The Online Learning Task Force established by SB 767 met for
the third time on 10/19/09. I was not there, but listened to the online audio
of the meeting (here).
The Task Force is wrestling with issues that interconnect charter schools and virtual schools in the form of virtual charter schools that provide online education. I do not know to much about charter school issues, but the task force is totally missing the boat on virtual schools.
In three hours of meeting, it was not until the last twenty minutes that the most significant issues were raised. And, then, not one member of the Task Force honed in on them.
(1) If online education costs less than bricks-and-mortar education, then why is there not an accelerated push in Oregon to do more of it? That was the unasked question. Near the end of testimony, one witness (I think from the Department of Education, but this was audio and keeping track of who was speaking was difficult) said that “we hear regularly that online education ought to be dramatically less expensive than bricks-and-mortar education, ranging from one-quarter to three-quarters the cost” of bricks-and-mortar education.Now one would think that any suggestion to save 25-75% of the cost of education for some students in some courses would be pursued aggressively. No. The worry seemed to be that the private providers of online education might be making too much profit. Their profit might be an issue, but the larger issue is why isn’t Oregon aggressively pursuing online education to save money?
(2) Why does not Oregon have a single-source online school similar to the Florida Virtual School? Chuck Bennett, lobbyist for the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, said before the Task Force, in answer to a question:
“Originally we supported single source…. It might be interesting to someday have the guy from DOE in that supposedly runs the state virtual school and to hear from him whatever happened to the state’s virtual school district and where have they gone with all that money…. And it is Susan Wadell’s report, that we will provide to you, which is a proposal, perhaps, on how to create a single state virtual school district…And the question you ask yourself is: If the state isn’t going to do it, how come we did not contract with ORCA (Oregon Connection Academy, the virtual charter school in Scio). Why do we not have a statewide virtual school district? In some ways, we almost do, and it comes out of Scio.”
Indeed, why don’t we have a statewide virtual school, especially if it could save a significant amount of money? And, why put off doing more now?
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