Thursday, July 17, 2008

Rising Costs Prompt School Districts to Create Online High Schools

I spend a lot of my time following and writing about how technology is changing the way we go about our lives. I even run a college program training students how to use and apply emerging technologies.

Yet it's never crossed my mind that high schools may be looking at ways to teach some of their courses online -- thus eliminating overhead by combining students from different districts. I don't know why I haven't thought about it particularly since the cottage industry of distance online tutors has grown so much.

In Pennsylvania, there are 11 cyber high schools with an enrollment of 7,500 students -- some with traditional backgrounds others are children of military parents or athletes who travel.

By offering online courses, districts can retain the money they receive from the state -- essentially using that money for their brick-and-mortar school by contributing some portion of its labor to the cyber school.

Confused? Economics for these ventures can be. The take-away: the cyber schools give students, parents and districts more flexibility in the classes the offer and the times when students can taken them.

That's the new world economy we've been hearing about for a decade or more.

The cyber high school trend is catching on it seems as Oregon just passed legislation that would fund its second charter school.

Posted By Brad at 03:27 PM
Permanent Link: Rising Costs Prompt School Districts to Create Online High Schools | Comments (2)

(2) Comments on Rising Costs Prompt School Districts to Create Online High Schools

My opionion of this whole matter is that cyber schooling is the school of the future. Think about it. The fuel prices go up and then the school districts are already talking about all over the U.S. about not having any buses this coming school year. Well then it is the parents that have to make sure the child arrives to school on time and can come get them when they are sick or at the end of the day. Not like it is now when they get them up in the morning and get them on the bus and the bus takes them to school and then the bus brings them home. For most people anymore the cost of fuel for one vehicle is already torcher so if they can not afford a second vehicle then they have to either pray that they do not need to take the car from their spouse or they have the car all day long. Where having the children home all day long it saves on lunches, you know exactly what school work they are doing, you know exactly where they are. For the social part of life there is friends, church, scouts, other after school activities, and getting together with others that do the cyber schooling. Cyber schooling is a better life it shows the children that jobs can sometimes be in the afternoon then a set schedule. With cyber schooling the children can learn outside the classroom as well as on the computer or in the school books.

Comments by Gidget : Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 09:20 PM

Hey Gidget:

Certainly online learning is going to become a large part of school curriculum, although I don't think it will be for the reasons you mention (of course, those reasons may be byproducts of that).

I seriously doubt that cyber-schooling will be an effective means to an end by itself because many parents aren't equipped to deal with the rigors of maintaining a work schedule for their children. It's too easy to let time slide by.

However, I do think you are right that it will encourage people to learn outside the classroom -- along with many other benefits such as more targeted lessons.

Comments by Brad King : Monday, July 21, 2008 at 08:20 PM

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