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Gov. Brewer vetoes bill making changes to online education
May 16, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
Gov. Jan Brewer on Monday vetoed a bill that would have enacted sweeping changes to the state’s online-education system.
The legislation would have made it easier for Arizona junior- and high-school students to take online courses, which likely would have pushed further growth in the system. The bill also would have boosted accountability by creating a master list of approved courses and a state ranking and evaluation of each course.
In addition, Senate Bill 1259 would have required students to take final exams in online classes in the presence of another person to help prevent cheating.
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New high school opens for LGBTQ students
April 12, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
Q High, located near Third Street and Osborn Road, works in partnership with Arizona Virtual Academy to provide online instruction for students.
“Youth deserve a space that says ‘I will let you learn and get your education regardless’, and we do that,” says Micheal Weakley, one-n-ten’s deputy director.
The number of students who struggle to focus on their education because of what they go through in traditional school settings or at home is staggering.
“About one-third of our youth have dropped out of high schools, so we have dropouts and we have about half of our youth are homeless or have been homeless,” explained Cado Stewart, program director for One-n-ten.
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Barrett and Huppenthal: Outdated technology at agency stymies schools
April 7, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment
This is 2012. America is a country of innovation that continually pushes the edge of technology. Generations of phones, computers and tablets come and go in the blink of an eye. Communication of information continually gets faster, better and more efficient. Almost everything gets faster, better, more efficient.
As a leader in school choice, Arizona is the fertile ground for education innovation. More than any other state over the last two decades, we have put parents in charge of their children’s education. Our students enjoy open enrollment, charter schools, virtual schools, home schooling, dual enrollments, joint technological districts with great career and technical-education paths, and myriad opportunities to mix, match and customize their education.
It is possible to obtain a world-class education in Arizona if you are a diligent consumer of education, do your homework and exercise your best options.
While, for many students, Arizona can be the land of great educational opportunities, the education system, as a whole, is hampered by a major obstacle preventing our students from realizing optimum academic growth, limiting our teachers’ ability to be effective and causing our district and charter schools operational chaos: that obstacle is the Arizona Department of Education’s computer system.
It’s an enormous resource drain on education, siphoning funds out of our classrooms and creating limited value for students. Unfortunately, there is little incentive for legislators to fix it. Government technology systems don’t curry much public support or grab headlines. It is difficult to get voters to rise up and demand a fix to something they are not familiar with or that doesn’t touch them directly. But the Department of Education computer system is truly the silent enemy standing in the way of fixing our education system.
As a taxpayer, you need to know the state’s inadequate investment in technology infrastructure at the Department of Education results in you paying tens of millions of dollars to correct errors and to build and maintain redundant technology systems each year.
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