Online Education In High School
Over time things evolve thanks to new ideas. This is what make America great. Especially in education. Think about all of the great ideas that have come from the United States since we became a country in 1776. News.Yahoo had an article that addresses this very point in regard to online education. You probably immediately think of getting a college degree when you think of online education. What if we changed the way we approach educating high school students? Chris Reiner wrote an article posted on the Yahoo Network titled "Make Online Education a Bigger Part of the School Day" It is about his idea to tackle education reform. The basis of the article starts with a local school district giving lap tops to every high school student to use as they want including doing their home work and personal use. They get the notebook at the beginning of the year and check it back in at the end of the year. Based on this Chris is wondering why do students need to go to class 5 days a week. They have an internet ready laptop so how about using it for classroom time as well. What would that save? According to the Department of Education, $65 billion in federal taxes were spent last year on capital expenses for education, and a little more than $20 billion to transport students to and from school. This does not include state and local expenses. Teachers would still come to school, but they would have an office to work out of some of the time. Classroom instruction could be cut form 5 days a week to 2 days a week. Students could contact the teacher during working hours with questions. This could be done online as well. Schools would not need as much space and K-12 could be held in the same building. Chris estimates the Federal Government could ave over $40 Billion a year alone. The real question is whether the public would go for it. I have serious doubts about that. Teachers who love the personal interaction with students probably would oppose it as well.