Legislation in California called the “California Student Bill of Rights” will hopefully diminish geographical and socio-economic barriers for high school students through online schooling. Students, if the legislature is enacted, will be able to accumulate credits (called A-G credits) through publicly funded programs that will be recognized by the California state college system. This will allow students whose schools do not offer certain classes to remain on equal footing with students from schools in larger districts or with more financial resources.
Concerns Over Online Course Quality
In response to concerns over online course quality the bill will also require the state to set educational standards and quality requirements. In fact, there have been proposals to tie tuition costs of online programs directly to performance. If a student receives less than a C from an online class, they are not obligated to pay 25 percent of the tuition. Additionally, another 25 percent of tuition only needs to be paid upon successful completion of the final test.
The proposed requirements that the state could enact would also include several other measures. Some are obvious; such as the measure that requires all online charter schools under the program must be accredited. Other straight-forward but infinitely helpful measures would require online schools to keep records of a students work (so the state can keep track of students’ progress) and the online teachers to have California teaching certifications and credentials.
What Obstacles the Bill Would Overcome
Currently, in California, online schools cannot teach outside of their county or adjacent counties. Also, online schools must negotiate the student tuition they will charge with each school district they are working with. However, with the new Student Bill of Rights, these requirements will become null in order to expand online learning in California, which has poor ratings in online schooling.
California Hoping to Revamp Their Online Schooling Image
Online schooling has been slow to take in most places, but it is still steadily being accepted by many states and is widely acclaimed as the education of the future. However, California fell last in a ranking that measured states’ openness to online education by Digital Learning Now!, a Foundation for Excellence in Education project. It is surprising, and almost shameful, that California’s ranking for online schooling is so low despite it being the center of many of the new technological behemoths such as Google (whose is headquartered in Mountain View, CA) and Facebook (based out of Palo Alto, CA) and home to one of the highest-ranking technology schools in the world, the California Institute of Technology.
However, hopefully, with the new legislation in the works, there is still hope to revitalize K-12 online learning in California.
Learn more about the new legislation in the Huffington Posts’ recent article.