When I want information about charter schools, online or otherwise, one place that I stop is the National Charter School Resource Center. I encourage you to do the same.
North Canton schools gets $50K grant for online courses
April 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment
NORTH CANTON —The Hoover Foundation will give a grant of $50,000 to North Canton City Schools to cover the costs of providing students online courses, said district Superintendent Mike Gallina.
Gallina said the district will spend the $50,000 on a one-time fee to buy online course materials for about 42 classes offered by the Florida Virtual School including English, math and foreign language courses.
He said this will allow the district to offer the classes even if only a small number of students are interested in them. Students could take the classes at home or at school, and they would count toward credit for graduation.
Gallina hopes the online courses, which will be free to students, will attract students that his district has lost to charter schools
For the rest of the article, go to North Canton schools gets $50K grant for online courses
Online Educator Adds Two Newark Charters to Portfolio
April 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Two proposed Newark charter schools once in doubt of ever opening have gotten a second life with the nation’s largest provider of online education, K12 Inc.
A week after announcing enrollment was underway at one online-only charter school out of Newark, K12 Inc. this week announced it had added two more charter schools to its growing New Jersey portfolio.
These two — Spirit Prep and Newark Prep charter schools — will be a so-called “blended learning “ model in which students will take classes both face-to-face and online out of a central location.
For the rest of the article, go to Online Educator Adds Two Newark Charters to Portfolio
Converting Schools: Charter Effect on District Schools
April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
School choice provides opportunities for developing the potential that lies within the young leaders of tomorrow. The notion of school choice encompasses a wide variety of school models, including traditional public schools, magnet schools, private schools, virtual schools, home school and charter schools. The Lake Wales community has found favor and success with charter schools serving as a catalyst for the improvement of our public school system.
The competition inspired by the infusion of charter schools within the Lake Wales community has served to not only improve the quality of public education but also to inspire all education agencies in the community to do a better job.
For the rest of the article, go to Converting Schools: Charter Effect on District Schools
Marketing key to new charter schools
April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Educational marketing efforts of all kinds — including online virtual schools from across the state — are especially noticeable from Feb. 6 through April 30, the time period that parents can submit applications for their children to school districts other than the one in which they reside.
All Wisconsin charter schools are part of public school districts, and when they are approved by the state’s Department of Public Instruction, they receive grant money to plan and start the schools. The grant money can be used only for specific purposes, such as equipment and teacher training, and to market the schools.
For the rest of the article, go to Marketing key to new charter schools
Saucon Valley School District exploring online classes
April 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Saucon Valley School District wants to offer online high school classes to draw students back from cyber schools.
Saucon is one of a number of Lehigh Valley schools trying to stem the flow of money out of the district to charter schools and to entice students back with the promise of a district diploma.
Superintendent Sandra Fellin is proposing a multifaceted program that in addition to creating a cyber high school would allow students to make up credits for courses they’ve failed, attend summer school online and bring in new electives.
Fellin presented her plan to the school board Tuesday after months of research and it was well received.
For the rest of the article, go to Saucon Valley School District exploring online classes
School Choice: A Tale of Two Sons, Two Schools
April 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The biggest obstacle to the parental choice movement in South Carolina has been the lack of understanding of what School Choice is and the rhetorical terms of the debate. School Choice should be for every family. Independent education choices should also be available for every child, not the privilege of the economic elite. Representative Rita Allison’s passionate defense of the bill on Wednesday was particularly insightful. She explained how the school choice debate is not a zero-sum argument about choosing public “or” private schools; it’s really about “and.” To reduce inequality, to increase parental engagement and to raise student achievement, Allison insists every parent in the state deserves to have real choices for their own child’s education. That means public and charter and private and magnet and virtual and home school; whatever works for the specifics of that pupil’s learning needs.
Representative Eric Bedingfield, another bill sponsor, reiterated Allison’s points at the podium. He stressed that school choice was an issue of how lawmakers set the field for parents to make choices, rather than a micromanagement of specific school policies and programs. “Parents have the most information and best motivation to make decisions for their own children,” he insisted, noting that even the best classroom in an absolute sense might not be the most appropriate for each specific student seated in it.
for the rest of the article, go to School Choice: A Tale of Two Sons, Two Schools
Do you have a question?
July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I get many emails asking questions about online schools. I find it much better both for me and for our readers if those questions are shared.
So here’s your chance. What do you want to know?
All you have to do is ask your question as a comment to this post.
What is an online charter school?
March 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Here is a good definition of charter schools that is culled from Wikipedia:
Charter schools in the United States are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statues that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school’s charter.
Using this definition as a guideline, it is easy to take this one step further and state that an online charter school has all of those facets, but is conducted completely or mostly online. Increasingly, we see private companies partnering with organizations and/or public school districts to create online charter schools. The reasoning behind this is that these private companies already possess the curriculum that has been adapted to the online environment. One example of this sort of relationship is districts that have partnered with K12.com.