[Vision2020] Idaho's online ed course mandate stirs concerns at Nampa hearing

[Tom Hansen]

WAY TO GO, PENNI!!!

Courtesy of the Idaho Statesman at:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/08/19/1765098/online-course-mandate-stirs-concerns.html
 
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Idaho's online ed course mandate stirs concerns at Nampa hearing
 
State Board staffers hear worries about reduced teacher contact and student success due to the new graduation requirement.
 
State Board staffers hear worries about reduced teacher contact and student success due to the new graduation requirement.
At a lightly attended public hearing in Nampa Thursday, the most popular answer to the question of how to mandate online courses was simply not to do it.
But “zero’s not an option,” State Board of Education spokesman Mark Browning noted. “This isn’t to debate whether the thing should have passed. That’s a moot point.”
State Board staff have been holding public hearings across the state — Thursday’s was the sixth of seven — to gather public opinion on a new graduation requirement for Idaho students that would start with the class of 2016. That rule was mandated by the Idaho Legislature earlier this year as part of state schools Superintendent Tom Luna’s Students Come First education reform package.
Luna had initially suggested requiring eight online credits of future Idaho graduates, but that number gradually shrank. The State Board now is considering a two-course requirement.
Teachers and others who testified said they are relieved the proposal now calls for just two classes, but they have grave concerns about how the requirements would be implemented.
Several, including Idaho Education Association President Penni Cyr, said they didn’t want the proposal to require one of the online courses to be “asynchronous,” which means the teacher would not be in the classroom with the student, although a proctor or other employee without a teaching certificate might be.
“What is the plan for assuring that students who need additional help have timely access to a certified teacher with content expertise?” Cyr asked.
“Students need to use technology, but they don’t need to lose a teacher,” said Sue Darden, who teaches math and history at Meridian’s Galileo magnet school.
Former Idaho Democratic Rep. Branden Durst of Boise, who teaches online and other courses at the College of Western Idaho, suggested that the state require “an online preparedness or technology expertise course” to give students the tools they need to thrive in higher education and business environments that require online skills.
Tracie Bent, the State Board’s point person for the rules-making process, said the subcommittee studying the online requirements discussed requiring that type of course but said the concern with that is that “it’s another class that students have to take and school districts have to provide.”
Instead, the proposed rule would allow districts to offer any class online. Some small districts will require students to take a particular subject or subjects online because they don’t have a teacher available for that, Bent said.
Durst said some students do better in online classes than in traditional classrooms, but the opposite is true for many others. In his experience as a teacher, he said, the national average 58 percent pass rate for online classes is about right.
Requiring online classes piles on extra stress for students who already have a lot of pressure in their lives, he said.
“To put something that has such a high fail rate in their path is really quite foolish,” he said.
Caldwell veterinarian Victoria Young said she opposes the planned requirement in part because of her own experience taking online courses: “How much I got out of it vs. live in class with a person, there was no comparison.”
During the course of Thursday’s four-hour hearing, about 25 people turned out and about 10 testified.
At least two complained that none of the board’s hearings on the topic were held in Ada County, home to the state’s two largest districts. Cyr said an Ada County hearing would likely have drawn students and parents opposed to “being forced to choose an online course if it will mean missing a class taught by an award-winning teacher.”
Browning said no snub was intended. He selected the College of Western Idaho at Nampa’s eastern edge because it is centrally located among the area’s five large districts — Nampa, Caldwell, Vallivue, Boise and Meridian.
And, he said, the State Board was not given funding to hold the meetings, so he chose the most affordable options. By contrast, he said, the state task force to study the new school technology requirements received funding for its public meetings.
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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown

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