by Bryan Setser - CEO of
The Setser Group
Who will be the first Governor with the guts to turn their state virtual school into a virtual services provider?
The services could be virtual district/school incubation, professional development, light virtual services, and consulting (coaching and training). Work with the legislature could re-organize the funding streams to provide more local control with incentives to utilize new technologies and funding models. Here’s a few steps to make it happen:
Step 1: Dismantle the statewide teacher compensation model that is crippling large state virtual schools both in terms of quality and in terms of unsustainable revenue.
Instead, return half of that money to districts and give a flat-capped line item to districts for virtual/blended learning.
Since most virtual schools are paralyzed by faculty costs, this would give districts control over more resources and the ability to leverage them for state submitted innovation plan outcomes. In short, ½ of the money each year is provided or taken away based on baseline virtual/blended learning outcomes.
Next, I would incentivize the districts that met a set of standard state goals utilizing virtual learning. For example, students who were remediated and/or achieved certain competencies (exams, credit recovery mastery, college credit, AP metrics, etc.)
Step 2: Retain operations money for the state virtual school and increase blended support (travel, texting, webinars, virtual environments, applications, etc.) so the cult of expertise in current virtual schools could become change agents, thought leaders, research and development specialists, as well as professional development support to districts for virtual and blended learning.
Step 3: Create a
prize environment for next generation algorithms, tutoring applications, cloud computing, etc. so that schools and districts can be incentivized to think outside of the box with technology integration, blended, and virtual learning. Most importantly, I’d have these start-up awards be evaluated by actual scale experts (not a majority of educators).
Step 4: The current virtual school core staffs would be repurposed as consultants, coaches, and trainers. The current faculty could be rehired in the local districts. In addition, these experts could train the trainers for other virtual supports such as tutoring on mobile devices, virtual assessors, or virtual office hour support of free open source software.
As the innovative districts scale their model, they could also compete for incentive funds to bring in teachers or supports from around the world as they become the STEM, Spanish, or Algebra district servicing other districts who have not had fidelity or results from similar models.
What to do about capacity? Solve for it with the current virtual school staffs providing intensive professional development with target districts. Have districts combine resources to serve and support regions. In these regions, they can also expand services by reaching across to another region, state, or nation to bring in augmented services that they collectively planned and funded together to solve their gaps.
Such approaches are not a “Race to the Middle”. Instead, we might actually evoke an entrepreneurial and competitive disposition for our kids’ futures among districts, schools, and educators. This would attract the interest and fuel of investor and business dollars and be an impressive education agenda.
So, on this Digital Learning Day, I want us to think beyond text messaging during dinner. I want us to think beyond hours in front of Angry Birds. I want us to reflect on what a digital world has delivered us the last few years. How about a quick top ten list: