AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage directed his education commissioner on Wednesday to develop a plan that increases online learning opportunities for Maine’s K-12 students
The executive order is the latest in a series of reforms rolled out recently by LePage and Department of Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen that highlight the administration’s commitment to expanding education options beyond the traditional classroom.
“It’s really about, if a kid wants to take Latin because he’s headed to medical school and he lives in Alexander, how can we get that kid a Latin course? It’s as simple as that,” Bowen said in an interview Tuesday.
The idea grew out of an online learning bill, LD 675, introduced last session that ultimately failed.
“We couldn’t get it where we wanted it to be, so we decided to sort of back up and do something else,” Bowen said.
That something else is to create a strategic plan, using other states’ successes as a model, that provides students more opportunities in an increasingly digital world.
“Our students must be engaged in school, and they need to gain the skills essential to success in the 21st-century economy,” LePage said in a statement. “With widespread access to digital learning opportunities, and with teachers who are experts in bringing digital content into daily instruction, our students can gain the preparation they need for college, careers and civic life.”
The order directs Bowen and his staff to consult students, parents, educators, technology experts and others in crafting the plan. Among other things, the plan should address how students can access online classes as part of their educational experience and how schools can leverage online resources to allow students to study topics schools might not be able to offer in-house.
Like other recent education initiatives, this one could face opposition.
The Maine Education Association, the state teachers’ union, has been somewhat skeptical of expanding digital or virtual learning in Maine.
MEA President Chris Galgay said he looks forward to a good discussion in the coming months but cautioned against jumping into the digital fray too quickly.
“Over the course of the past decade, online or ‘virtual’ learning has grown from a novelty to a full-fledged movement. The research has begun to trickle in and the results are alarming,” Galgay said. “In states like Colorado, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and others, research has shown that online schools are not up to the task of providing quality education to students.”
In Ohio, Galgay said, a virtual charter school has enrolled more than 10,000 students and yet those students’ test scores are in the bottom 1 percent for the state. In Colorado, he said, more than $100 million has been spent on online schools, but test scores for online students lag behind their counterparts in traditional schools.
Bowen confirmed that he would look at other states to see if it make sense to bring versions of their programs to Maine. He mentioned Florida, which has developed a state-run virtual classroom that is accessible to all schools, and New Hampshire, which recently launched a virtual charter school.
The education commissioner also acknowledged that funding could be a hurdle to any drastic changes.
One of the pieces of Bowen’s digital learning strategic plan will include a new request for proposals for the Maine Learning Technology Initiative. The MLTI was a then-unprecedented idea from former Gov. Angus King that provided Maine middle school students with Apple laptops. That program has since expanded to include high school students.
The current MLTI contract with Apple runs through the 2012-13 school year, but Bowen said he and his staff need to start thinking soon about how to structure the next contract.
Bowen said when the MLTI initiative was first launched, he was teaching in Camden.
“There was no real content to use then, now it’s everywhere,” he said. “We need to ask ‘How does this content work its way into traditional teaching practices?’”
The executive order sets a deadline of January 2013 for a report back to the Legislature’s Education Committee.
Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, who sponsored the online learning bill that died last session, said he was under the impression that a digital learning piece already was part of a master plan Commissioner Bowen rolled out two weeks ago.
“The governor and I agree that Maine should explore the merits and costs of online learning. However, the governor’s executive order duplicates the very efforts already undertaken by the legislature and the commissioner,” Alfond said. “I would like to see the governor work with us on enriching educational opportunities for our youth — not redoubling existing efforts.”
“The order directs Bowen and his staff to consult students, parents, educators, technology experts and others in crafting the plan.”
Try Googling “free online learning opportunities”, Gov.
Or do you need a committee to do that for you ?
So, where is your daughter, anyway ?
What is she doing these days, sir ?
She’s still in school, learning how to weld. Or at least acquired a skill that a Maine business needs. I thought the governor said that the state’s business’s complained of the state’s labor being underskilled, and that school’s are pushing college too hard??
Funny how that man’s mind works. Can I take an online welding or microchip assembly course?
For their rhetoric to make any sense conservatives need to have things two different ways at once.
For example, they think they can ” cut taxes and balance the budget.”
Notice the order doesn’t state, “Also consult online learning corporations.” That’s because the corporations have already been consulted — and they said to Lepage, “Please open the door.”
If LePage gets his way, in 10 years we’ll have significantly fewer teachers, and online learning companies will be raking in education dollars that previously stayed in local communities.
Is that our vision for this state?
He better hurry up. Isn’t he closing schools April 1 for lack of funding? And isn’t he getting on a plane tomorrow to stage a sit-in at Sebelius’ office ’til she grants him a waiver on DHHS? What a moron.
You need Latin to go to medical school? I was told that in second grade and promptly crossed medicine off my list of potential occupations. The requirement for it went out fifty years ago. Our daughter (who never took Latin) is in med school now. Very few of her classmates would have taken it in preference to modern languages. That’s about the last thing pre-med students need in their packed course schedules for preparation. However, it would be considered good evidence of a liberal education.
It was simply an example of expanded opportunities in education. For students and teachers. This is excellent. Thank you, Gov. LePage, and Commissioner Bowen.
ps – Latin is an enormous help many careers, which you would know if you’d had Latin in your education(?). A strong vocabulary improves reading and comprehension, which seems to be a bit of a challenge for you? Best of luck to your daughter.
Had two years of it – great for singing classical music, ancient history, learning Romance languages and what you mentioned. Our teacher tied it in, where possible, to Mass, but a day spent with a medical dictionary would be more useful time-wise in learning medical terminology and abbreviations. Latin wasn’t too challenging in high school, but most 6-7 year-olds don’t imagine themselves fluent in an ancient language. I also think access to education through the internet is great, but was somewhat surprised at the anachronistic example coming from someone so well placed. Perhaps it was off the cuff.
I studied Latin when a freshman in high school and found it helped me a lot in understanding English grammar rules
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This is just another way the Guv is trying to hurt the poor.
I suspected it was to quell the fire he got from threatening to cut educational funding if the legislature didnt cut DHHS , Maine Care budgett !
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maybe 5 year olds can now be left home alone to waddle to the computer like people on welfare and do their on line courses
The state of Maine education in the 21st century: Broadband and wifi through out the state – with a priority on schools and communities colleges; student accessibility at home to interactive educational software on state servers; and a digital tablet for every student in every classroom. Students learn at their own pace not the through the teacher, who has geared the progression of her class to the second or third slowest student. Child development and social interaction skills taught by the teacher and amongst peer group activities.
Maine should offer a virtual public school. Something like this:
http://www.k12.com/
I think this is a good idea to supplement education. There are some students that could really take off in a self-paced program. Kids today are very connected, and this may encourage further learning. Wait, am i agreeing with the Governor? It may be a first!
This is excellent. The kids all have laptops anyway. It is a natural progression.
hi
This is just the first step in remaking education in the 21st centruy. We need to move away from grandiose physical structures, small class sizes attended to by teachers, and remake the model from the ground up.
oh no! They are in the process of building a hugh brand new high school in Hampden now. If they had only waited…
An additional way to help educate Maine’s young minds!!! Congrats Governor Paul Lepage… There will be many who will poop on any of Governor Paul Lepage Idea’s.. Jealous they are!!!
Right, LePage cant find the money for DHHS, but has the money for this?
It’s the way of the future, college’s have already been transitioning to many online classes. But the actual classroom has it’s benefits as well, I definitely feel that you learn much more being in the classroom, but online courses certainly have their place if nothing else is available or applicable.
With college online courses, you would think it would bend the course price down.
For instance I believe, Maine’s universities online courses cost the same as being in the classroom.
In my own opinion, I think knowledge should be given freely.
And with online courses, it’s not like your paying for the upkeep of the brick and mortar institutions.
When is the prices going to come down? What are we paying for with an online course?
The costs of sending electricity from one computer to another? Patents of knowledge?
The prices gotta come down, or eventually some hacker group is just going upload the course work and post it making it accessible for all to see.
Knowledge should be given freely. With the internet, that should make it even easier accessible.
He better hurry up. Isn’t he closing schools on April 1st, because we don’t have any money? And isn’t he getting on a plane tomorrow to sit in Sebelius’ office “til she grants his waiver? What a moron.
One minute he is going to close the schools and the next breath he is proposing millions for new ipads for maine schools you cant have it both ways if you need a latin class go online with your regular computer and find one