The Nevada Department of Education, the Nevada State Board of Education and the teachers union all have objections to one degree or another with distance learning and virtual schools - even though learning online is gaining in popularity by leaps and bounds as more and more parents find it a desirable alternative to sending their kids to dysfunctional public schools.
Although the Legislature has approved distance learning and virtual schools as educational alternatives in Nevada, the Board of Education - bowing to opposition by Department of Education bureaucrats and doing the bidding of the teachers union - has repeatedly blocked efforts to expand online education programs in the state’s charter school system. In fact, following a denial to expand a distance education program last month for two existing and approved virtual schools in Nevada, state Sen. Terry Care actually had to file a lawsuit against the Department in an effort to get the board to comply with the clear intent of the Legislature in this matter.
I remind everyone of this hostility to online education because an alert school choice advocate here in Nevada just forwarded me this clip from an old press release:
“The Nevada Commission on Educational Technology…(has) selected PBS TeacherLine®, a provider of facilitated, online (my emphasis) professional development for preK-12 educators, to meet professional development initiatives in each state. Through this relationship with PBS, officials in Nevada…will help teachers and paraprofessionals acquire the knowledge and skills they need to improve student learning as well as to meet state and federal ‘highly qualified’ requirements.”
Why is it that online education is perfectly good enough to help teachers become “highly qualified” but not good enough to teach little Johnny how to read, write and do arithmetic? Could the professional education establishment possibly be any more hypocritical?
Posted on May 5th, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
I’m simply amazed. The state spends $7345 per pupil and fail at educating them. I send my kids to a private school at the rate of $3975 and get a much better education.
The Department of Education’s resistance to online education is nothing new. In 1999 they audited Odyssey Charter School and found them out of compliance with State Education Code because they did not have handicapped-accessible restrooms in all of their students’ homes and were not conducting fire drills at the homes. This after reviewing and approving their charter application. Now they will not allow two other online charter schools to expand to lower grades because it doesn’t feel right to members of the State Board. Maybe they should look in their own back yard where Odyssey K-5 program was deemed an “Exemplary School” according to No Child Left Behind.