree that it’s not anywhere near a full curriculum, or even anywhere near what he wants it to be in many different areas.
There are some things Khan does very well. It’s fabulous to be able to go straight to a particular lesson, and to get a video and exercises. The stellar view showing how all the elements relate is nice. For exercises where the answer is just a number to fill in, it shines brightest. The badges and sense of competition can make it fun to play. It’s a great place to practice getting speedy at doing simple math in your head. And it gives quick feedback and yet does not require that the teacher spend time grading.
But in other areas, it is weak. The word problems usually are of the form:
A spinner dolphin jumped from $depth meters below seal level and flipped through the air at $height meters above sea level.
How many meters did the dolphin travel to reach the highest point of the jump?
It’s a good question. But I just got this same question 3 times in a row with different numbers for $depth and $height. And I only have to answer 10 to get to “proficient.” In this particular module, I only got four different wordings of word problems, and they were all pretty simple as this one is. By contrast, the school curriculum has much more complex set ups, and none of the questions are repeated.
It’s a problem easily solved with time and money to write more problems, of course, and I’m sure it’s on their to-do list.
Another issue is that doing algebra problems is awkward and the answers are multiple choice. So a problem to simplify an equation doesn’t let you enter in the result. Further, although there’s a “scratchpad” – it involves basically using a paint-like application with the mouse, and does not let you type in order to work out the problem. Paper is way better – but it then requires a workstation where you can easily have the computer and a writing surface adjacent – not always available in the budget settings we have for kids.
Again, I’m sure they know about this and can’t wait to implement some better/smarter answer formats and to create a scratchpad that lets you easily type in equations with exponents and fractions and all those fun Mathematica-like constructs of notation. But it’s not there yet.
It doesn’t surprise me that Envision found in its pilot that the kids worked on their pre-algebra skills. Their conclusion was that that’s where the kids needed help… but from my experience, I’d go with the simpler explanation that it was easier and thus way more fun. The algebra is tedious to do in Khan Academy because you do have to use paper – you can’t just do it on the screen or in your head. (And I say this as someone highly proficient in algebra, not a struggling student.) It’s way more fun to do the exercises that you can do quickly without leaving the screen. That’s why I’ve completed so many, even though I’m not needing help in those areas.
As for the Chromebooks… they’re just laptops. I don’t know why you think they can’t be used for surfing. I imagine some attempt was made to lock them down to Khan Academy – but that requires an IT staff to do it and maintain it… and if you expose enough kids to them, I guarantee they’ll be “jailbroken” eventually.
The laptop plan shown is to charge them and then work from the battery. I suspect using them that way every day means that within a couple of years you’ll have spent as much on the batteries as on the laptops. Will there be budget for that?
I note that Envision basically saw no difference in algebra fluency using Khan versus their traditional review course in their very small sample pilot. I’m sure they found that disappointing. I would be interested to know how the students felt about it – did they enjoy the course more with the computer time?
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Superb. Thank a lot for taking the time. I will definitely come back to read more and recommend my coworkers about your website.
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