Lagging in Performance: Pennsylvania Online Schools
There's an interesting article in the New York Times this week about the performance of Pennsylvania's online charter schools along with a graphic of how they stack up individually and compared to public schools. The New York Times focused on K12 Inc., the largest online education provider and concluded, "a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards."
Posted 14th December 2011
So what's on tonight's agenda for a vote? You guessed it- an agreement with an online school!
2. Development Agreement - The Development Agreement and Statement of Work between the Mt. Lebanon School District and the National Network of Digital Schools (NNDS) for the development of (2) on-line Advanced Placement Courses is proposed for approval by the Board. The superintendent recommends approval of this action.
7 comments:
So like, duh, I am really lost now. Maybe I have to be a valley girl to understand it so I will try…You mean, like the school board president posts on her blog all about how online education is bad but it will be approved by the school board (of course unanimously like every other vote) tonight? Like, what gives?
-Wilma Zellers
Wilma,
Here's a possible clue, a possible connection. Do you remember a former SB member so very like the current crew who also partly-owned a family business that provided *distance learning* products & services to schools throughout PA ?
You couldn't possibly think, could you ? Nah.....
Veblen Good
"say it ain't so, Joe"
Charley Owens
It would seem to me that Joe would be on opposite side of the online school argument than Posti. Joe runs a company that is trying to make it easier for PA Cyber School to be successful with distance learning tools including video and telecommunications.
Posti has constantly harped on how bad she thinks charter schools are for kids.
Besides, this contract is not going to Joe's company so I suspect one has nothing to do with the other.
For this instance, it seems like a "distance learning" issue and not a charter school issue. So it could be that either MtL wants to bring in classrooms from far away that it does not want to pay for in-house or it wants to export classrooms it has in-house for a fee.
Either way, I am cool with it. It will allow the District to expand it's curriculum (or export it) without hiring more staff.
This is another of those "little things" that appears to have been negotiated in the last contract.
Albert Brenneman
From last night's meeting, we do not have this software.
https://www.schoology.com/home.php
There was some discussion about intellectual property. It would be nice to see the agreement that we would be entering with the National Network of Digital Schools (NNDS). We will be getting $7000 for this partnership.
Also, Mary Birks mentioned they were associated with PA Cyber Schools, which is not something the Board should be associated with. Oops. I, too, ended that sentence ending with a preposition, Mary. Finally, Dr. Tim confirmed that they are associated with PA Cyber Schools.
Elaine
Dr. Sable wanted to be associated with PA Cyber Schools and a powerful board member killed the deal even though it could have created big bucks to Lebo Schools - real big bucks - $7,000 is peanuts.
John
Students will get benefit greatly from the flexibility that is offered by your courses.
Online Graduate Program
Online Courses
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