by David Safier
For ALEC trackers, their next big event is the 2012 Spring Task Force Summit May 10-11 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The big push is education:
- Digital Learning Subcommittee
- Stretching the School Dollar Workshop
- Education Task Force Luncheon
- Education Task Force Meeting
No other topic gets nearly that much coverage.
Attendance by Arizona Republicans could depend on whether they can wrap up the lege session soon — could the ALEC meeting be part of the push for early adjournment? — but we know for sure Sen. Rich Crandall will be attending. He's sponsoring the "Model Bill Discussion and Voting: Online Course Choice for Students." You can bet that model bill will be making it to a statehouse near you. Also leading not one but TWO discussions is Jonathan Butcher, the education guy at the Goldwater Institute. One is on Education Savings Accounts (ESA). G.I. wrote Arizona's ESA law, called Education Empowerment Accounts. The other is "Model Bill Discussion and Voting: District and School Freedom."
No other state has nearly the profile Arizona does at the Summit. We should be proud.
Download the official ALEC memorandum about the event
You can read the summary of the Online Course Choice for Students model legislation below the fold.
Online Course Choice for Students
Summary
This bill opens up the world of high-quality online course instruction to students. Each year, students in public school grades 7-12 would have the option to enroll in up to two online courses that award college credit or meet standards for core academic courses. The state would create standards and accountability measures to ensure that they are providing students with a course catalog containing only high-quality online course offerings. Funding for each online course is driven by the free-market in an open and competitive process, rather than simply allocating a portion of student funding unrelated to the actual cost to deliver the course. Finally, after completion of each online course, parents and students provide feedback via the web in an open forum to rate the effectiveness of the course. This feedback, combined with test scores, provides a quality indicator ranking that is available to all.
The full text of the bill will be sent to the Task Force soon.
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