On an 8-0 vote on Thursday, the Virginia Board of Education approved a request from Carroll County Public Schools to operate its online primary school as a stand-alone entity.

Chesterfield also has an online school, but it is focused on certain courses, not operating a comprehensive school.

“Chesterfield (Public) Schools has a very robust online education program. We continue to enhance our course offerings,” said Shawn Smith, a spokesman for the system. “The action taken by the state Board of Education may provide additional opportunities from which our online education program could benefit.”

For the rest of the article, go to Carroll’s bid for full-time virtual school is approved

They join the 13 multi-division online providers approved in June.

For the rest of the article, go to Va. approves six virtual school providers

The request is scheduled to come before the Virginia Board of Education for a vote in April, about two months before legislation takes effect directing the board to create statewide regulations establishing Standards for Accreditation of public virtual schools with full-time students.

It would essentially create a policy for what Carroll would like to do.

“Establishing our Virginia Virtual Academy Program as a separate school ensures that this academy and the vendor providing online instructional services will be held to the same high level of expectations and accountability as a traditional brick-and-mortar school,” Carroll’s waiver request states.

To create that stand-alone school, division leaders want exemptions from various standards that traditional brick-and-mortar schools must meet, including school facility and safety provisions.

They also want greater flexibility allocating instructional time per subject area so it’s more flexible to an individual student’s mastery of the curriculum.

Virginia L. McLaughlin, chairwoman of the Virginia Board of Education’s School and Division Accountability Committee, said during a meeting this week about Carroll’s request that “we go into this recognizing that it’s certainly uncharted territory for all of us.”

For the rest of the article, go to Carroll County seeks stand-alone virtual school

In this day and age, the Internet makes geography irrelevant to getting a great education. Virtual learning tears down the greatest barrier to high-quality education — access to a rigorous curriculum taught by effective educators. With virtual learning, all students — particularly those in rural regions or urban centers — can access the same high quality education typically enjoyed by students in affluent suburban neighborhoods. Students who live anywhere can learn anywhere. For many students, the option to attend a virtual school is a lifeline to an education that prepares them for success in college and challenging 21st-century careers.

For the rest of the article, go to   Finn: All students could access high-quality education

The lawsuit was filed Jan. 30, as reported here by the Washington Post.

The claims of fraud at the top levels of the company should be of particular interest here in North Carolina after the company, K12, Inc., (NYSE:LRN) edged its way  into a partnership with the Cabarrus County school system to try and tap into state education dollars.

Stock for the virtual school company had been steadily rising (a high of $39.74 was reached last April) since its 2007 emergence on the market, but plummeted after a critical New York Times article late last year, “Online schools fare better on Wall Street than in classrooms.” The Times investigation found that the company pushed to bring in more profits while students were failing and falling far behind their traditional school peers.

K12 stock was trading at $21.63 a share mid-day today.

For the rest of the article, go to Virtual charter school company with NC intentions slapped with class-action lawsuit

The same can be applied to educational systems.

Providing alternatives that create competition for traditional public schools is but one of the compelling reasons Virginia should consider school choice, a movement that would help parents select the best option for their children’s education, particularly those who are frustrated by declining or stagnant performance at their local schools.

The traditional model, in which government provides everyone with a “free education” generously underwritten by the taxpayers, might be sufficient if school performance were consistently high, most dollars were devoted to direct instruction, and the best teachers were rewarded and the weakest let go.

But that isn’t the case today.

And throwing more money at the problem — which we’ve continued to do even though it hasn’t worked — is impractical due to falling state tax revenues and reductions in federal support.

Many states are by necessity undertaking reforms aimed at correcting the deeply entrenched obstacles to improvement by adopting merit pay and contractual review policies and by reducing non-instructional budgets. Gov. McDonnell has pushed for such improvements in the current legislative session.

Improving efficiency and shoring up quality and accountability at existing schools has to be at the forefront of Virginia’s educational reforms. But school choice could be an important component, as well.

School choice includes a range of options, both public and private. Public school choices include charter schools, magnet schools and open enrollment plans that allow students to choose among multiple schools within a district or region. Private school options include faith-based and other private schools supported by tuition and donations, virtual schools and home schools.

For the rest of the article, go to An arguement for school choice 

The board passed a legislative packet that included the bill at its regular meeting Thursday.

School board member Diantha McKeel said the request came after failed attempts over the last year to collaborate with the city. Last year, she said, the board chose not to request the legislation to focus on working with its city counterpart.

“We brought it back to the table because there was an expectation last year that the Albemarle County and the Charlottesville school board would get together to have a unified project that the two boards could work together on … But that never materialized,” she said, referring to a city-county joint effort to open a virtual school.

The revenue sharing agreement between Albemarle County and Charlottesville isn’t going anywhere any time soon, but county leaders have expressed growing interest in exploring whether Albemarle can have a say in how the city spends the money.

Scottsville District Supervisor-elect Christopher J. Dumler called the agreement a “bum deal,” and said he hoped city officials would be willing to sit down and discuss it.

“I don’t think there’s much that can be said about it, other than it’s a bum deal,” he said. “I think that the city recognizes that the revenue sharing deal is something … that contributes to the difficult and strained relationships between the city and county. And in so far as they see that as a point of contention, I think they may be willing to at least sit down and talk about it.”

For the rest of the article, go to County seeks to revisit revenue sharing agreement

“The CCSSO conferences provide an opportunity for American education policymakers to meet with their international counterparts,” Wright said in a statement released Monday. “The importance of these opportunities has increased with the growing focus on the international benchmarking of standards and the recognition that our students must be able to compete in today’s global economy.”

Pearson has three contracts with the state Education Department — nearly $110 million for the SOL testing contract over three years, $3.2 million for the development and maintenance of the Virginia Student Longitudinal Data System, and for lead turnaround partner services, which has no cost to the department.

The testing cost can vary depending on the number of tests taken each year, Pyle said.

Florida Virtual School, which formed a private-public partnership with Pearson last year, was one of 13 virtual-school programs approved by the Education Department this year.

In the spring the department dropped Pearson as the vendor for reading assessments used in the licensure of elementary teachers, reading specialists and special-education teachers. These assessments are now provided by Education Testing Service.

“We trust that the department bases all contract decisions solely on what is best for Virginia’s students, teachers, parents and taxpayers,” said Tucker Martin, spokesman for Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Local school districts and school boards can choose to enter a contract with Florida Virtual School or Pearson K-12 Solutions — the turnaround partner — for services.

Pyle said Wright was not part of the procurement process that led to Pearson’s selection to offer educational services to Virginia schoolchildren.

For the rest of the article, go to Va. education chief’s foreign trips defended

The course, developed by the DOE’s online virtual school program Virtual Virginia and Alelo Inc., involves using “virtual humans” that interact with a learner using automated speech recognition and multimedia content. Students learn numbers, dates and times in the abbreviated course.

Tammy McGraw, director of educational technology at the DOE, told Government Technology in an e-mail that the department was excited to receive the award, particularly given the number of technology projects going on in Virginia.

She said one of the biggest challenges Alelo had in developing the Interactive Chinese Language/Culture Game Module was designing virtual humans to behave in a culturally appropriate way.

To solve the issue, the company created automated speech recognition technology that’s optimized for how learners speak Chinese, instead of native speakers.

“This takes into account not only the learner audience, cultural and linguistic norms of the target culture, but also best practice drawing from theories in the learning, socio-behavioral and computer sciences,” McGraw explained.

She also said the Department of Education has submitted a proposal requesting funding to complete the entire course; if successful, the department would like to implement it next year.

A full list of award program categories and the winners is available on the COVITS website. Entries were evaluated by an independent group of government executives from Virginia, including representatives from the state executive branch, localities and higher education.

For the rest of the article, go to Virginia Government Agencies and Schools Honored with Technology Awards

As of now, the plan is to build the consolidated elementary school where the middle/high school parking lot and sports fields are now located and to place the new middle/high school, along with new sports fields, across Purvis Road where Russell Elementary School now sits.

Base commander Col. Dan Choike said the base was working to provide space for the middle/high school’s sports games, most likely at Butler Stadium, as the existing fields will be unavailable after construction of the new elementary school begins and the new fields will not be completed for three years.

“The base wants to make sure their sports are not adversely affected,” said Choike.

Otherwise, he said, the base was supporting the project by making the process as easy as possible.

“The installation did not want to impose any kind of land-use restrictions that could add any cost to the construction,” he said, adding that the base would also host public meetings to discuss plans for the schools and would continue to work closely with school officials.

Choike said the base had a vested interest in the schools’ success.

“The number one reason that people want to live on the base is because of the education benefits of the school system,” he said.

Choike noted that one drawback to the new arrangement would be that some families would lose the ability to walk their children to school. However, he said the state-of-the-art technology, modern classrooms and improved education that would be made possible through the money saved by consolidating facilities “are all things that really to me are of a greater benefit and higher need.”

Gould said schools built for 500 to 800 students are more cost-effective than small facilities.

While the existing elementary schools are located in neighborhoods, allowing many of their students to walk, the only students who will be able to go to the new elementary school on foot will likely be those who live in the Thompson Park neighborhood, Gould said. Even those who now attend Russell Elementary will probably have to ride a bus because the consolidated elementary school is planned to be on the other side of Purvis Road.

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