by David Safier TUSD Board member Mark Stegeman cleverly outflanked MAS supporters, probably for the first time since he stepped into the controversy that led to the disbanding of the MAS curriculum. Stegeman is proposing that the ban on MAS books be lifted. Given the local, national, even international furor over the book banning, this … Read more
by David Safier Ken Bennett is taking his decision to deny the voters a chance to decide on renewing the one cent sales tax to the Supreme Court. A few weeks ago, Bennett was planning to accept Judge Oberbillig's decision. In an op-ed piece nearly two weeks ago in the Arizona Daily Star, Bennett wrote … Read more
by David Safier
I've written often about the problems with online charter schools, the largest and most problematic being K12 Inc. But I'm no Luddite. I was an early computer/internet adopter when I was a teacher, and I know the spread of online education is inevitable and has a number of things going for it. But those who push it as equal to or better than brick-and-mortar, face-to-face education — the for-profit CMOs and conservative "education reform" advocates — are wrong. Online education is in its early, clunky stages and will take awhile before it should be adopted as a mainstream alternative to face-to-face education, if it ever gets to that point.
In today's Star, there's an article about a new startup by some Stanford profs, Coursera, which is trying to take online coursework from top universities — Stanford, Princeton, Caltech, Duke, etc. — to the next level. (Most often, when you read research about online education's successes, it's about college level work. That's not surprising, since it's more likely a motivated college-level student will succeed without supervision than a semi-motivated or unmotivated K-12 student.)
Let's compare online education to early digital cameras. Remember those things? Ridiculously bad images that pixellated when you blew them up bigger than 4"x5". No one advertised them as "Better than film cameras!" Their appeal was, they might take crummy pictures, but they add convenience. You can see the photos you take instantly, put them on your computer, print them out — and you never have to spend a penny on film! Everyone knew they were substituting convenience for quality. Gradually, of course, the cameras got better, and now they're so good, film has become the province of people who are in love with old photo techniques.
Like all comparisons, this one isn't absolute — I don't think online schools will replace more traditional schooling, not by a long shot — but it's fair to say, today's online education is like the early stages of digital photography.
by David Safier Lots of people are worried that if we pass the one cent sales tax renewal initiative, the legislature will just lower the amount it puts in the education budget, add the sales tax money on top of that, and we'll end up in the same place we are now. However, the wording … Read more
by David Safier Longtime readers of BfA know I regularly post news — and sometimes make news — about the for-profit, publicly traded online charter corporation K12 Inc. Its Arizona school is Arizona Virtual Academy. All of a sudden, there's a flurry of news coming out. The National Education Policy Center put out a 50 … Read more