Education Week August 29, 2012 - A Special Report on E-Learning - S13

Schools Open Doors to New E-Learning Rules, Ideas

EDUCATION WEEK AUGUST 29, 2012 > www.edweek.org/go/elearning-rules
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S13

to see the coming influence of online courses, and they became effective partners in leading the creation of the second version of inacol’s national standards for such courses. The 46-page document, issued in October of last year, includes 52 standards on which to grade courses across the categories of content, instructional design, student assessment, technology, and course evaluation and support. Those standards have served as one of two templates to consider in clrn’s review process for online courses. In evaluating courses, the three outside teachers who are hired for a Saturday at a time to act as reviewers also now grade the courses against any of the applicable Common Core State Standards. Reviews of English and math courses, at the pace of roughly four a month total, began last October, with similar reviews of science, social studies, and foreign-language online courses having begun this spring, Mr. Bridges said Several other states have followed California and Texas into onlinecourse review based on the inacol standards or some variation on them. Ohio enacted legislation in 2010 to establish its own distancelearning clearinghouse that began with the review of approved Advanced Placement courses for all students in Ohio public schools. Georgia and Idaho launched similar clearinghouses this year. Washington state also has for several years had an agency similar in structure to the txvsn, Mr. Bridges said.

Gene V. Glass, a senior researcher for the National Education Policy Center in Boulder, Colo., suggests most outcome-related accountability measures for online courses are vulnerable to abuse and manipulation, such as the use of computer login time as a measurement in states with seat-time requirements, or the administration of unproctored and unsupervised exams. For-profit providers are opposed to measures that are less vulnerable to abuse

because they usually need more human involvement and cost more, said Mr. Glass, who is one of several researchers associated with the nepc who have issued recent reports criticizing for-profit online learning. “All of those moves have costs associated with them, and the cost of providing courses is [otherwise] so low,” he said. “You can see why the providers don’t want any part of that stuff. They’re going to fight it tooth and nail.”

But public and media pressure is prompting some states to take a deeper look at how to measure the outcomes of online learning effectively. While Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, in May vetoed a bill that would have included several new accountability measures for online courses, including requiring live proctors for exams, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, signed a measure the same month that commissioned a

study to explore how his state’s online learning courses can be more effective. Part of the study will focus on what measures could be implemented to more accurately measure the effectiveness of those online courses and programs, as well as the progress of a population that often includes a high number of mobile students and students who enter an online course well behind grade level. n

CRITICAL QUESTIONS
Still, about 30 percent of clrn’s website traffic comes from out-ofstate users wanting to access the organization’s public reviews, a sign Mr. Bridges said suggests states that follow the examples of clrn and the txvsn are in a minority. And inacol’s chief operating officer, Matthew Wicks, said even states that have taken those steps are mostly measuring inputs, or dimensions inherent in the course’s composition, rather than outcomes, or measures of a course’s effectiveness. “We feel like the quality standards produced in the past are a good starting point, … but they themselves don’t guarantee quality,” said Mr. Wicks, who added that there is growing pressure to focus on outcomes. “This has become a hotter topic, in part because of increased activity in online learning, and in part because of the reports that have been critical of full-time online learning programs.” Some critics of virtual education have suggested that for-profit providers have worked to stop legislators from enacting policies that would more accurately measure the quality of online-course outcomes because those measures would not look good for some providers who are trying to offer a course at the lowest possible cost to the company.

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Education Week August 29, 2012 - A Special Report on E-Learning

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week August 29, 2012 - A Special Report on E-Learning

Education Week - August 29, 2012
FOCUS ON: AGE: Districts Adjust To Growth in Older Population
Catholic Ed., K-12 Charters Squaring Off
Advocacy Tactics Found To Differ by Families’ Class
Table of Contents
News in Brief
Report Roundup
Educator Cadres Formed to Support Common Tests
Ala. Blocked From Asking About Students’ Citizenship Status
Most Students Still Not College-Ready, ACT Report Finds
Study: Vouchers Linked to College-Going For Black Students
INDUSTRY & INNOVATION
NSF Awards Grants for Climate-Change Education
Blogs of the Week
Ed. Dept. Gears Up to Manage NCLB Waiver Oversight
Poll Hints Tight Presidential Race on K-12
Policy Brief
PETER GOW: Let the Dialogue Begin: It’s Time for Independent Schools to Start Sharing What They Know
PATRICK J. MURPHY & ELLIOT M. REGENSTEIN: Trimming the Cost Of Common-Core Implementation
MALCOLM GAULD: Sowing Parents’ Role In Character Development
Letters
Top School Jobs Recruitment Marketplace
MIKE SCHMOKER: The Next Education Fad: Complex Teacher Evaluations That Don’t Work
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