Overkill for online ed

Bill could suffocate future innovation

Published March 30, 2007 at midnight

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Yes, online charter schools need more oversight. Nearly everyone agrees with that proposition, especially in the wake of disturbing reports of sloppy oversight at Hope Co-op Online Learning academy.

But most true friends of education should also agree that online learning has tremendous potential. It must not be suffocated or confined to a single model by punitive legislation dictating every aspect of online schooling.

Unfortunately, Senate Bill 215 appears to be an overly prescriptive measure; legislators should work to amend it before final passage.

To its credit, SB 215 establishes a needed framework for oversight of online charter schools. Online enrollments have grown faster than almost anyone expected, and neither the state Board of Education nor the state Department of Education has had enough rules or policies in place to regulate them.

This bill creates a division of online learning within the department. It also requires the state board to set rules for online charter schools that draw students from two or more districts. That appears to be directed at Hope, which is chartered by the Vilas School District but operates 79 "learning centers" in 16 districts, most of them along the Front Range.

The bill passed 5-2 in the Senate Education Committee last week, with several amendments, and more amendments are expected.

As introduced, however, the bill seems intended to hold online charters to a higher standard than other charter schools, to give them more limited resources and to give local districts too much influence over where learning centers can be established.

If the state board writes rules for multi-district online charters in the expectation that Hope's model will be the principal one, it may become very difficult for other innovators who develop a different model - and it seems likely that some will - to get their plan certified by the online division.

The bill contains pages of educational boilerplate describing all the things an online program has to do to meet quality standards - and never mind that there is precious little evidence that any other kind of school accomplishes these things successfully for all or even most students.

For instance, one quality standard is that "the online program uses learning activities that engage students in active learning; provide students with multiple learning paths to master the content based on student needs; reflect multicultural education; are accurate, current, and free of bias; and provide ample opportunities for interaction and student-to-student, student-to-instructor, and instructor-to-student communication."

That's part (f) of a list that goes from (a) to (n). As a list of aspirations, we suppose, it may be helpful. But as a list of statutory mandates, it is ridiculously detailed and inflexible.

A bill regulating online education is likely to pass in some form, since the idea has at least some bipartisan support. But SB 215 still needs a lot of work, with less concern with making life difficult for schools such as Hope.

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