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Farmer delivers good news

November 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Farmer said that calculating the drop-out rate is difficult because some students leave school all together, while others enroll in virtual schools or other education formats.

Students drop out of school for a variety of reasons ranging from lack of parental support to getting behind on their credits and losing hope of being able to graduate Farmer said.

“Every student’s situation is different. We have to make sure these kids know there are alternatives to dropping out,” he said.

Sallisaw High School has nearly a 98 percent senior graduation rate, Farmer said.

“Once we get them to their senior year we have a very good chance of seeing those kids graduate. That is why we are very pro-active and look at every alternative we can to get the students into their senior year,” he said.

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A Reality Check For Oklahoma ‘Virtual’ Schools

November 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

TULSA, Oklahoma -

The state school board backed off some new rules for online classes Thursday, after local school boards complained they would cut into funding for students at brick and mortar schools.

The rules would have required schools to pay for students to take lessons online, and provide teachers to oversee the program.

Virtual schools and online classes are an increasingly popular option for students, but there’s always been a clear division of funding between local, publicly supported schools – and their online counterparts.

The state board of education changed that to requiring local schools offer, and pay for online instruction for any student who wants it.

“And we all believe in online education and that should be available and we ought to be responsible for those dollars and accountable for those results. This was very rushed without an opportunity for input, none of us had the opportunity for input,” said Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Keith Ballard. Superintendent.

It’s called the Supplement Online Course Program. It requires districts to allow students to take up to 5 hours of daily online instruction. Students spend the 6th hour physically at school.

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Virtual Education Sees Shift to Accountability

November 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Virtual schooling is in the era of a fundamental shift in its development that should be embraced, not feared, said authors and sponsors of the 2011 version of the Keeping Pace annual report on virtual schooling here at the Virtual School Symposium in Indianapolis Thursday.

While most virtual school advocates in the past may have focused on gaining exposure for their programs, they should shift toward emphasizing accountability and transparency in those programs to a community at-large becoming more aware of virtual education, the panel said. And despite some recent negative press about online schooling’s benefit or lack thereof, they agreed that many virtual providers are doing this.

“When these programs started, they started out of a point of pain,” said Andy Scantland, the vice president of sales and marketing for Advanced Academics Inc., the Oklahoma City-based provider of public and private online programs, and a sponsor of the report from the Evergreen Group of Durango, Colo. “As a result, there wasn’t a lot of measurability or a lot of accountability. I think that’s changed a lot, and the report reflects that.”

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Online Schooling Seeing Explosive Growth in Oklahoma

September 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

From promotional radio and TV commercials and direct mailings aimed at parents to newspaper headlines and explosive enrollment growth, “virtual schools” and “virtual students” are this school year’s buzzwords in Oklahoma.

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Coming Monday: Virtual schools gaining popularity in Oklahoma

August 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

From promotional radio and TV commercials and direct mailings aimed at parents to newspaper headline-making controversy and explosive enrollment growth, “virtual schools” and “virtual students” are this back-to-school season’s buzz words.

A Tulsa World analysis of state records shows that the number of Oklahoma public school students doing schoolwork through computer-based programs has increased nearly 400 percent over the last three years.

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From the Capitol: Time will tell if it was a good session

May 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Public education is on its way to extinction. The legislature did more this year to destroy public education than one could believe. Former Gov. Henry Bellmon is probably rolling over in his grave after what the legislature did to provisions he had enacted in HB 1017 many years ago. One of the most disastrous results is the elimination of the rights of a terminated teacher to have the right of a trial de novo if the teacher is terminated.

Charter schools have been granted so much broader authority that they are a threat to our public schools.

Virtual schools are becoming increasingly available to those that do not want to actually attend public school.

State funding to private schools is increasing and that erodes the money available for the public schools and students.

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Oklahoma Bill Strips Municipal Employees of Collective Bargaining Rights

March 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Yet another blow to organized labor in America. The only way to really view this is from a mile high: this is a coordinated, state-by-state assault on public sector unions and public education. I don’t know what role ALEC is playing in all of this*, but one thing seems certain: each of these right-wing bills – from Wisconsin, to Florida, to Indiana, to Oklahoma – is strikingly similar to the next. They are going for the jugular of the public unions while avoiding taking on traditionally more conservative members like cops and firefighters. This is followed by a push to reform public school systems by introducing more charters, voucher programs, or virtual schools. Coincidence?

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Education choice for Oklahoma’s future

February 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Debates about school choice have focused on the critical challenge of helping kids trapped in bad schools transfer into better ones, whether by open enrollment, new charter schools, scholarships to attend private school and homeschooling.

But the debate is quickly changing. Future conversations are likely to be about customizing education to best suit children’s individual learning styles and finding the right learning environment to let children reach their highest potential.

Consider the exciting innovations that are occurring with online or virtual learning. Across the country, more than 1 million children are participating in various forms of online learning. These programs include full-time virtual schools, supplemental online courses and classroom-based online instruction.

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Get Out of the Way

January 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Brookings Working group did make recommendations for future Federal action. It included: (a) collecting and using more and better data, (b) requiring states to provide equitable funding and support equal facilities, (c) support higher standards for authorizing, (d) revising rules that disadvantage charter schools, (e) promoting the growth of virtual schools and (f) most importantly articulating a coherent policy for charter schools.

Charter schools have been shown to raise the achievement of minority and low-income students. This is in spite of being under funded and housed in second rate quarters. What the Henry-Taylor team and Tulsa Public Schools needs to do is get out of the way and let all students have a shot at those Schlumberger jobs.

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OK virtual school enrollment at 2,593

January 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Virtual schools are growing across the nation offering students access to teachers, courses, text books and other students online.

According to the data released for the 2010-2011 school year, Oklahoma had 2,593 students enrolled in virtual schools where the student didn’t attend a physical school but received all of their course work and instruction online from a distance.

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