You are here: Home / Archives for online high schools

Virtual Education Offers Global Opportunities for Students and Teachers

February 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Middle school students in California, for example, watched Chinese dancers perform during a recent virtual field trip. Some schools are even making virtual education with foreign educators a part of their curriculum.

In Michigan, educators have partnered with colleagues in China to offer virtual education exchange opportunities that allow students to communicate with each other, often through videos, online. During the next school year, students will have the chance to attend a real Chinese school, taking virtual classes according China’s time zone, at their own schools during the hours of 8 p.m. and 4 a.m.

For the rest of the article, go to Virtual Education Offers Global Opportunities for Students and Teachers

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With:

U.S., Chinese Schools Build Virtual Ed. Partnerships

January 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment

For the past three years, starting in kindergarten, students in the Oxford district have opportunities to learn synchronously and asynchronously online with their Chinese peers.

“They make videos, send them over, pose questions, and talk about different things they like in America,” Mr. Skilling said, referring to the Oxford students.

For the 2012-13 school year, the district will launch a foreign-exchange program in which high school students in Michigan will attend the district’s international school in China full time, at set classroom times, via the Internet. The students will take virtual classes, at the high school building, from 8 p.m. until 4 a.m.

“A lot of American students choose not to do exchange programs because they don’t want to leave their peer group,” Mr. Skilling said. This alternative will allow those students to have an international experience without leaving their families and friends.

For the rest of the article, go to U.S., Chinese Schools Build Virtual Ed. Partnerships

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With:

Can States and School Districts Cut Costs Through Digital Learning?

January 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Digital learning represents wide-open terrain for K-12 education reform. Several states — Alabama, Arizona, Idaho, Michigan and Minnesota — require students to take an online course to receive a high school degree. Twenty-seven states have established statewide full-time virtual schools since the first opened in 1997 in Florida, according to a report by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, an indication of virtual education’s growing appeal.

As with all innovations, though, there is always a question of cost for providing such new technologies, especially when states are providing less per-pupil funding.

A study released last week by the Education Center of Excellence at the Parthenon Group (commissioned by the conservative education think tank, the Fordham Institute) suggested that the costs of digital learning could be significantly less than more traditional modes. The authors cautioned that its findings must be interpreted with some caveats: costs vary across digital education platforms and different entities pursue online learning for different reasons (cost-savings versus enhanced offerings, for example).

For the rest of the article, go to Can States and School Districts Cut Costs Through Digital Learning?

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With: , , , ,

Accomplishments and goals noted at Eaton Rapids schools

January 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment
  • We have the MSU Dischords coming to Eaton Rapids on March 24.
  • We are kicking off our Operation Backpack for weekend food for deserving students.
  • Our local neighbor from Le Chat Gourmet, Denene Vincent and Becky Henne from MSU Extension Services, will be offering a Cooking Matters class at Greyhound Central High School.

For the rest of the article, go to Accomplishments and goals noted at Eaton Rapids schools

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With:

Report: Virtual charters lag

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Virtual charter schools are one of the fastest-growing segments of the charter school industry, but a report released Friday raised questions about how well they educate students.

The report by the National Education Policy Center said 27 percent of for-profit companies operating virtual schools met the adequate yearly progress standards of the federal No Child Left Behind law. That compares with 48 percent of the traditional brick-and-mortar charter schools and about half of all public schools nationwide. Charter schools are considered public schools.

For the rest of the article, go to Report: Virtual charters lag

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With: ,

Virtual charters lag other public schools’ performance, report says

January 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Virtual charter schools are one of the fastest-growing segments of the charter school industry, but a report released today raises questions about how well they educate students.

The report by the National Education Policy Center says 27% of for-profit companies operating virtual schools met the adequate yearly progress standards of the federal No Child Left Behind law. That compares with 48% of traditional brick-and-mortar charter schools and about half of all public schools nationwide. Charter schools are considered public schools.

For the rest of the article, go to Virtual charters lag other public schools’ performance, report says

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With:

Viewpoint: Republican rule in 2011: A year of living dangerously

January 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I’ve traveled to many Third World countries. They have much in common: A great deal of money is wasted on military adventures, most struggle mightily to institute self-rule if they have any at all, many people live on the edge, and each features an education system that best serves the wealthy. Morocco, Romania, Turkey, Russia, the story is pretty much the same. Young bright students who come from wealthy families are fluent in multiple languages. They are drilled in math and science. They attend well-financed private institutions supported by the legacy of their parents’ assets. Public school students go to overcrowded, poorly financed, understaffed holding tanks.Many kids in Third World schools drop out with little but the basics by the time they are 16.

2011 was a dangerous year in Michigan for those who trust in public education. Highly partisan decisions coming from Lansing, with little input from educators, are laying a Third World foundation that will further segregate our society between rich and poor.

The foundation grant (per pupil funding) will be further eroded in upcoming years by Legislative removal of caps on charters and cyber schools. Charter cap removal is law; cyber cap removal is in the process of becoming law. Each will take with it public school tax dollars that will further dilute per pupil funding. Furthermore, neither charters nor cyber schools are being legislated additional oversight that will regulate quality. In fact Republican Sen.Phil Pavlov of St. Clair, sponsor of SB 619 that removes limits on cyber schools says, “It’s a great way to catch up on credits if they’ve fallen behind.” Every public school teacher knows that the E-2020 computer courses used already to “catch up on credits” are a farce. They provide little rigor and unlimited chances to qualify for an effectively worthless high school diploma. The final portion of this erosion of the per pupil funding will take place when religious schools lobby Lansing to link charters to vouchers and grab their own piece of the pie. By then pe pupil funds will have been so diluted that state funding will not be enough, even with drastic cuts at the local level, to adequately pay for public schools. However, religious schools and private charters for the elite, will have had their tuition costs reimbursed through state aid. A voucher system defeated at the polls will have become a reality through legislation.

For the rest of the article, go to Viewpoint: Republican rule in 2011: A year of living dangerously

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page, online high schools Tagged With: ,

Study: Online school scores lag behind traditional public schools

January 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A new report finds students who attend online schools in Michigan are not performing as well on standardized tests as those in traditional public schools.

The National Education Policy Center found about 27 percent of online schools met federal achievement standards in the last school year. That compares to about 51 percent at brick-and-mortar schools.

The study says the largest growing subgroup of public charter schools is virtual — or online — schools.

Western Michigan University education professor Gary Miron co-authored the study.

He says there are also questions about the accountability of for-profit charter schools that offer online education.

“One of the issues that has been coming up is that many of these virtual schools enroll students, then these students don’t actively participate,” Miron says. “However, the school continues to receive money.”

For the rest of the article, go to Study: Online school scores lag behind traditional public schools

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With: , ,

Kalamazoo top stories of 2011: Area schools’ funding struggles

January 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In the end, the state threw some more money into the pot. Still, most school employees across the region are paying more for insurance benefits this year and many have seen their pay frozen or even reduced. School officials also became more innovative in putting together their 2011-12 budgets: Gull Lake Community Schools, for instance, initiated an adult-education program, reached out to home-schoolers and expanded its virtual education offerings.

This year should be better: Snyder indicated last month he’s thinking about how to “invest back dollars” in education for 2012-13.

For the rest of the article, go to Kalamazoo top stories of 2011: Area schools’ funding struggles

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With:

School reforms for 2012 — from all-day kindergarten to teacher tenure

December 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

•More accessible information. In order to get $100 in per-pupil state funding, many districts will be creating a “dashboard” of information on their websites that will include such information as teachers salaries, graduation rates and average class sizes.
• Cyber schools. Whether lawmakers have the will to lift the cap on cyber schools the same way they lifted one on charter schools could be answered in 2012. Full-time online schooling could hurt traditional schools, and educators question its effectiveness and whether they would be operated by unscrupulous for-profit companies.

For the rest of the article, go to School reforms for 2012 — from all-day kindergarten to teacher tenure

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts