Online-education lawsuit misfires on state funding

Washington state must embrace online learning, “the future of education,” but a lawsuit against funding cuts interferes with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s right to decide where to allocate dollars.

MANY students in Washington’s K-12 public education system take classes online, some never entering a traditional brick-and-mortar school.

Our state’s challenge to serve these students while creating accountability in one of the fastest-growing sectors of education is complicated by a lawsuit filed by online-learning advocates protesting budget cuts.

The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction was ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire to reduce education spending. The result: Previously, traditional and online schools received the same funding; now, online schools receive an annual average of $4,250 per student — 15 percent less.

We don’t like cuts to any part of education. But OSPI had the right, and responsibility, to decide where to allocate education dollars.

Moreover, the complex funding formulas for online education and traditional schools should be different. For example, the state should not allocate transportation dollars for virtual learning. Numerous other examples abound, enough to make a convincing case that online education can be funded fairly and differently from traditional schools.

Meanwhile, cuts in online learning have spurred school districts to rethink how they serve online students. More districts are focusing on serving students in their district, a step away from the current, large, statewide online schools. Steilacoom is an example of a small district with 2,000-plus students in its online-education program. That’s more students than Steilacoom’s physical student population.

About 18,000 students took at least one online course last year, according to Karl Nelson, director of digital learning for Washington state. About 9,000 students are enrolled full time in online schools. More than 50 school districts around the state offer online programs — mostly through for-profit companies.

Online education is popular for disabled students, accelerated learners and at-risk students who don’t mesh well in typical school environments. Working students who must do their schooling on a different schedule are also among those enrolled in online education.

The National Association of State Boards of Education called online learning the “future of education” in a much-touted 2001 report, “Any Time, Any Place, Any Path, Any Pace.”

Washington should continue to support online learning, but a lawsuit wrongly challenges the state’s right to develop a fair funding model and accountability system.

Highlander Hosts Technology + Learning Conference in Providence

With the push for digital learning stronger than ever, a conference for next steps in Providence.

Providence will host educators seeking to better incorporate digital technologies into their schools this month, when Highlander Institute, a regional provider of high quality professional development in education, presents the Blended Learning & Technology Conference on Saturday, May 19, 2012 from 8:30am-4pm. This day-long, hands-on conference will give educators practical insight on adopting blended learning models. Blended eLearning integrates the best of online learning with face-to-face instruction, expanding opportunities for the teacher and student.

Integrating tech in the classroom: not always easy

“Integrating technology with tried and true classroom instruction is not always intuitive or easy, but when it is done well it helps the teacher understand a student’s abilities at a whole new level,” said Shawn Rubin, director of technology integration at the Highlander Institute and co-founder, Metryx. “Teachers can then use this input to create a much more individualized learning environment for the student, which leads to greater learning outcomes.”  Further, Rubin said, ” “blended learning recognizes that technology is something today’s students already enjoy. It uses tools that are intuitive to them and increases their engagement in their own learning.”

A national push toward digital learning

Pointing to the trend towards digital learning environments, President Obama, the U.S. Dept of Education and the Federal Communications Commission announced recently a 70-page guide for schools to begin transitioning to digital learning. Locally, the RI Dept of Education will soon announce the winner of the Model School Grant award funded by U.S. Dept of Ed “Enhancing Education Through Technology (E2T2)” funds, for the redesign of a school that uses technology as the catalyst for transformation.

Conference details

The Blended Learning & Technology Conference, subtitled “From Theory to Practice”, will bring together the practitioners, education technology gurus, and the people behind the tools for integration. Attendants will listen to educators already integrating technology in their teaching environments, and have the opportunity to “tinker, test and explore” applications and software on iPads, SMARTboards, and Android tablets.

“At Highlander, we understand the integration of technology for some educators and schools will be a gradual process. But the trend is moving quickly. This conference offers a comfortable environment to learn about these tools, and jumpstart the process,” Rubin said.

Featured speakers

Conference speakers include Jennie Dougherty from edUPGRADE, a nonprofit that brings beta technology to teachers in exchange for feedback; Melissa Pickering, recent manager of Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach, and founder of iCreate to Educate; and Mohit Midha, COO of Mangahigh.com, a games based teaching resource for K-12 math.

Vendors and sponsors include: Broadband RI, Educreations, Engrade, K12, Learn Zillion, Lesson Writer, and Metryx.

For more information on the Blended Learning & Technology Conference, visit www.blendedlearningconference.com, call 401-831-7323, or email admin@highlanderinstitute.org.

21st Century learning and Teaching Modus operandi and Advantages

With growing technologies, the methods of acquiring education are also growing. It is always better to opt for something that is advanced because if a teacher is departing knowledge then there is a possibility of human error but that is not the case with technology.

With changing time, the method of acquiring and providing knowledge is changing. During olden days, students use to go to the classroom and knowledge sharing use to take place in place in classrooms only but these days advanced learning has become popular. During olden days, the only way available for gaining knowledge was books but now, new methods like that of Elearning LMS and usage of other advanced technologies has started.

Methods using for learning and teaching in 21st century

There are many methods that have being introduced at regular intervals so that the students can learn many things and at a faster rate and at the same time, the teacher’s work is also reduced to a larger extent. Few of the popular methods that are being used are as follows: -

1. Elearning LMS – Elearning LMS has become a popular thing because of the ease and comfort with which it can be used. With the help of Elearning LMS, the students get involved in what is being taught.
2. Online learning – There are many online learning classrooms where the lectures are conducted virtually. The user can get access to wide range of knowledge by way of this mode of learning and the quality of education that student from all over the world receives remains same.
3. Digital learning – Digital learning means carry the study notes in a digital equipment like that of laptop, mobile or e-book reader so that the person can study anywhere as per their convenience.

Advantages of learning and teaching methods used in 21st century

There are many advantages of using advanced technologies to depart knowledge rather the classroom teaching.

1. If a person prepares an elearning LMS then that can be used by various people and it can be used for longer period of time. Same is the case with Online learning as well, once the course material is prepared, it can used at any point of time as per the users requirement.
2. If a person is too busy and hence, he doesn’t have the time to attend classes but he is eager to learn then he can take up some online learning courses where he can listen to the course content at any point of time as per his convenience.
3. Another advantage that is offered by digital learning is access to knowledge anywhere and everywhere because it is merely impossible to carry fat books with oneself at all point of time. Digital learning has reduced the physical efforts of carrying books.

About emPower

emPower  is a leading provider of comprehensive Healthcare Compliance Solutions through Learning Management System (LMS). Its mission is to provide innovative security solutions to enable compliance with applicable laws and regulations and maximize business performance. empower provides range of courses to manage compliance required by regulatory bodies such as OSHA, HIPAA, Joint commission and Red Flag Rule etc. Apart from this emPower also offers custom demos and tutorials for your website, business process management and software implementation.

Its Learning Management system (LMS) allows students to retrieve all the courses 24/7/365 by accessing the portal. emPower e-learning training program is an interactive mode of learning that guides students to progress at their own pace.

For additional information, please visit http://www.empowerbpo.com.

Media Contact (emPower)
Jason Gaya
marketing@empowerbpo.com

emPower
12806 Townepark Way
Louisville, KY 40243-2311
Ph: 502 -400-9374
http://www.empowerbpo.com
http://www.empowerlms.com

The digital teacher

By Maureen Downey

In every district, in every school, in every grade, there is that great teacher who all parents want for their children. So, parents cross their fingers and hope that their child is lucky enough to end up on that teacher’s roster.

What if every student in the class could get that terrific teacher rather than a fortunate few?

That is one of the promises of online elearning, said Bryan Hassel, co-director of Public Impact and a speaker at last week’s Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s panel on Education Reform for a Digital Era.

Hassel said that only about 25 percent of classes have one of these top-tier teachers at a given time. That means the other 75 percent don’t.

Education can enlarge the classroom of the teachers achieving the best results with students and pay them more for doing so by multiplying their reach through technology, Hassel said.

Relieve those great teachers of noninstructional tasks, use video to reach more students and incorporate smart software to personalize instruction.

While the panelists differed on how digital learning should be introduced, they agreed that it represents the future.

“There is a lot of hope and a lot of hype. We have yet to see too many programs in practice live up to their promise,’’ said moderator Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Fordham Institute. “To get it right, we need a much more fundamental and compelling school reform agenda than we’ve got today.”

Today, there is one computer for every three students across all k-12 schools. There is connectivity. There is hardware. Yet, of 55 million students total, it’s estimated that fewer than a million have taken an online course.

Most schools function as they always have — a single teacher overseeing a classroom with, on average, 23 students. That’s in contrast with every other industry in the country in which technology plays a larger and larger role in how work is done.

“Technology is inevitable,” said John Chubb, distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a founder of EdisonLearning. “We can’t put our fingers in the dikes and stop technology from coming.”

The role of skeptic on the panel was assigned to Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein, author of “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future; Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30.”

Bauerlein outlined several obstacles that caused initiatives such as statewide laptop programs to stumble, including 50-year-old teachers who didn’t get on board or a lack of schoolwide coordination.

But the toughest challenges come from students who regard technologies as social tools and resist their conversion to learning tools.

“These tools have intense social meaning for them. They are largely mediums of peer pressures, peer absorption, peer fixation and peer topics — coming into their lives 24 hours a day,” he said.

“Try to control that classroom with 25 laptops open and keep students from drifting into social habits,’’ he said.

If technology became as integral to the academic lives of students as it has to their social lives, Chubb said, “this imbalance that clearly exists now would begin to change. There is not the option of keeping technology out. The challenge is how to make technology work for schools. Or schools will become, in the eyes of students, irrelevant.”

Today, teachers face classrooms that have students who are reading at below grade level and students reading at a college level. “Digital learning allows students to learn at their own level … to customize instruction,” Chubb said.

Under rigid rules on teacher pay and class size, Hassel said there aren’t strong incentives now for teachers to embrace technology or become involved in shaping it. “There is no way they can use it to leverage their time. But if they can use technology in time-saving ways and take on more students and earn more, they will become active shoppers and become a driver of quality.”

That research suggests digital learning is not being done very well yet doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved, Chubb said.

“If we wait for definitive evidence that this new model works better than the old model, we will never get there,” Chubb said.

“What we want is to give educators, principals, school districts and charter school heads more flexibility and more incentive to try to figure out how to adopt technology. This is not something policy makers will figure out. Educators will figure it out.”

This article was originally posted at http://www.ajc.com/opinion/the-digital-teacher-1424150.html

Technology in The Classroom

In the field of technology, the word disruptive is used for a technology or innovation that brings about a radical change in the way a sector functions by introducing efficiency, affordability and convenience. The technology revolution in the business sector is represented by the extensive use of smarter phones or web conferencing in American offices. However, the impact of disruptive technology on the education sector is much higher. A wave of smart classes and e-learning has transformed the way education is delivered and pursued, today.

The presence of technology in classrooms makes the student an active learner instead of a passive one. The education system becomes more student-centric. The student can choose, manipulate and generate what he wants to study and how. The student himself creates the learning environment and the mode of obtaining lessons. E-learning has made the education system more convenient and flexible. The student can learn through his own choice of platform. The role of the teacher also changes as he is no more the sole source of knowledge. He transforms into a mentor and is responsible for providing guidelines and resources to the students.

This system increases the self esteem and motivation levels of a student as he becomes an active participator in the whole learning process. It is known that a student learns more by hearing and visualizing than merely reading. The use of activity based audio visuals in the classrooms generates more interest in the lesson being taught. E-learning portals make education available to those students who did not have access to it before. Different courses and methods are being accessed by students of all age groups at their own choice of time and place. It makes the whole education system more dynamic and learner friendly.

One of the challenges the system is facing is that its standard testing model is not adaptive to children’s varied speed and ways of learning. Some students respond to the audio visual faster while for others the response time is comparatively slow. However, the challenge can be transformed into an opportunity by the teachers. The teachers can use the traditional ways of teaching for regular teaching. The K-12 e-classroom methods can be brought into use simultaneously, depending on the different learning capacity of the students for example, to improve the performance of the weaker students.

The use of technology in classroom encourages creative and out of the box thinking in students, as it presents the monotonous lessons in a very interesting and innovative manner. The process intrigues and stimulates the students. Activity and project based learning is appreciated and encouraged. American Universities were once considered the best in the world but are now striving to catch up on cost effectiveness with their global peers while delivering through the K-12 system.

The concept of smart class and elearning is a revolution in itself, making the education system of the country dynamic, efficient, student-centric and flexible. There are certain challenges, which are being dealt with and would soon be overcome with the introduction of newer technology, techniques and processes.

About emPower

emPower  is a leading provider of comprehensive Healthcare Compliance Solutions through Learning Management System (LMS). Its mission is to provide innovative security solutions to enable compliance with applicable laws and regulations and maximize business performance. empower provides range of courses to manage compliance required by regulatory bodies such as OSHA, HIPAA, Joint commission and Red Flag Rule etc. Apart from this emPower also offers custom demos and tutorials for your website, business process management and software implementation.

Its Learning Management system (LMS) allows students to retrieve all the courses 24/7/365 by accessing the portal. emPower e-learning training program is an interactive mode of learning that guides students to progress at their own pace.

For additional information, please visit http://www.empowerbpo.com.

Media Contact (emPower)
Jason Gaya
marketing@empowerbpo.com

emPower
12806 Townepark Way
Louisville, KY 40243-2311
Ph: 502 -400-9374
http://www.empowerbpo.com
http://www.empowerlms.com

$1.5M Fine Marks A New Era In HITECH Enforcement

Data breach at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and subsequent penalty stands an example of the financial fallout from poor healthcare IT security practices

By Ericka Chickowski, Dark Reading
Contributing Writer

Enforcement actions from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) just reached a new level of reality last week when the department announced a $1.5 million settlement with BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee over a 2010 data breach, making the organization the first pay out penalties since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) went live in 2009. The question now is whether such tangible examples of financial fallout will convince healthcare IT to invest in better security measures.”It’s certainly a warning shot for the healthcare industry,” says John Nicholson, counsel for the global sourcing practice at Washington, D.C.-based law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. “But is that a sufficient amount to act as a deterrent? It’s hard to tell at this point. It’s at the upper end of what organizations can be penalized and when you break it down it equals about a buck a record lost. For companies that are dealing in millions of records, that penalty can add up. But that’s just at very large companies. And data breaches are becoming sufficiently routine that everyone sort of looks at it and goes, ‘Eh, it’s another one.’”

But Nav Ranajee, director of healthcare vertical for CoreLink Data Centers, believes that starting to hit the big organizations in the pocketbook and making a spectacle out of the process should have the desired effect. Many of these organizations have been deprioritizing security because there just hasn’t been enough financial incentive to push it up the stack on the IT to-do list, he says. The HHS making the risk of pecuniary damage a real risk of failing to comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA Training) security requirements changes that financial equation for these organizations, he says.

“What I’m seeing now when we talk to our clients, say a hospital or a business associate like a software company that services a hospital, is that when it comes to HIPAA, the first priority of a CIO has historically to allocate funds to get that new EMR in house or that new clinical system, because that’s going to pay off in revenue,” he says. “But when it comes to making sure HIPAA requirements are up to date, that’s usually the last line item on the budget because it’s really a sunk cost. Now they’re going to have to look at the risk involved and wonder ‘Do I risk having a million dollar lawsuit if I don’t put the right security protocols in place?’”

The settlement BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee paid to HHS was a penalty for failing to prevent a breach that saw the theft of 57 unencrypted hard drives containing recordings of customer service phone calls. The drives were left behind in a data closet after the company stopped using a leased facility.

“This settlement sends an important message that OCR expects health plans and healthcare providers to have in place a carefully designed, delivered, and monitored HIPAA compliance program,” said Leon Rodriguez, director of HHS OCR. “The HITECH Breach Notification Rule is an important enforcement tool and OCR will continue to vigorously protect patients’ right to private and secure health information.”

According to Nicholson, the breach is a good lesson to healthcare organizations on how compliance really could have helped the security of the organization and maybe even prevented a breach. “One of the things that HIPAA and HITECH require is that you go through an assessment of your policies and procedures whenever your operations significantly change. I don’t know for sure, but it seems like BlueCross BlueShield of Tenessee may not have done that evaluation. If they had done it, they might have said, ‘We’ve got these hard drives containing this unencrypted PHI and it’s in a locked closet but that’s not sufficient in this leased space,’” he says. “That’s probably a lesson to healthcare organizations. You really need to do those evaluations anytime a significant aspect of your operation changes that has implications on PHI.”

For his part, Ranajee says the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee incident stands as yet another testament of the importance of encryption for healthcare data protection.

“Really, it’s all about making sure that if you have data servers in your office or workplace, they need to be locked down–they need to locks on them–and they need to be encrypted,” he says. “Those are two of the main things that are not commonplace but they should be.” Health Care Compliance

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My Takeaways from the 2012 Digital Learning and Media Conference

On March 2 and 3, I attended the third annual Digital Media and Learning Conference in my home city of San Francisco. Though I missed the first day of the conference, I got so much out of days two and three, connecting with educators and thinkers and other folks who are passionate about how we can use technology in smart ways to improve education and expand elearning beyond the classroom.

I won’t summarize all the panels I went to and the conversations I had, but instead will talk about two panels in particular that I found especially inspiring and that highlighted a concept frequently at play throughout the conference: Learning partnerships do not have to begin in the classroom to affect what happens there, and learning partnerships will be integral to the future of education.

The first of these panels, DML: Case Study in Digital Media and Learning Partnerships: A Youth-Centered Design Framework in San Francisco, featured Jill Bourne, Deputy City Librarian for San Francisco; Elizabeth Babcock, Chief Education and Digital Strategy Officer at California Academy of Sciences; Ingrid Dahl, Director of Next Gen Programs at Bay Area Video Coalition; and Matthew Williams, Educational Technologist at KQED. These four individuals, and the institutions with which they are affiliated, have come together to contribute the room, the resources and the expertise required to train youth to create digital media. Bourne explained that San Francisco’s main library would be allotting some 5,000 square feet to develop a teen-friendly space for young people to learn all manner of media production under the guidance of instructors from Bay Area Video Coalition. Cal Academy is hoping some of what the students will produce will be interesting multi-media productions aimed at helping children and teens get excited about science. And by airing the content the teens create, KQED can help bring these productions to a broader audience.

Here’s what I love about this partnership: First, each group brings something to the collaboration, and they each get something from it as well. And second, the partnership fills a need. Most schools do not have the money to buy and maintain the kinds of equipment necessary to do high-quality video and audio production, and they also lack the staff with the expertise required to teach these skills to students. This collaboration among various parts of the community helps to fill a void in “traditional” education. Jill Bourne, the Deputy Librarian, told me that she has recently formed working relationships with three different public high schools in San Francisco. I’m excited to track the progress of this partnership and see what the teens produce and how the teachers work with the group to incorporate media projects into their curricula.

The second panel discussion that had me feeling all fired up was Short Talk Panel: Playful interventions: libraries, college access, after school and media arts, which focused on creating richer learning experiences through games. “Gamification” (“Is that seriously a word?” a friend asked, when I was telling her about the conference. “Yes it is,” I replied) was a popular theme at DML2012, and I’ll be honest when I say people might be a little too game-crazy right now, for my taste. Learning activities need more than just badges to be innovative. Still, I also subscribe to the Alfred Mercier notion that, “What we learn with pleasure we never forget.” And I’ve been know to create games in my own classes when teaching elements of syntax and sentence style, and I’ve found those games to be quite effective in reinforcing the “nuts and bolts” of solid sentence structure. So I was down to hear what the folks on this panel had to say about the role of games in teaching and learning.

Adam Rogers, Emerging Technology Services Librarian at North Carolina State University, gave a lively and interesting presentation about how he and his colleagues redesigned freshman library orientation at NC State by using iPods with the Evernote app installed. Freshman Composition instructors singed up their classes for orientation, and the students in the classes were broken up into teams of four or five students each, with one iPod per team. The students were also given maps of the library and a list of scavenger hunt questions to answer and activities to complete. They logged their answers using Evernote, which allowed them to do things like capture pictures of themselves with a librarian and make note of information contained in certain volumes in the library. It was a fun, engaging way to introduce the students to the library, its staff, and even each other, as they worked together to complete the scavenger hunt. I told Adam that I thought his game had potential to be reworked throughout the year to help students become really good at research. Teachers in various disciplines could work with the librarians to craft a similar game that results in the students collecting preliminary research on a specific topic, further helping them internalize where various kinds of information are to be found in the library, and where to turn if they need help finding better information than what their own search yields.

What both of these panels highlighted for me is the idea brought up at one of the plenary sessions–that education is moving from a one-to-many model to a many-to-many model. That is to say, it really does take a village to raise our youth and educate them and give them the skills they’ll need to survive and succeed in this rapidly changing world. Districts can and should capitalize on the potential of this “many-to-many” model by evolving traditional professional development days into learning partnership days. Teachers often have very little time or space for networking with others–inside and outside of their schools–and yet building relationships with other educators and with those who could contribute to education beyond the school walls helps to make the educational experience for both faculty and students so much richer. I left DML2012 full of hope for the future of teaching and learning and fully ready to be part of that future. My hope is that schools will embrace this future by thinking outside the classroom to find innovative ways to help the village contribute resources and expertise to the educating of our youth.

This article was originally posted at http://verbalcupcake.net/2012/03/my-takeaways-from-the-2012-digital-learning-and-media-conference/

Nelson’s digital learning bill advances

By Post-Bulletin staff

ST. PAUL — Legislation that encourages more online learning in the classroom passed the Minnesota Senate on Thursday with broad bipartisan support.

Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, sponsored the digital learning bill. It would require the Online Learning Advisory Council, with the help of the Minnesota Department of Education, to develop a catalog for teachers of all the digital learning materials indexed to Minnesota academic standards. There will also be a system set up that will allow teachers and students to rate the material. The bill also requires a study to determine how to link student performance to the digital learning materials.

The bill also allows basic skills revenue to be used for digital elearning, and it encourages every Minnesota student to take at least one online class before graduating.

Nelson’s bill calls for a review of state regulations to identify any that might impede digital learning in the classroom.

The Senate passed the bill 53-11. The measure now goes to the House and, if it passes there, the governor.

This article was originally posted at http://www.postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1490120

New Report Urges Online Learning Expansion in Texas

Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Public Policy Foundation would like to see Texas follow Florida’s lead in increasing access to virtual schools.

A report from the Texas Public Policy Foundation suggests that virtual education and blended elearning both present the opportunity for cost savings and academic gain in Texas.

“At the K-12 level, the potential of virtual education is enormous,” said the report’s author, James Golsan. “Through the use of technology, students in rural districts would have access to the same educational resources as students in more populated areas. Familiarization with technology could prepare students for the work force more quickly.”

While there is some concern about the ability of existing traditional institutions to convert to blended learning facilities, it’s a popular model for new start ups. Virtual education is already a success story in Florida and the TPPF wants Texas to follow Florida’s lead.

“Florida has one of the longest standing and most successful virtual education programs in the country,” Golsan said. “As Texas seeks to improve its own digital learning environment, an examination of the Florida model provides the state with an example by which to fashion, at the very least, its public virtual education after.

Several benefits to a virtual education model are highlighted in the report, such as increased course availability and access to quality instructors. Although virtual education institutions have come under fire in the past for high dropout rates, the report believes that dropout recovery could be best served in the virtual arena.

Another highlighted benefit to Texas expanding its digital education offerings is the potential for huge cost savings. Not only does the report claim that educating students online is cheaper than traditional in-person methods, but that cost efficiencies of scale accrue more under a digital learning platform.

“Currently, Texas funds its students at a rate of around $11,000 per pupil,” Golsan said. “Research suggests that full-time virtual students can be educated for between $1,500 and $3,000 less per student than those in traditional brick-and-mortar settings.”

The perceived benefits of online education have recently come under scrutiny from Great Lakes Centre for Education Research and Practice, but the TPPF remains enthusiastic.

The report also recommends the easing of the course approval process for digital coursework, the promotion of private provider participation in digital learning, the creation of a scholarship program for digital learners, and the opening of the Texas Virtual School Network to private and home-schooled students.

This article was originally posted at http://www.texasinsider.org/?p=59580

Digital Learning, Acceleration Bills Advance

Some high school students could have an expedited path to high school graduation, while others could graduate already trained for jobs if a pair of House bills gets final approval in the Senate.

Rep. Kelli Stargel’s Acceleration Bill, HB 7059, passed the House on Monday and is awaiting action in the Senate.

If passed, it could allow K-12 students to progress through their schooling faster.

Another bill proposed by Stargel — which passed the House on Tuesday and is on its way to the Senate — is the Digital Learning bill, HB 7063, where students could take courses online either during school or after.

“They really go hand-in-hand,” said Stargel, R-Lakeland. “For highly functioning students, who says they have to go to school for 180 days a year or take courses only during the school day?”

HB 7058 would create the Academically Challenging Curriculum to Enhance Learning (or ACCEL) to provide accelerated courses or instruction to eligible students.

The program would allow students to skip grades or receive mid-year promotions. It would also allow eligible students to skip certain subjects if they passed an exam, similar to CLEP tests that can be taken for college credit.

It would allow early graduation for students after completing 24 credits and the standard graduation requirements. The bill also states that a district would not lost any of its full-time equivalency funding if a student graduates early.

Stargel said the bill would not only benefit students who plan on going to college, but as early as middle school students could enroll in vocational classes.

This article was originally posted at http://www.theledger.com/article/20120306/NEWS/120309558/1002/SPORTS?Title=Digital-Learning-Acceleration-Bills-Advance-