PIE Network Guest

Moderator: Bill Tucker Managing Director, Education Sector Panelists: Frederick M. Hess Resident Scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute Robin Lake Associate Director, Center for Reinventing Public Education Tom Vander Ark CEO, Open Education Solutions

More than one million K-12, public-education students now take online courses. And, with legislation set to expand online offerings in states like Utah, Ohio, and Florida, the numbers will continue to grow. Add the burgeoning interest in blended learning models (Rocketship, School of One, Khan Academy’s flipped classroom), and digital learning is set to explode. But, as any cursory look at the public charter school sector reveals, innovation isn’t a guarantee of quality.

“Customization, mobilization, and equalization” represent the potential for digital learning, according to Tom Vander Ark of Open Education Solutions. But he quoted former Florida governor Jeb Bush as saying state policy makers don’t have a sense of what to do next–they need a systematic framework.

Vander Ark worked with Bush on the Digital Learning Now initiative, which will soon issue a report on how states can play a more robust role in online and blended learning. “School is going to move from a place to a service,” said Vander Ark. “Students and families will be able to use a variety of services bundled in new and different ways that are less place-dependent.”

How do states and districts ensure the quality of digital offerings?

Vander Ark said the quality of digital offerings should be determined by a performance contract. “States shouldn’t renew operators that just aren’t getting it done,” he said. “There’s enough capacity in the sector. It will come down to a much more robust state system of ensuring quality.”

Quality won’t happen without due diligence, a lesson districts should have learned from their experience with charters, according to Robin Lake of the Center for Reinventing Public Education. Lake said it would be helpful if states define their online initiatives around quality—that they’re not just doing “innovation for innovation’s sake.”

Lake agreed that digital learning has “the incredible potential to personalize and customize and take schools where they haven’t been able to go.” But Lake said advocates need to push for a thoughtful accountability structure for online learning.

Focusing on outcomes

The danger of digital learning is that “we can easily get seduced into thinking we know more than we do,” said Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute. Hess said educational institutions are bending new tools into their routines when they should be rethinking their work. He said laws on digital learning should focus on outcomes, and should account for a transition period.

“Technology is not an intervention—it’s a set of tools,” said Hess. He compared digital learning to Hamburger Helper, which makes meat go farther. “How do we utilize people in ways that stretch them?” he asked. “That’s the power of digital learning; instead of having a teacher do rote instruction, we free them, you can bring in high quality online instruction.”

Hess said the key question is not whether technology works but, “how do we integrate it so we wind up with schools that make the best use of the people you have?”

Families are going to have a whole new set of options that will make consumer preference an important element of quality, according to Vander Ark. “There are a ton of free and cheap learning opportunities —innovation is going to happen with or without schools,” he said.

How does accountability coexist with innovation?

Moderator Bill Tucker noted that evaluating digital tools is a challenge because providers are changing rapidly. He asked panelists about the tolerance for failure.

The most important thing states can do is help consumers become wiser, said Lake. “How do we get districts smarter and if they make bad decisions, make sure they’re accountable?” she asked.

Hess said it’s important to “create a space where people can learn.” He said while tolerance for risk is low at state education agencies, they can create a standalone “skunkworks” zone to allow for experimentation, along the lines of Louisiana’s Recovery School District. “We should try to create room for technology rather than mandate it,” said Hess.

“In this decade we’ll finish the shift from data poverty to date abundance,” said Vander Ark. He said determining a “data backpack”– records for each student, along with important extracts and profile creation, will create a “whole set of policy questions we’ll be talking about for the next decade.”

Moving forward

Vander Ark said digital learning is shaping up to be a generational issue for teachers worried about job security, but younger teachers are more inclined to understand its potential and welcome its use.

Showing how digital learning can help a broad spectrum of families is key to its widespread adoption, said Hess. For example, a school that now has just a part-time French teacher can add quality instruction in Arabic and Mandarin.

“Most kids in the United States will be in blended schools by the end of the decade, with the biggest number in public schools that adopt blended models,” said Vander Ark. “The big question is the quality. PIE Network groups can make a big impact on that.”