Is This The Time To Reinvent Public Schools?

Imagine schools of the future; schools without walls.  A classroom with students who live hundreds—or even thousands—of miles apart.  Imagine a middle school child on a two-month family trip to Kenya who is able to keep up with their studies by taking online classes in the evening.  Top quality public education that you can take with you –anywhere in the world.  For some students in California, this vision of the future is happening now.  This is public education for the Technology Generation;  kids born into a world enhanced by Apple, Google, and social networking--where a text message can be as intimate as a quiet conversation between friends.  

Despite the irony that in Sacramento, the C.T.A. has hoodwinked thousands of educators to protest have now wasted valuable class time (and millions of dollars in substitute teacher costs) protesting the reduction in public education funding this past week, the math around public education funding is quite simple.  The three most expensive components to public education are: 1) Teacher Salaries (with health and pension benefits)  2) Special Education Costs  3) Land and Buildings.  Imagine the savings generated from a public school with little capital expenditures and with low labor costs.  

Since the C.T.A. continue to block any real reform around teacher salaries (pay for performance instead of pay for longevity),  many school districts and charter schools are looking at  how they can positively impact the category that impacts a school’s revenue stream:  Total Enrollment.  Since public schools are paid based on each student in attendance, a school's  increase in total enrollment can have a big impact on total revenue.   Online schools are a way that many local charter schools and school districts are looking to increase enrollment while not impacting their actual physical space on their currently existing “bricks and mortar” campuses. 

Online learning can take many forms.  It can be as simple as students taking one or two classes online, or students taking a combination of online classes coupled with some classes taught at an actual school site (“Hybrid Schools”) all the way to a fully online, or “virtual school” where 100% of all classes are taught online.  Currently, in most charter schools and school districts in the SF Bay area, school leaders are looking at how a model of online education could succeed for their learners.  

According to research by, Allen, Seaman, &  Garrett (2007) , there is a range of online school course options in California:

TRADITIONAL, 0% online:  Course with no online technology used – content is delivered in writing or orally.

WEB FACILITATED, 1 to 29% online:  Courses that use web-based technology to facilitate what is essentially a face-to-face course.  Uses a course management system (CMS) or web pages to post the syllabus and assignments, for example.

BLENDED/HYBRID, 30 to 79% online:  Course that blends online and face-to-face delivery.  Substantial proportion of the content is delivered online, typically uses online discussions, and typically has some face-to-face meetings.

ONLINE, 80+% online:  A course where most or all of the content is delivered online.  Typically have no face-to-face meetings.

There are many interesting options for online learning and California charter schools have been the early adopters of online school programs (NY Times, 2010).  More than twenty percent of all charter schools in California offer some online courses for their students.  The largest public school in the state is, in fact,  a charter school called California Virtual Academy (CAVA).  CAVA is a fully accredited K-12 public charter school with over 12,000 students across the state of California.  In San Mateo County, there is a CAVA open to any learner in our community that is interested in a more flexible, and equally challenging, educational program.  CAVA in San Mateo is a fully online school with about 1000 students enrolled with an average increase in enrollment of about 20% a year. 

At San Carlos Charter Learning Center, some of our educators and I have been talking informally about what an online program may look like at our school.  It provides for some exciting possibilities, not only as it relates to our project based approach to teaching and learning, but also to how we could leverage this innovative educational model to help financially support our site based education program.   It offers some exciting possibilities. 

Currently, the educational organizations that most leverage online learning options are colleges and universities.  They are aggressively implementing online courses and putting entire programs online as a way to increase their net revenue and provide the kinds of educational options that their students are looking for.  Here in California, many Cal State colleges are using a combination of online education, Ipads, and online textbooks as a way to provide valuable resources to their students at a fraction of the cost.  It is only a matter of time before all K-12 schools (both public and private) see the educational and financial benefit and begin to offer more full time and blended educational options for their kids. 

Just like charter schools, such online schools will serve to increase the school choice options for parents and increase overall competition for all public schools districts and charter schools.  Such an environment will offer more quality public school options for parents not only here in San Carlos, but throughout the Peninsula.   

For more information, I encourage you to visit the International Association For K-12 Online Learning  at http://www.inacol.org/.