It sure is hard to keep track of who a proper progressive is supposed to keep company with…From all the rhetoric I thought we were all supposed to be opposed to K-12, the company launched by Bill Bennett, and a frequent target of critics on the left. For instance here is UFT blogger Leo Casey on virtual schools, a central focus of the company:
Why defend charter schools by making a case for the most questionable of charter schools, “virtual schools,” classroom-free, teacher-free and book-free institutions which have proven to be little more than a conduit to access public funds without providing meaningful education and a means for the paper accreditation of ‘home schooling’?
Or check out Susan Ohanian’s site for chapter and verse. The NEA are not fans either.* Alfie Kohn says they’re part of the big conspiracy to do in the public schools!
But now I see that influential former National Education Association President Mary Futrell has joined the K-12 board of directors. Is K-12 and their approach now OK? Or becoming so? If so someone better tell PFAW! And these guys! They’re still on the K12=bad kick.
I’m agnostic on K-12 and similar companies, I’m all for some innovation in this area but want to see educational results and think this area of technology will ultimately remain marginal. Performance tool-building ideas like this seem to have more promise. Schools do a lot of things besides curriculum that matter to people. But, anyway, who is OK and who isn’t is all very confusing! You need a performance tool just to keep up.
*Update: A helpful commenter argues below that the NEA is actually pretty on board with what K-12 is up to. Good point! Except their policy takes a pretty clear shot at outfits like K-12:
While NEA supports the use of online education, the Association is concerned about the growth of “cyber-charters.” These are virtual schools that students attend full time, under existing state laws for charter schools.
That’s, you know, a big part of what K-12 does…
I’m a former NYC HS teacher who is VERY pro-public school. But when my local public school failed my son (not grace-wise, but lousy-education-wise) we had few options. We landed in and online virtual academy using a K12 curriculum. I can teach anything, but I can’t write elementary curriculum. Their program is stupendous. Truly. We want him to go back to public school someday but hesitate b/c we can tell that the education he’s getting with K12/at home is so far superior to what beleaguered teachers are able to do in overcrowded classrooms. The virtual academy is a stop-gap as far as I can tell. Most of the parents are educators or former educators, we do indeed have CONSTANT contact with ‘real’ teachers, field trips, Odyssey of the Mind…etc etc etc.
It’s not perfect, but it’s public (YAY) and it’s sound.
BUT
It will never replace brick and mortar schools.
Gee, Andy, you may wish to check out official NEA policy on online learning. They may be more progressive than you think: http://www.nea.org/technology/onlinelearning.html
While NEA supports the use of online education, the Association is concerned about the growth of “cyber-charters.” These are virtual schools that students attend full time, under existing state laws for charter schools. Some of the schools are run by for-profit businesses; many of the customers are home-schooled kids taught by their parents, rather than a certified instructor, notes Barbara Stein, a technology expert with NEA.
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