By Lynn Hatter
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-962152.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – The Florida Senate is considering a measure to allow virtual charter schools. Those schools would let students sign up for online courses with or without a school district's permission. But as Lynn Hatter reports, exactly how such a school would operate is still up in the air, and there are many other issues that have to be resolved.
Republican Senator Anitere Flores of Miami wants to see more students using technology in their classrooms. She says the world is changing, but public schools have failed to keep up.
"We have to strongly encourage and give all the opportunities as possible to our students so they can learn in a 21st century way. We know our classrooms look the same and sound the same and they generally are the same as they were 1,2 3 generations ago. That has got to stop."
To bridge that digital divide she's sponsoring a bill to increase online and virtual learning.
"Some of the things specifically that Senate bill 1620 does are things that quite frankly, we probably should have done a long time ago. One of those is to require every student before they graduate from a Florida High school is take an online course. That's something that will prepare them for the future. We know that not only are colleges and universities moving toward online learning, but our workplaces are becoming more online and digital as well."
The bill would also expand the Florida Virtual School to offer programs to elementary grades, creates Charter virtual schools, and remove a requirement that only in-state providers can offer classes. But not everyone is on board with the proposal. The Florida Association of District School Superintendents sees potential pitfalls in the bill. Association head and state Democratic Senator Bill Montford says there are plenty of bugs in the bill.
"A lot of it is, we have no problem with virtual education, no problem with charter schools. But the devil is in the detail, for example, school districts are responsible for providing the mechanism for end of course exams and so on, the question is, who will pay them, who will provide them? It sounds like a simple question but it can be quite cumbersome and expensive."
Montford is also concerned about allowing out-of-state providers, who may not know Florida's curriculum standards to teach Florida's kids.
"You would expect if it's a nation-wide charter school, that there are high standards and high accountability, but someone has to sit down and make sure its in line with Florida standards. Because students from Florida are going to be held to Florida standards, and you have to make sure schools from outside the state meet the same standards, and again some would say that's rather simple, but someone has to do that."
The digital education bill is one of many aimed at expanding school options for Florida Students. There are two more charter-school specific bills moving through the legislature that would allow colleges to create schools, and allow charters labeled "high performing" to expand. Patricia Levesque with the lobbying group The Foundation for Florida's Future, says the bill would also help cash-strapped districts offer more courses to their students.
"Georgia has 440 high schools and only 88 certified physics teachers. Florida is probably in a similar boat with numbers, and unless we change the way we think about online learning and what types and how teachers are hired and how student takes courses, we won't be able to offer physics to every student in the state. And as you guys know physics and chemistry become a requirement here in a couple of years."
The Florida Association of School Superintendents says it wants to help work on the bill to make it better for everyone and Senator Anitere Flores says she's willing to continue working on it as well.