If you have been keeping up with education news in New Jersey over these past few days, no doubt a big topic of discussion has been the revolt of parents, teachers, students and administrators in Teaneck against the creation of a digital charter in that school district. If you are interested in reading about the story, you can do so here. The article I will be blogging about is located here and is about the "largely untested" nature of digital charter shcools.
According to the founder of the Garden State Virtual Charter School, the main goal of the potential school would be " to provide a high-quality option for children statewide whose lives don't fit the traditional school setting". I was intrigued by the story of Karen Ryd's son who attending a digital charter school in Colorado. She states that "the charter helped her older son graduate last spring; he needed to work at his own pace and required her one-on-one help for about three hours a day." I would question though: "Yes, he graduated, but at what level did he graduate? How do his skills compare to those of his peers in a traditional school? What curriculum did he cover in the charter?"
As the article points out, the only truly substantive study regarding the answer to this question was done just this year by Stanford University. The results were that "cyber students had significantly smaller gains in reading and math than their traditional-school peers." Yes, I agree, this only one study and should be examined with extreme scrutiny, but the fact remains that this is a very experimental type of school, and their effectiveness must be questioned.
I also wonder that if parents who think their students work best at their own pace are pulled out of public schools, who will be left in public schools? Will public school teachers be left to teach only students who have behavior problems and those who have no motivation to learn?
Finally, I think resources like the Khan Academy can serve as a way which public school teachers can incorporate some ideas of self-paced learning in their classroom. However, this is up to the individual teacher, their circumstances, philosophy and, ultimately, the wants and needs of the students and parents.
What an interesting post. I have not heard of an online charter school and I am glad that I perused your posts because I love reading about charter schools and other types of education other than public schools. Though I will not state my opinion of charter schools (since it wavers) I will say with experience however that online schooling at a high school level can have destructive outcomes. Though this class was organized well, I am against purely online classes. They lose somewhat of a human touch to them and the course is as product as long as the students log in. I tutored a girl that was home schooled from an online school. When I came into the situation, she was 5 chapters behind on tests and quizzes in Math and 2 chapters behind in Chemistry. Unfortunately, my tutoring sessions were catered to having her just past the tests (which were all open book since she was just emailed questions) so she can catch up and graduate. Though I know this is a specific scenario, I fear that online schools especially at adolescent ages are only effective as their students are responsible. Unfortunately many high school students and younger aren't responsible, in fact, responsibility is a trait that is usually developed in the classroom with human interaction.
ReplyDeleteI totally support the Khan Academy. I think your post is great about learning math, or any subject for this matter, at their own paste. I feel like anyone opposing the Khan Academy simply thinks that once the Khan Academy is incorporated, the teacher is no longer needed. This is not true. I personally feel like technology won't replace teachers, but teachers who use technology will replace those who do not use technology.
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