Over the past decade, digital learning at the K-12 level has exploded?from a national enrollment of 40,000 to 50,000 in 2000 to an estimated 3 million in 2010. And this mushrooming isn't likely to slacken any time soon. Forgive the melodrama and trite adages. But we are sitting at a crossroads in education, the likes of which haven't been seen in over fifty years (since the Little Rock Nine and all that came with them). Today, the Digital Learning Council (chaired by Jeb Bush and Bob Wise) released their final policy recommendations for the future of virtual and hybrid education in America's K-12 classrooms. Focusing at the state-level, this manifesto highlights ten elements of high-quality digital learning. Among them are student eligibility and access, and educational funding, delivery and instruction. While it holds steadily at the 30,000-foot level, the DLC's policy paper offers unprecedented legitimacy for digital educators and education providers. More than anything, though, it further brings virtual education to the fore of the national education policy conversation in a tangible way.
The report, rightly, is quick to remind us that digital learning has the potential to completely transform America's K-12 education system. It can promote the noble but onerous Differentiated Instruction. It can offer Advanced Placement courses to students in rural Wyoming, and ensure high-quality instruction to inner city youth. As the policy recommendations in Digital Learning Now! pronounce, it can ensure high quality instructional materials to all, and can transform our funding model into one that incentivizes performance and innovation, rather than neighborhood demographic. It can. But it is dangerous to avow digital learning's strengths without acknowledging and troubleshooting its weaknesses.
Without proper planning, without strong accountability structures in place from the get-go, digital learning could also lead to an educational marketplace flooded by low-quality products. It could lead to for-profit entities exploiting students, parents, and school districts, providing costly services irrelevant to students' need. (A recent New York Times article made an example of Kaplan University, a member of the ?industry [that] leaves too many students mired in debt, and with credentials that provide little help in finding jobs.?)
While the Digital Learning Council has taken encouraging steps toward normalizing virtual education, it falls short of being a ?comprehensive roadmap to reform.? Quality and accountability issues aren't adequately detailed. Proposing that ?digital content, instructional materials, and online blended learning courses are high quality? and that ?student learning is the metric for evaluating the quality of content and instruction? is fine as far as that goes. But what will this all mean in practice? How are we to?and who will?ensure that the schlock stays out of the digital learning arena? That struggling Susie in Iowa accesses the same caliber product as AP Adam in Florida?
This potential for high-flying success and tragically disappointing failure is perhaps best articulated in the arena of credit recovery. Increasingly, schools and districts are turning to online credit recovery programs to steer wayward high schoolers to the K-12 finish line. In some cases, these programs offer stimulating classes, customizable for working students' schedules. Sometimes, they offer just the right amount of flexibility and discipline to reach and teach intelligent, but unmotivated, students. For others, like teen parents or physically ill students who have missed much seat time, they offer a feasible chance at an educated future. However, just as all other school-based credit recovery programs tried throughout the decades?summer school, night school, etc.?online credit recovery has its dark side. Students can barrel through courses, sometimes in days. Quality control in hasn't yet caught up with market demand. And struggling students, who typically need more support from educators or classroom mentors, are often left to teach themselves concepts without adequate guidance.
Conversations like these, addressing potential snags with digital learning policy, must be had now?openly and objectively. As the DLC report states, digital learning has the potential to ?transform education for the digital age.? It has the potential to completely reshape the American education system. But, this nascent school reform will only succeed if it is able to free itself from the political conversations that are drowning systemic education reform. It will only succeed in changing the status quo if advocates and denouncers alike are willing to sit down and honestly address the pros and cons of the potential new education system, and then diligently work to correct them.
So, while the DLC offers their recommendations to state leaders?things like holding digital learning summits and issuing RFPs for statewide online learning services?here is a call to action for all policymakers, from the local, state, and national levels. Be honest and forthright in discussing digital education. It will be far more useful, and far less detrimental, to our nation's students years down the road to deliberately determine which digital learning components must immediately be put in our backpacks and carried forth on the education highway, which should be mended before making the journey, and which should be left on the side of the road. We've seen too often how difficult it is to add and subtract from our pack once we've started off. Proper planning at this current juncture will save years of headache later on.
?Daniela Fairchild
