Online education helps juvenile inmates graduate

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by David Safier
Online education is still looking for its niche. This may be one area where it makes more sense than straight classroom schooling.

[Six] teenage inmates were the first to graduate from Maricopa County Jail's high-school program with a diploma, as opposed to a GED certificate, and are believed to be the first juvenile inmates in the country to earn that distinction.

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The diplomas are the result of a joint effort between the Sheriff's Office and the Educational Options Foundation, an accredited Web-based program that aligned the curriculum for the juvenile offenders with Arizona's state standards. The Virginia-based company donated equipment and staff.

A limited number of students, making it difficult to impossible to have enough teachers to give classes in a variety of subjects. Supervised adolescents with time on their hands who can work at their own pace. It sounds like a natural for online education.

Full disclosure: I'm in regular email contact with someone who works for Educational Options in Arizona, which created the program. He alerted me to this article, calling the program "one of my current projects and successes."

My one question is how much one-on-one time the inmates receive, either in person, by phone or by internet messaging. I hope the students have regular contact with live human beings.

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