“Online K-12 education surging, but official says 'it's buyer, beware'” plus 3 more |
- Online K-12 education surging, but official says 'it's buyer, beware'
- Grand Canyon University Adds Education Degree Programs
- Our View: Education online full of questions
- School Stocks Soar, But Don't Jump On Board Yet
| Online K-12 education surging, but official says 'it's buyer, beware' Posted: 25 Jul 2010 09:36 PM PDT Interest in online schools for kindergarten through 12th grade is surging as new virtual offerings flood the market, leading education experts to warn parents that not all programs are equal. The biggest influx is in credit recovery programs to help students meet graduation requirements. But high-achieving students also are turning to online programs that offer more flexibility, personalized instruction and accelerated courses. John Fleischman of the Sacramento County Office of Education cautions parents to thoroughly vet online programs, because they don't go through the same rigorous adoption process as curricula at traditional public schools. "It's buyer, beware," said Fleischman, assistant superintendent of technology services for the county office. Typically, the state adopts new textbooks and instructional materials in core subjects for kindergarten through eighth grade. At the high school level, individual school districts and charters pick textbooks that meet state content standards. Online curriculum does not go through the state adoption process at the K-8 level; instead, it is left to individual schools and districts to review the materials. Ed Mills, associate vice president of student affairs and enrollment at California State University, Sacramento, said parents should make sure online schools are accredited and that they meet admissions requirements for California State University and the University of California. Local school district and charter program officials say they review online curricula as closely as they would for a traditional school. "We went through an extensive process," said Anne Zeman, director of curriculum at Elk Grove Unified, which will open its first virtual school in August. While an array of private companies promote online offerings, public school districts and charter schools from California to New York have added or are adding online schools and virtual credit recovery programs to keep up with market demand. Elk Grove Unified and neighboring districts have been losing students to online programs such as California Virtual Academies, or CAVA. "We looked at test scores, curriculum and what they provided," said Bill Lucia, who lives in Elk Grove but will enroll his five children in CAVA this fall. Lucia is the president of EdVoice, a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to improving public schools. He said CAVA's curriculum is rigorous and will allow his kids to move at an accelerated pace if they need to. He said his fourth-grade son tested at an 11th-grade reading level. "There is a perception that online learning is a kid sitting in front of a computer all day long like a robot," Lucia said. "We've found it to be not nearly as much of what you would consider computer-based." Elk Grove Unified's virtual school will try to pull in families like Lucia's. And new enrollees bring additional state funding. Elk Grove's Virtual Academy has enrolled 96 students so far, and 76 are new to the district. Students will receive books, maps and other grade-specific supplies to finish the school year from home. Students will report to a real campus to take tests and meet with a teacher face-to-face. Elk Grove launched a credit recovery program in January. An estimated 500 students have completed courses for credit, Zeman said. "It's important because there is no summer school," Zeman said. "Our intention is to improve graduation rates and help students who feel discouraged." Sacramento City Unified is exploring the possibility of adding a virtual school. Sac City is nearly doubling the size of its Accelerated Academy, an online credit recovery program for 11th- and 12th-graders. The program will now accept 250 students. Twin Rivers opened a virtual summer school this year for students who lack credits. "There is a big push right now in online credit recovery," Fleischman said. "It seems to be a real focus in California. It's a way to salvage kids who have fallen behind." Credit recovery programs help districts improve graduation rates to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act. "We don't have a handle on what districts are using it and what evaluation was used," Fleischman said. "The real concern is the quality of the courses." He recommends that parents do the following when evaluating an online school: • Review the content. • Assess the design of the school's website. • Examine the curriculum and make sure it meets college requirements. • Check the materials for accuracy and fairness. Fleischman urges parents to consider their children's needs. Would they be suited for a pure online program or one that combines classroom instruction with virtual lessons? "If I was a parent, I would be looking for a relatively high degree of interaction between the teacher and my son or daughter," he said. Parents should not leave the research to their children, said Fred Lamora, director of instruction at Visions In Education, a public charter serving students in nine Northern California counties that is adding a virtual high school in the fall. "High school students are seduced by not having to do anything," Lamora said. "They liken it to traffic school. There are a lot of commercials about kids in PJs." © Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.  Call The Bee's Melody Gutierrez, (916) 326-5521. What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. 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| Grand Canyon University Adds Education Degree Programs Posted: 26 Jul 2010 09:10 AM PDT Press Release Source: Grand Canyon University On Monday July 26, 2010, 12:10 pm EDT PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Acknowledging the need for qualified, degreed professionals teaching even the youngest learners, Grand Canyon University (GCU) has added bachelor and master degree programs in Early Childhood Education. "There is a need for highly effective teachers in the early learning years from birth to age eight," said GCU College of Education Dean Dr. Cindy Knott. "Because early learning has become a national focus for education, many early learning educational settings now must be staffed by highly qualified educators. Effective teachers are highly educated, skilled, committed and compassionate." The new degrees that will be offered are a Bachelor of Science in Early Childhood Education and a Master of Education in Early Childhood Education. Early education is defined as learning from birth to age eight. Economic research and longitudinal studies have found that at-risk children benefit from high quality early childhood programs, improving school readiness and decreasing juvenile crime, teen pregnancy, substance abuse and welfare dependency. "These new degrees will help those who pursue careers in early learning to enhance the stature of their workplaces, nurture the development of tomorrow's children, and ultimately help our society," Dr. Knott said. The new degrees will be available in the fall semester, beginning August 30. More information about GCU's College of Education is at http://coe.gcu.edu. About Grand Canyon University Founded in 1949, Grand Canyon University is a traditional regionally accredited, private, Christian university offering campus-based and online bachelor's and master's degree programs through the Ken Blanchard College of Business, College of Education, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, and College of Liberal Arts. The Phoenix-based school is ranked as having one of the top online education programs by OEDb (Online Education Database). GCU emphasizes individual attention for both traditional undergraduate students as well as the working professional. For more information visit www.gcu.edu. Five Filters featured article: "Peace Envoy" Blair Gets an Easy Ride in the Independent. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Our View: Education online full of questions Posted: 26 Jul 2010 04:34 AM PDT It's hardly surprising that, in an era of diminished state support, California's university leaders are trying to find new ways to work around budget-related enrollment restrictions. Those restrictions have prevented qualified high school students from attending a UC campus, and reduced access to courses for those who do get admitted. Yet as the UC Board of Regents ventures more deeply into the world of distance learning -- online programs and degrees -- they need to be careful to put the needs of Californians first and not undermine UC's reputation for quality. At their July 14 meeting, the regents launched an "Undergraduate Online Instruction Pilot Project" with two parts -- one for UC-enrolled students and one for "fully distant" students. The potential for tapping fee-paying students far from California -- the "Kentucky to Kuala Lumpur" dream -- captured the headlines and the controversy. Based on the experience of others, there is good reason to be skeptical of a model where individuals never need set foot on a UC campus to get a bachelor's degree. But discussion of the "fully distant" market ought not to mask the real impact of the online project, which will be on California students. That online shift deserves more in-depth debate. The heart of the project turns to online courses (typically no face-to-face meetings) for California students to meet their introductory and lower-division course requirements. These are courses that: * Have the heaviest enrollments on UC campuses; * Are most in demand by community college students planning to transfer; * Are the most oversubscribed; * And are the ones the faculty are less eager to teach. So the pilot project proposes to create 25 to 40 online options for high-demand lower division and foundation courses: writing and composition, basic math, calculus, economics, statistics, biology, chemistry, earth sciences, physics, physiology, communications, history, philosophy, politics, psychology, sociology, American studies, anthropology, business. This covers a big chunk of the undergraduate experience. Students and parents need to pay attention to this shift and weigh in. Certainly online courses have advantages for students faced with the choice of a 300-seat lecture class or being shut out of a course. They have advantages, too, for students with work or family obligations. But these courses should not simply be treated as "requirements to get out of the way." They are the principal gateway courses for students exploring a major. Equally important, for non-majors, they may be the only courses students take in science or politics, for example, which should give them enough to be informed citizens. These need to be strong, interesting courses. Nor should issues of student accountability be overlooked. How do you know that a student, and not someone else, is actually taking the exam? Based on experience elsewhere, offering quality online courses may not be a cost-saver. Good online courses are time-intensive. A few news stories from Inside Higher Education provide cautionary tales on this front. One September 2009 story describes how the University of Illinois Global Campus "crashed and burned." This attempt to attract a global audience was "going to be a cash cow." Instead, "it's kaput." Attempting to put up a high-quality program against dozens of low-cost, for-profit online operations proved more difficult than advocates thought. The university invested millions and attracted only a few hundred students. Another story, featuring the University of Texas, is headlined, "Texas Kills Its Telecampus" (April 9). Money, the story indicated, "played a role in the TeleCampus's hastened demise." This experiment depended on a large annual subsidy from the UT system, plus fees from the campuses. The University of Massachusetts campus-based online initiative, UMassOnline, has seen better success. It hasn't set unrealistic goals for cost savings. "Not all success is financial" is the motto. Distance learning has a long tradition in this country and can be an avenue for achieving democratic ideals of access. But to maintain UC standards of quality and a California-first priority, it has to be done right. That means it is unlikely to be a cash cow. Editorials are the opinion of the Merced Sun-Star editorial board. Members of the editorial board include Publisher Debra Kuykendall, Executive Editor Mike Tharp, Editorial Page Editor Keith Jones, Copy Desk Chief Jesse Chenault and Online Editor Brandon Bowers. This editorial originated with our sister newspaper The Sacramento Bee. Five Filters featured article: "Peace Envoy" Blair Gets an Easy Ride in the Independent. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| School Stocks Soar, But Don't Jump On Board Yet Posted: 26 Jul 2010 08:14 AM PDT Beleaguered school stocks got some relief Friday after new regulations proposed by the U.S. Dept. of Education weren't as tough as expected. It's not really enough to make them attractive yet, but it's a start. Publicly-traded stocks in the U.S.-based education and training services industry jumped an average of more than 3.8% Friday. The group, attacked by short sellers and battered by tales of bad student loans and mixed results in training students for the work force, had suffered losses of more than 10% year-to-date that included a 22% drubbing in the past three months. The government released a preliminary version of the regulations in January, and uncertainty has hung over the group ever since. The proposed rules aren't a panacea for the industry, analysts say, and could still hurt schools with high debt-to-income ratios as a result of school loans, according to a report by Melissa Korn and Caitlin Nish for The Wall Street Journal. Schools also face greater scrutiny to ensure that their programs are actually preparing students for real jobs. Leading the way higher Friday was DeVry (DV), up 15.1% to 15.29. Other top gainers in the group:Nobel Learning Communities (NLCI), up 9.0%; Strayer Education (STRA), up 7.9% to 236.49; Education Management (EDMC), up 7.5% to 16.31; Capella Education (CPLA), up 7.3% to 89.69; Grand Canyon Education (LOPE), up 6.6% to 23.12; Bridgepoint Education (BPI), up 6.4% to 18.32; and Apollo Group (APOL), which advanced 6.4% to 49.27. The stocks of three companies that the rules are expected to impact more negatively struggled in Friday's trading. ITT Educational Services (ESI) edged ahead 0.3% to 85.44, while Corinthian Colleges (COCO) slipped 0.5% to 10.20 and Universal Technical Institute (UTI) gave back 0.7% and closed at 21.79. The final regulations are expected to be adopted in November following a public comment period and take effect next year. Any penalties would not kick in until the 2012-13 school year. The proposal would create three levels of schools and would likely impact about 5% of all schools serving about 8% of the roughly 1.8 million students enrolled in for-profit schools, reported John Lauerman for Bloomberg. Schools with high student debt-to-income ratios whose students are not repaying government loans fast enough would be restricted to growth limits and be forced to warn students in promotional materials. The for-profit school industry received $26.5 billion in federal aid last year, a dramatic increase from $4.6 billion in 2000. Despite Friday's gains, none of the stocks in the group is close to being a market leader, and it will take a significant show of strength in the next several months to make the stocks attractive as new buys. Most of the stocks are closer to their 52-week lows than highs. If I had to take a stab at one education stock that might emerge, it would be Minneapolis-based Capella Education. Friday's move brought it back to within 9% of its April 29 all-time high of 98.01. It's a little pricey with a market cap of $1.5 billion and trading at 3.9 times sales, but its P/E is reasonable at 31. Capella operates Capella University, an online school with 42 graduate and undergraduate degree programs and more than 37,000 students. The company reported first-quarter earnings growth of 82% and revenue gains of 32% in April. The company is scheduled to report again on Tuesday, with analysts expecting second-quarter earnings to rise 41% to 79 cents per share and revenues to increase 29% to more than $103 million. Five Filters featured article: "Peace Envoy" Blair Gets an Easy Ride in the Independent. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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