“This white paper introduces a refined definition and description of models based on feedback from over 80 organizations and 100 educators who commented on the initial research.

The updated taxonomy includes a number of changes. It eliminates two of the six blended-learning models—Face-to-Face Driver and Online Lab—because they duplicate other models and make the categories too rigid to accommodate the diversity of blended-learning models in practice. The new definitions are intentionally broad and open, rather than specific. They set forth basic patterns that are emerging, but avoid setting tight parameters on how a model “has to be.” The new taxonomy also identifies four sub-categories that are appearing, namely the Station-Rotation, Lab-Rotation, Flipped-Classroom, and Individual-Rotation models.”

The new definition of blended learning is:

“Blended learning is a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace and at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home.”

While the taxonomy and examples of programs are valuable, we have always felt that the most important element of Innosight’s work is the definition of blended learning. A critical element is what is not included: layering of educational technology on an existing classroom, without changing the instructional model. To us, the student control is the most important part of the definition, because if students don’t have some control over time/place/path/pace, then it’s likely that the instructional model has not really changed.

Also notable is that flipped classrooms—among the buzzwords of the moment—do not necessarily entail student control, which means that they do necessarily meet the definition of blended learning. Some excellent examples of flipped classrooms exist, and they are changing instruction. But at the other end of the spectrum, we also see teachers assigning YouTube videos instead of reading for homework and thinking they have flipped their classrooms. Have they? I don’t know, because I don’t know the formal definition of a flipped classroom. But I know that example is not blended learning under the definition that we choose to use. The definition is valuable because we can explain that to teachers and administrators, explain why, and subsequently explain what changes would truly be blended learning.

Particularly notable is that the “board of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)… is set to vote on a resolution to formally oppose the standards. The resolution was passed by the ALEC education task force in December.” ALEC members have been generally supportive of online learning in the past, but the connection between online learning and Common Core appears to have been lost, or overridden by concerns about states’ rights and black helicopters.

Currently Rocketship manages five K-5 charter schools in the San Jose area. California uses the Academic Performance Index (API) to measure academic performance and growth of schools. API is a numeric index (or scale) that ranges from a low of 200 to a high of 1,000; a school’s score or placement on the API is an indicator of the school’s performance level. The statewide API performance target for all schools is 800; Rocketship achieved an overall score of 868 on the 2011 API.

Rocketship has received approval to phase in 20 more schools in Santa Clara County (CA) from 2013-16, and to open eight schools in Milwaukee beginning in fall 2013. The Milwaukee schools will be the first campuses it will run outside of California.

Carpe Diem manages one high school in Yuma, Arizona, and has been approved by the Indiana Charter Schools Board to open six schools. The first two campuses will open in 2012-13; the Carpe Diem Meridian Campus in Indianapolis will serve grades 6-12 with on-site teacher-facilitators and a web-based learning and management system. Carpe Diem Online will be a fully online school serving grades 6-12. The Carpe Diem campus in Yuma had 94% proficiency on state math and reading tests, and has been recognized by U.S. News & World Report and Business Week as one of America’s Top High Schools.

In Keeping Pace 2011, we addressed quality and accountability and online and blended learning. In the section that begins on page 40 we discussed the fact that online and blended learning can work; we are pleased to see two effective models expanding not just in their home states, but in new regions of the country.

The Evergreen Education Group is pleased to be working with the Colorado Department of Education, the Colorado Rural Caucus, and the Colorado BOCES Association to better understand what fully online, supplemental online, and blended learning options are available to students and teachers in rural Colorado, and what barriers stand in the way of starting or growing online and blended programs.

To begin to understand the rural landscape, we have deployed a survey out to rural Colorado districts, BOCES, and online schools. We would like to know what types of online and blended options are available to students in rural Colorado, how many students are enrolled in online and blended programs, and what models of blended learning are being used. We are also very interested to find out what barriers prevent schools and districts from starting and growing online programs.

In addition, Evergreen will conduct a series of interviews with education leaders in rural Colorado to dig in a bit deeper. The survey results and interviews will help us to generate a report to be delivered in June that will focus on actionable policy and practice ideas that the legislature, Colorado Department of Education, and school leaders may consider in order to bring 21st century learning opportunities to students across Colorado.

The results are also likely to be included in Keeping Pace 2012, and perhaps in a VSS session!

If you represent rural Colorado students, please take 5-10 minutes to fill out the survey. It can be accessed here http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FCWGXPN, and will be open through April 13.

iNACOL has been thinking about federal policy issues, which has helped our thinking on these issues. We plan to explore federal issues in Keeping Pace 2012 in more detail than we have in past years, using the issues that iNACOL has highlighted as a starting point. We are basing our thinking on the recently-released iNACOL brief entitled “Top 5 Federal Policy Issues” that details background and recommendations around five key issues. The issues below are pulled directly from the brief; the comments following are ours.

ISSUE 1: Accountability should be based on individual student growth models to support student-centered, competency-based learning.

For the last 11 years accountability has been guided by No Child Left Behind; as Congress considers ESEA reauthorization, it should encourage competency-based learning models and build accountability models tied to student success.

As we research growth models, we are realizing that such models are not all created equal. We will be posting on this topic in the near future.

ISSUE 2: Support performance-based systems of assessments.

Instead of relying entirely on end-of-course exams, support a varied assessment approach that more accurately assesses student knowledge and skills.

ISSUE 3: Support Federal Research for high-quality online learning.

There is a lack of quality research into the effectiveness of online and blended learning. We must fund the development of baseline data, and support research into the effectiveness of instructional models, approaches, and implementations for online and blended learning.

Keeping Pace 2011 addressed the issue of quality (see pp. 40-49), and we took a deeper look at the NCES report here in our blog. In both pieces we discuss the lack of quality research. While there has been a lot of press lately about the performance of online schools, most sources are extrapolating from very small samples, and not digging deep enough.

ISSUE 4: Support human capital development through redesigned pre-service/in-service training for online and blended learning.

As the demand for online learning opportunities increases, so does the need for the human capital to lead innovative, large-scale change in districts and programs.

ISSUE 5: Ensure reliable and ubiquitous student access to the Internet and quality learning materials.

As opportunities expand for some students, others are being left behind. Expanding broadband access, supporting models of online and blended learning, and expanding access to digital materials will level the playing field.

Most of our policy research will continue to focus on state legislatures and boards of education, and 2012 has already been an incredibly active year in many states. We will, however, begin looking more closely at federal issues and their impact on blended and online learning policy and practice.

The Attorney General issued his opinion on March 12, 2012 that the online academies are permissible under state law. In the ruling, he noted:

“It could be argued that internet learning was not envisioned when the legislation was passed in 1987 and that the privatization of public elementary and secondary education is such a significant step that new legislation is necessary. While these are significant arguments, in our opinion they are outweighed by the clear and broad language of the authorization in the statute.”

The ruling also notes restrictions imposed by the statute: that the curriculum must be taught by an appropriately licensed teacher, and that the curriculum received at the remote site must be under the supervision of a licensed teacher, although the supervision at the remote site may be provided by the licensed teacher at the originating site.

The ruling addresses the fact that through Chapter 15 school districts are prohibited from using telecommunication as the only means of providing any course required for accreditation. This can be interpreted that a school district may not only provide a required course through telecommunications, but must also provide it through a different delivery method for students who do not wish to take it online. It could also be interpreted that a particular course may not only be delivered through telecommunications. The ruling expresses the concern that a course taught online must include all of the components of a traditional classroom course, and that for “open enrollment students the local school would not be able to assist in activities that would help to meet this requirement.”

The recent NCES report helped alleviate this data shortfall, but more work is needed in order to have a better sense for what is happening within districts in most states. Within this context, we are pleased to see the effort of the California Learning Resource Network (CLRN) in surveying schools across California. CLRN will launch the California eLearning Census March 1st to measure online learning’s growth and impact, including contacting all county offices, school districts, and direct-funded charters to request their participation.

The eLearning Census asks districts to count the number of students who are taking all of their courses online away from school, as well as those who are learning online at a school campus. It will also track those districts that have integrated online learning in their summer school programs, have utilized virtual courses in their Independent Study programs, and have blended online learning with traditional instruction.

Survey data will be published in Keeping Pace 2012, and we expect it to be used within California as well. Census data will help inform educators and policy makers about online learning’s trends and rapid proliferation in California. Evergreen is partnering with CLRN to assist with the census, although CLRN is doing much of the footwork. The California Technology Assistance Project will work with CLRN to notify districts as well.

We expect this effort to help California policymakers and educators better understand what is happening in their states, and hope to see similar efforts in other states as well.

California eLearning Census
http://www.clrn.org/census/

-          Clayton Ridge School District plans to serve students in grades K-6 at Iowa Virtual Academy in partnership with K12 Inc. It will gradually expand to include middle and high school grades.

-          CAM (Camanche Community) School District plans to serve students in grades K-12 at Iowa Connections Academy in partnership with Connections Education.

These schools are not opening as charter schools, but rather as “buildings with districts.” Iowa is an open enrollment state; any student in Iowa may apply to these academies by the open enrollment deadline of March 1.

While the schools are actively enrolling students and planning to open, there is some concern that the laws do not allow for a full-time online education. Senator Tom Courtney wrote a letter to the state Attorney General that was published in the Des Moines Register on February 10 raising these concerns, referencing the Iowa Administrative Code for the Education Department, which states the following in Chapter 15:

281—15.4(256) Course eligibility. Telecommunications may be employed as a means to deliver any course, including a course required for accreditation by the department, provided it is not the exclusive means of instructional delivery. [emphasis added]

The Attorney General has announced that it intends to issue an opinion on the legality of the online schools.

In addition, Iowa’s Governor has made a number of recommendations related to education, including increasing funding to $1.8M for each of the next three years for Iowa Learning Online (ILO), the state virtual school. ILO reported 574 course enrollments in 2010-11. While this was an increase of 8% from 2009-10 (see Iowa’s Keeping Pace profile for more details), it still represents a tiny percentage of Iowa’s student population. Increased funding would presumably lead to additional opportunities for students across the state to access supplemental online courses. In Iowa, 151,800 students (1/3 of the state total) attend a rural school, which typically offer a smaller catalog of courses than larger schools.

It appears likely Iowa students will have more education options next fall; we will keep you updated on both of these issues.

These innovators who work within the system are often overlooked. In Keeping Pace and other outlets we have discussed, for example, the importance of state virtual schools as key providers of online courses in many states. These schools are often run by the state education agency, although they sometimes operate as private non-profit organizations. They often are caught between traditional educators and education reformers. The former wonder if the state virtual schools are “taking” revenue, while the latter see the state virtual schools as too closely tied to the education establishment. In our opinion, both views are misguided and state virtual schools are a vital part of the landscape.

Similarly, innovators within districts face a landscape that appears not to know what to think of them. They sometimes draw suspicion from their public sector colleagues, while also not receiving accolades from reform advocates. The middle ground appears to be a lonely place.

It’s in this context that we are cautiously optimistic about the California student bill of rights initiative. Initiative backers note a report from UCLA that one million California students attend schools that do not offer sufficient courses for admission into University of California schools, and suggest that a remedy is a change in policy to make courses—including online –available to students who do not have access to those necessary courses. The lack of equal access to courses necessary for admission to the UC system has been recognized in the past (it was the impetus for the University of California College Prep project, which has lost funding and did not achieve its promise), but has not been solved and has in some ways fallen below the radar in a state besieged by deep budget deficits and deeper political divisions.

What’s perhaps most notable about the initiative is its source: it comes from a group of educators who are mostly from the “innovative from within” category. Dave Haglund, who is responsible for non-traditional schools as director of educational options for the Riverside Unified School District, is among the leaders involved. Others who contributed to the drafting of the initiative included district and county superintendents, faculty from higher education (including public, private, and for profit colleges), and business executives. These leaders recognize the scale of the problem, realize that the California legislature has not been able to change the policy landscape in any meaningful way, and understand that changes implemented by the legislature, in a state with the gridlock of California, are likely to be incremental.

It’s not clear to us what all of the implications of the initiative would be if it passed. We know of pockets of innovation across California—in San Diego, Orange County, and elsewhere in addition to Riverside—but it is also clear that millions of students in California don’t have access to the same opportunities that more fortunate students have. We hope that the initiative gains the signatures it needs to be placed on the ballot in November. One thing is for sure – the initiative has definitely changed the conversation in California.

For more information:

The initiative URL: http://educationforward.org

Michael Horn’s view on the initiative: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhorn/2012/01/03/california-initiative-brings-breath-of-fresh-air/

The authors interviewed 50 entrepreneurs, policy experts, and school leaders to understand the various costs associated with traditional, blended, and virtual education. They identified three reasons why schools or districts pursue online learning:

1. To reduce overall costs
2. To increase the range of course offerings
3. To use technology to rethink the traditional teaching and learning model

The primary motivation for pursuing an online or blended learning program will affect the costs. Programs pursuing online learning for cost savings will likely spend less than programs primarily concerned with rethinking the traditional teaching and learning model, however, spending more does not necessarily guarantee outcomes. The authors note, “The cost estimates reflect the current variation in the field. They are not a guarantee of quality, given insufficient data on student outcomes associated with the range of models.”

The authors determined that a traditional school costs an average of $10,000 per pupil, a blended learning model costs an average of $8,900 per pupil, and a fully virtual model $6,400 per pupil. The blended models vary by +/-15%, and the virtual models vary by +/-20%, not accounting for outliers in either direction. Significant variances in costs for a particular program may depend on existing technological infrastructure, content acquisition, labor costs, and professional development, among many other factors.

We are concerned that policymakers will focus on what appear to be the bottom line numbers (such as blended models leading to savings of 11% compared to traditional schools) without acknowledging the numerous caveats that appear throughout the paper, demonstrating that there is considerable variance in costs of different schools and various instructional models. In addition, the authors note, “For existing schools, the time and costs required to transition to the use of technology as anything but an “add on” are often too difficult.”

A careless reading of the report will lead some policymakers and educators to believe that online and blended should be pursued with cost-savings goals front and center. A closer reading reveals that such an approach will overlook the need for an initial investment of time and resources, leading to poor outcomes. The risk is that some people will believe “we tried online (blended) and it didn’t work well,” when in fact the effort will have been poorly implemented and unlikely to succeed from the start.