Learn about online high schools in Texas, free online high schools, and earning a high school diploma online
Project Tomorrow is a virtual school program that provides students who have not been enrolled in a Texas Public School for more than 30 consecutive days, are younger than age 26 and reside within the Spring ISD a no-cost opportunity to earn a diploma.
The program has been made possible by a grant for Online Learning and Dropout Recovery that was awarded by Texas Virtual School Network at Region 10 Education Service Center.
For the rest of the article, go to Spring ISD hosts outreach walk
In a story we published Tuesday, state Rep. Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) told the Texas Independent he’s concerned about a lack of quality control in the state’s full-time online K-12 schools, and more generally in the Texas Virtual School Network, a statewide clearinghouse for online courses for K-12 students.
Started in early 2009 as a way to extend specialized courses to rural students, and to help special needs students and youths in juvenile detention earn high school credit, the virtual school network has seen a sharp enrollment increase over the last few years, though it dropped off sharply this fall.
Hochberg, who owns a software development company, said he hasn’t been impressed by the online courses he’s seen so far, and worried that sales pitches from for-profit course developers, not strategic plans developed by the state, are what’s driving the course network’s growth. Particularly troubling, he said, was that district officials must rely on sales pitches, rather than a look at the full online course, before deciding whether to offer it to their students.
But in an interview Tuesday afternoon, Kate Loughrey, the Texas Education Agency’s director of distance learning, said the state is constantly fine-tuning course offerings to meet districts’ needs. All the courses in the network are quality-controlled, she said, and TEA is developing new highlight reels of some courses to help districts see what they’re getting.
Today, Loughrey said, 17 school districts offer online high school courses in the state’s virtual network. Seven colleges also participate in the network, offering dual high school and college credit. About half the high school courses offered in the network are developed in-house by school districts in Texas, Loughrey said, while the other half are purchased from third-party software developers, like K12 Inc.
For the rest of the article, go to Texas official defends online course network’s quality, oversight and transparency.
In 2007, the Texas Legislature created a pilot program for a clearinghouse for online classes, a place where a large school districts around the state could offer specialized courses remotely to rural students, kids with special needs, or even students serving time in juvenile detention.
Since then, though, that pilot version of the Texas Virtual School Network has evolved into a much larger initiative, with some courses developed by public school districts and colleges, and others created by for-profit companies. It’s aged into a permanent program with few benchmarks and loose oversight, says one lawmaker who helped craft the pilot program.
While the program may be specific to Texas, it reflects a growing challenge across the country. An October New York Times/Texas Tribune story considered the “policy maze” officials in any state must navigate as online education grows:
It threatens many concepts that are fundamental to the identity of public education: districts defined by geographic boundaries and brick-and-mortar buildings. Among the challenges, however, is dealing with what it means to be publicly financed in a digital education world, where much of the curriculum and even employees can come from profit-making companies.
Gene V. Glass, a senior researcher at the University of Colorado’s National Education Policy Center, told the Tribune the for-profit nature of the industry, and its consolidation in the hands of five major companies, was problematic. “They are responsible to their shareholders, not to the kids or anyone else. They are in it for the money,” he said.
For the rest of the article, go to Hochberg: Online education business growing fast, without quality control from state
Summer School courses will be offered through the Texas Virtual School Network, which is a consortium of online courses. The courses are monitored through certified teachers across the state of Texas. The teacher of the online course is fully responsible for assignments, assessments, and grading.
For the rest of the article, go to Hardin High School Summer School
Summer School courses will be offered through the Texas Virtual School Network, which is a consortium of online courses. The courses are monitored through certified teachers across the state of Texas. The teacher of the online course is fully responsible for assignments, assessments, and grading.
Students will be able to access the online course from any computer with internet access and will be required to attend the high school lab on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. All tests must be completed in the high school lab and proctored by a high school faculty member.
For the rest of the article, go to Hardin High School Summer School
OC President Gregory Williams said the college would try to find more money to help the high schools, if needed.
“We’re having to do things differently, and we’re having to change a lot of things, but we know this is important,” he said.
A decision on whether the University of Texas of the Permian Basin continues to offer free tuition on dual-credit courses in the fall has yet to be made. But Katherine Phillips, UTPB admissions counselor, said funding in place through the Texas Virtual School Network will allow for free tuition on dual credit classes for incoming high school juniors and seniors in the summer.
For the rest of the article, go to OC provides scholarships for dual credit
Just 475 students are enrolled in the Culberson County-Allamore school district, almost 200 fewer than seven years ago. Eighty-nine percent are Latino, and 82 percent qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches, an indicator of poverty.
“We’re pretty remote,” agrees Superintendent Guillermo Mancha Jr., who moved to Culberson County three years ago after serving as principal of a 1,400-student middle school in Fort Bend County. “We lose families every year. We lose kids. And when we lose kids, we lose funding.”
With just 46 teachers — the district relies on the Texas Virtual School Network for some advanced classes — Mancha has little wiggle room for the coming state budget cuts. Soaring gas prices have made it more expensive to bus students from across the county and to send them to neighboring districts for athletic and academic competitions.
Sen. Florence Shapiro has filed Senate Bill 468, a mandate relief bill intended to return local control to districts by removing and amending some of the current state requirements. It has been submitted as a shell bill, meaning its contents will be developed, amended and expanded as it travels through the legislative process. The bill’s first draft, available for view on the Texas Legislature website, calls for the removal of mandates that prohibit districts from reducing pay rates for teachers and other campus-level staff members below 2010-11 levels or exceeding a student-teacher ratio of 10-to-1 in remedial classrooms.
The draft also proposes moving the required 45-day notification period for teachers whose contracts will not be renewed to 10 days after the last day of instruction and allowing districts to not republish tax notices if the rollback rate falls after the first posting. It would also prohibit limitations on the number of courses a student can take through the Texas Education Agency’s Texas Virtual School Network, which allows high school students to supplement in-class instruction with web-based courses.
For the rest of the article, go to Bills aim to give schools flexibility
And they plan to encourage upgrading the academic rigor of the Texas Virtual School Network, which provides online course options, to match the depth of the STAAR exam.
In terms of personnel, the officials hope to support affordable health care for district employees and increased funding for qualified teachers.
They also hope to discuss modifying finance requirements to allow districts to receive new Instructional Facilities Allotments (IFAs) for an additional year to help cover the costs of new schools.
For the rest of the article, go to LISD officials to voice concerns in Austin
This week, the United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) presents “National Distance Learning Week” (NDLW). The NDLW campaign aims to increase awareness of Distance Learning, build relationships within the areas of education and business and to recognize leaders and best practices in the field. The annual initiative is designed to engage professionals providing products and services and to celebrate the tremendous growth and accomplishments occurring today in Distance Learning.
“At any given time of the day, hundreds of students across the US are engaged in one of our online courses,” says Gary Tsifrin of DriversEd.com. DriversEd.com provides a range of courses that include DMV licensed and state-approved online drivers ed courses for first time, adult, and mature drivers as well as proprietary packages for Virtual Schools. DriversEd.com is in partnership with Florida Virtual School and Texas Virtual School, the two largest and most successful state-wide Virtual Schools in the country.
For the rest of the article, go to Distance Learning Provides Viable Option for Potential New Drivers: State-Approved DriversEd.com Online Course is a High-Tech Alternative to the Classroom
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