Half Of Colorado Online Students Leave, Funding Stays

EdNews Colorado:

Colorado taxpayers will spend $100 million this year on online schools that are largely failing their elementary and high school students, state education records and interviews with school officials show.

The money includes millions in tax dollars that are going to K-12 online schools for students who are no longer there.

Read the whole story: EdNews Colorado

Comments

[kidjudas]

07:46 AM on 10/04/2011

This is true in my district too. The students who leave for online schools last at most a year and are back in my high school classroom. Biggest complaint is "you can keep putting it off, and they keep giving extensions, and you can keep putting those off". They do get brand new laptops, and sometimes the district loses track of them. If it's happening in my small district, I assure you it's occurring on a massive level in CO.

[El Chingaso]

07:02 AM on 10/04/2011

On line learning is isolation...and highly inferior. Should never occur. A little plastic box is no substitute for real synthesis with a teacher in a classroom setting. Kids today are so socially inept anyway...why red line it any further.

[GlennWatson]

08:00 PM on 10/03/2011

Students should not be allowed to opt in then opt out. They should have to finish the year.

[Hlynn]

02:09 AM on 10/04/2011

This is what happens in schools already. If a student starts at one school and then the family moves and finishes at another school, the first school still keeps the money. This is the same for special ed, too. We have a count at the beginning of the year, and if more students qualify for services during the year, or students who already have IEPs move in, we don't get more money for them.

In the online case, though, students are choosing online when they could attend their neighborhood school, so students should be able to figure out in a month's time if they are capable of learning with an online school. If they can, they stay. If they can't, they can enroll in their neighborhood school before the October count and the online school has to relinquish the money.

[J R M]

06:20 PM on 10/03/2011

On-line classes worked reasonably well for my daughter. She was bored in middle school and we complained to the principal, who suggested that she switch to on-line classes for some of her classes. She switched her history and science classes to on-line (K12). She flew though them, doing a full year's worth of work in 4 to 5 weeks. By the end of the semester she had done all 3 years of middle school science and history.

She did on-line/correspondence Geometry and Precalculus over the last two summers and adequately mastered the material. While she was awarded A's in all her classes, she did not get credit. Rather, she was doing the work for placement. This year she is doing AP Biology on-line though her school. The only problem is that it does not allow her to work faster than the expected pace. She isn't complaining about it this time because her in-class assignments are so demanding this year (college calculus and 4 IB classes).

[daughterusmc]

08:24 PM on 10/03/2011

with all due respect to your daughter's achievements...and I do understand being frustrated with the inertia of many schools in re the bright...but how hard could an internet class possibly be that one can fly through in 4-5 weeks?
if the idea is introduce rigor, it seems like that ain't happening.

[J R M]

10:40 PM on 10/03/2011

That was middle school. And they weren't hard. Her comment for history is all she had to do was read the books and answer the on-line quizzes and questions. The science classes were the same plus the labs, which were relatively simple. Mind you, she spent perhaps 3 hours a day on each class, so each class took her 60 to 70 hours. Her summer math classes were more demanding. Perhaps 6+ hours a day for 6 to 7 weeks, and she studied on weekends. So figure a year of honors high school mathematics in about 300 hours. That seems reasonable.