Online schools should have a bright future in Colorado, but a measure of accountability needs to be built into the system.
Parents and students need reassurance about the quality of the education provided by the booming online education industry, while taxpayers need some assurance that their money is well spent.
Senate Bill 215, which would create an online division within the Colorado Department of Education, among other things, is expected to be heard today in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Lobbyists and supporters of online schools have been working hard to water down the bill, and they even succeeded in temporarily killing it last week. Democratic Sens. Jennifer Veiga and Peter Groff joined four Republicans in killing the bill in committee. Veiga was concerned about funding, while Groff feared the measure was punitive after reading an e-mail sent by Senate sponsor Sue Windels, saying online enrollment is soaring because a lot of “lazy” kids are looking for an easy route through school.
However, despite some heated rhetoric, the bill was revived on Friday. Supporters of the bill say if it is approved, expenses for the state’s new online division could be met with money recovered from audits of school districts.
Money for new programs is hard to find, so we hope lawmakers will be satisfied with this revenue stream.
Colorado’s education system clearly wasn’t built to handle a crush of online students. This bill would help tremendously by providing some oversight.
Lawmakers need to remember the state audit released in December that spotlighted an online system with poor student performance, sloppy accounting and lax oversight of taxpayer dollars. The findings were unsettling: Online students scored lower on state reading, writing and math exams than their peers; they were four to six times more likely to repeat a grade; and they were more likely to drop out.
Fourteen Colorado school districts operate online programs that serve 6,200 students. Many schools say scores are lower because online programs serve more at-risk kids. We think that’s even more reason for quality oversight. Opponents of the bill don’t want any measure that could limit choice for students. But with online teachers often hundreds of miles away from their students, perhaps online schools need to be held to an even higher standard until Colorado can get a handle on a system that’s out of control.
